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Crespi’s Muckey to Sample Life of Minor League Coach

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Crespi High baseball Coach Scott Muckey rolled his eyes when he was needled by a couple of his friends earlier this week. The boys jokingly had referred to Muckey’s next baseball employer as the “Toledo Muck Hens.”

Close. Muckey will be working for the remainder of the summer as a coach for the Toledo Mud Hens, a member of the triple-A International League and an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers.

Muckey couldn’t help but smile at the razzing. Coaches don’t often jump from the high school ranks directly into triple A, even on a temporary basis.

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Muckey, 37, who has coached Crespi for the past four seasons, left for Toledo on Thursday and will coach first base, pitch batting practice “and do anything else they need me to do,” he said.

Tom Gamboa, a friend of Muckey’s who recently became manager at Toledo, contacted Muckey this week about finishing the summer with the team. Muckey said he plans to coach at Crespi again next season.

“We know each other pretty well,” Muckey said of Gamboa, who lives in Canyon Country. “We’ve worked camps together off and on for the last 10 years.”

Muckey replaces former major leaguer Aurelio Rodriguez, who left the organization.

Muckey coached Valley College from 1983-86 and was an assistant at Pepperdine from 1977-81.

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