Remembering baseball legend Bob Milano

Everyone who played baseball for Bob Milano at Burlingame High School remembers the legendary coach’s hand on their shoulder.

Whether it was to offer encouragement prior to a big game or reassurance during a slump, Milano had the magic touch for making things right not just on Burlingame’s baseball diamond at Washington Park, but in connecting with his players with as a coach, mentor and lifelong friend.

Milano — who coached at Burlingame from 1966-73, and went to a Hall of Fame collegiate coaching career at Cal — died Sept. 15 in Walnut Creek from complications related to Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 85.

“Everybody loved him, because the trait that he had is you always thought you were his favorite player,” said Doc Scheppler, a 1972 graduate of Burlingame who has become a coaching great in his own right as the longtime girls’ basketball coach at Pinewood School.

Milano was hired at Burlingame as a physical education teacher in 1966, and took over the baseball program for former head baseball coach Chuck Kerr. A young coach in his mid-20s, and slight of stature at 5-foot-9, Milano was armed with an impressive playing resume. An Oakland native, he graduated from Bishop O’Dowd High School in 1957 and went on to play two years at Cal, where he hit .357 as a freshman catcher to lead the Golden Bears to a 30-win season and a California Baseball Intercollegiate Association championship.

The championship magic followed Milano throughout his coaching career.

At Burlingame, he led the Panthers to Mid-Peninsula League championships in 1968, ’72 and ’73. The year after he left Burlingame to join the coaching staff at his alma mater Cal, the Panthers achieved what would be termed in modern times as a three-peat, when Terry Christman took over at Burlingame — after coaching against Milano for four years at Crestmoor High School — and navigated an MPL championship in 1974.

“He was a true baseball man,” Christman said, “and all I had to do was maintain what he already established.”

At Cal, Milano continued his winning ways. After being named head coach in 1978, he led the Golden Bears to the College World Series three times in 1980, ’88 and ’92, including a third-place finish in ’80. In 22 years at the helm, he became the winningest coach in Cal history with 688 victories, surpassing Clint Evans’ mark of 547 with win No. 548 on March 19, 1994, in the Bears’ 15-6 win over University of Arizona at Evans Diamond.

When Milano returned to the Berkeley campus as an assistant coach under Jackie Jensen in 1974, one of his former Burlingame players — 1970 Burlingame graduate Hank Sauer Jr. — was already playing ball for the Golden Bears, and delivered the news to his teammates with a mix of surprise and excitement: “‘You guys are going to love this guy!’”

“All of a sudden he was my coach at Cal,” Sauer said. “It was just a godsend.”

Sauer knew of Milano’s magic touch firsthand. A gridiron standout, who initially attended Cal on a football scholarship, Sauer was a youngster as a sophomore center fielder on Burlingame’s 1968 MPL championship team. However, at the start of the season, he was mired in a slump.

Nervous he might lose his starting job, Bauer was pressing more and more. The more he pressed, the worse he slumped — until one day before practice, while sitting in the dugout, he felt the hand of his eagle-eyed coach on his shoulder.

“He put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Sauer said. “‘You’re my center fielder. Just go out there and do the best you can.’”

While the magic touch earned Milano his players’ reverence, his stern, old-school tack demanded their respect. His baseball tutelage transcended the skills of hitting and pitching. He preached fundamentals by stressing the importance of situational baseball and anticipating anything and everything that might arise in a game.

“His legacy was we were a baseball factory,” said Rusty Knudsen, who played for the MPL championship teams of 1973 and ’74. “That was his legacy. My buddy went to Terra Nova and he always said when they had to play Burlingame ... it was always: ‘Oh God! We have to play Burlingame!’”

The respect earned by Milano’s players was instilled in his challenging practices. Knudsen said one of Milano’s famous lines, a prelude to numerous running reps to the Washington Park fence and back, was: “Everybody down the right-field line, and you won’t need your gloves!”

In those days, unlike now, the home dugout at Washington Park was on the first-base side of the diamond. Most of the time players did need their gloves to play catch along the right-field line, but Milano still used running as a way to demand fundamentals — including the seemingly simple things, from the correct grip on the ball, to proper throwing mechanics. If these fundamentals were off, it meant more running, initiated by a simple but stern command from Milano to: “Drop your glove!”

