She Manages Not to Be Your Typical Little League Mom

The manager is a woman but the game is baseball. Her coach is a comedian but the team is not a joke.

Lynn Baum, a former softball player at Taft High, Pierce College and UC Santa Barbara, has led the Conejo Valley Senior Little League 14-15 year-old all-stars to district and sectional championships.

Bruce Baum, Lynn’s husband and a stand-up comedian, is a coach along with Lenny Ciufo, a Valley College business instructor.

Taking orders from a mom--the Baums’ son Dylan is a pitcher-first baseman--doesn’t bother the players. Neither do pep talks from a funnyman.

“Lynn coaches just as good as a guy,” pitcher Tracy Goebel said. “You are looking at a coach, not a woman. Everybody respects her. And Bruce is hilarious. He keeps everybody loose, but he is serious about winning.”

Bruce Baum, a regular on Comedy Central, is uncharacteristically tongue-tied trying to describe his wife’s prowess in the dugout.

“I don’t know what I can possibly say about Lynn that hasn’t already been said about Leo Durocher and Casey Stengel,” he said.

Certainly, Lynn Baum views the game through an experienced eye. She coached her daughter, Jenna, for many years and was an assistant on the Thousand Oaks High softball team that advanced to the Southern Section Division I semifinals last spring.

Lynn will be junior varsity head coach next season unless the baseball program steals her away. Thousand Oaks baseball Coach Bill Sizemore has attended several Conejo Valley games and recently asked Baum to take over his junior varsity.

“I’m not sure if he was serious, but I think he was,” Baum said.

Being a female manager has its advantages. Baum said she is usually asked to call the pregame coin flip to determine the home team.

“The guy flipping the coin will look at me and say, ‘Ladies first,’ ” she said.

Supporters of Goleta Valley, which fell to Conejo Valley in a first-round sectional game, believe Baum sweet-talked an umpire into overturning a call.

“After the play I talked to the ump, was really nice and polite, and he changed the call,” Baum said. “People from Goleta came up to me after the game and said they had never seen a call overturned, that it had to have been because I am a woman.”

Conejo Valley (7-0) opens the Southern California divisional tournament today at 10 a.m. against a team from the South Bay.

The Baums, wife and husband, serious and funny, will continue to provide a balanced approach.

“The main thing is they stay very positive,” Goebel said. “They always point out everything good we did.”