Back in July 2015, Luke Montz was let go by the Boston Red Sox and shortly after made the decision to retire.
“Once I spoke with my wife and told my agent that I think I played long enough and ready to turn the page and do something else, Boston reached out and kind of put a chip on my shoulder that they had a lot of interest in me being a coach one day.” Montz said during an interview with The Producers on Saturday. After a couple years of experience under his belt, he and his family made the decision to take a job with the Red Sox organization for their AA team, the Portland Sea Dogs.
“My first year, I’ll be the catching coach, assistant hitting coach, and coach first base every night. I’ve got to do game reports and work with the guys.” Montz said, “I’m very excited, they told me when they hired me it was either going to be there or in Single-A ball in Greenville, South Carolina. I’m ready; spring training is three weeks away so I’ll be heading to Fort Myers, Florida first and I’ll go from there.”
It was an easy decision for the 35-year old to make after discussing it with his family, but they weren’t the only people that he had to tell it to. He had to talk with his players at Acadiana High, just weeks before first pitch. “It was a very hard decision to tell 30 baseball players that you’ve been with for three years. They all understood and cared about my future career after talking to Coach McCullough at Acadiana High, but it’s something that I see myself hopefully doing for a while down the stretch.”
During his time away from the bigs, he spent time as the head coach for the Acadiana Cane Cutters and credited that as helping him get to this point. “Working for the Cane Cutters was really great, you’re dealing with college kids but it’s the same game. Controlling a baseball game, the pitching staff, even off-field stuff really helped me a lot.”
Check out the full interview where he discussed getting the callup to the show, which Major League manager told him he’d be a great manager, and more.
-Clint Domingue