Once between the lines of the infield, though, baseball school was in session.

“He was constantly coming up with plays to make you understand the situation ... and I loved that,” Knudsen said.

Running was still one of Milano’s best teaching tactics, notable speed drills on the base paths in spacing runners apart, and making every player run until they caught the runner in front of them. That was the least favorite drill of lumbering power hitter Dave Funkhouser, a 1972 Burlingame graduate.

Nicknamed “Funky” by Milano, Funkhouser was Burlingame’s co-captain in 1972 along with Clark Anderson. The Panthers would go on to win their second straight MPL championship but, after a sudden losing streak late in the season, they had to overcome a deficit in the standings to do it. That’s when Milano extended the magic touch by calling a meeting with his two captains.

Asking about the team, Milano cut right to the chase: “What’s going on with you guys?”

Funkhouser and Anderson confessed to Milano the team was tired. Milano’s solution was to give his players a day off, which many of them used to go play a round of golf at Poplar Creek.

“The fact that he listened to those young guys, and he just really wanted to know what was going on,” Funkhouser said. “We told him and he went along with it.”

With the Panthers trailing in the standings by 1 1/2 games with two games to go, Milano took a different approach with one his starting pitchers. Scheppler was scheduled to start a Saturday game against Hillsdale, a game Burlingame needed to win to keep its title hopes alive.

Scheppler said he was standing at the doorway of the old Burlingame gymnasium watching a basketball shoot-around prior to the game. The reason the future hoops guru was only watching is Milano prohibited Scheppler from participating in basketball open gyms during the baseball season due to the risk of injury. When Milano was passing through the hall and saw his glassy-eyed starting pitcher peering into the basketball gym, he intervened by walking Scheppler to the baseball field.

“He walks by, puts his hand on me, and said: ‘Don’t even think about it,’” Scheppler said.

As the two were walking to the field, Milano gave Scheppler an additional assignment, telling him to skip Monday’s practice to go scout Burlingame’s next opponent, Crestmoor, at Crestmoor’s Monday game. Scheppler said he’s come to appreciate Milano’s psychological moxie in giving him the scouting assignment. In doing so, he was instilling his pitcher with confidence that Burlingame was going to win that day against Hillsdale.

“And I pitched a great game,” Scheppler said.

Sure enough, Burlingame went on to beat Hillsdale 5-2, beginning a comeback story that ended with Burlingame winning the MPL championship with an epic conclusion. Trailing 7-3 heading into their final inning of the season, the Panthers rallied for five runs to win it 8-7.

“That was a fun one,” said Funkhouser, who scored the game’s tying run.

The next school year, Milano departed for Cal, where he was earn his nickname “7,” because he always wore No. 7. This was consistent from his time with Burlingame, through 26 years coaching at Cal (four as an assistant and 22 as manager) and in three stints coaching at the U.S. national level, including as an assistant on Mark Marquess’ staff at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. 

In 2003, Milano became the fourth baseball player in Cal history to have his number retired. The honors continued from there, as he was inducted into the Call Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004. In 2010, he was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame along with Mike Gillespie, Jim Stone and Terry Ayers.

Yet, there was one era at Burlingame that Milano did not wear No. 7. It was the year after the Panthers’ first MPL championship in 1968, and the team was assigning uniforms for the new season. When one of the new players, Derek Barton, not knowing it was Milano’s number, asked if he could have No. 7, most everyone in the room scoffed — but not Milano.

“Milano looked over at him and said: ‘It’s OK, give him No. 7,’” Funkhouser said.

Just another magic touch that earned Milano the reverence and respect — and the love — of darn near everyone who ever played for him.

“Even though Milano was tough, he was tough with a smile on his face,” Knudsen said.

“It was kind of interesting,” Funkhouser said. “Because he eventually became a father figure to a lot of us, even though he wasn’t old enough to be our father.”

Milano is survived by his wife Diane, son Bob Jr., daughters Paula, Laura, Audrey and Gina, five grandchildren, and sister Margaret.