TALES FROM THE FIELD

Life Lessons from the Dugout

By Brett Wilbur

Monterey Coast Realty agent Ed Bass grew up in the East Bay Area, where around the same time he was learning to walk, he found himself swinging a baseball bat.

“For me, it was pretty much the only sport I was interested in my whole childhood,” he says. Bass went through all the little league divisions, then ended up playing four years of varsity baseball at Tennyson High School in Hayward.

He was drafted to play for the Kansas City Royals after two years at Chabot College but turned it down for a full ride to San Jose State where he played for the Spartans. Next, Bass got drafted again and played for three years in the Kansas City Royals organization. Ultimately, he ended up in Mexico playing in their big leagues but got frustrated by the politics of the system and called it quits.

“I had a lack of love for the business part, but my love for baseball stayed,” he says. He spent the next 12 years working for United Airlines, then worked as a Realtor in the Bay Area for 24 years, before moving with his wife to Carmel, where he now helps coach high school baseball for the Stevenson Pirates when he’s not selling real estate.

Q: What did you do for recreation after you stopped playing baseball professionally?

A: I needed to step away from baseball for a while. I played softball and even won a championship at the Latin Worlds in Denver. I have daughters (neither played baseball), but I would go to my friends’ sons’ baseball games up in Danville, and I coached at Monte Vista High School, Danville. I also did private baseball coaching up until I moved to Carmel in 2019.

Q: How did you find yourself coaching at Stevenson High School in Pebble Beach?

A: I asked a friend if they knew anyone on the Peninsula who was looking for coaching help, and they gave me the name of Nick Wilcox at Stevenson. I also was at the Carmel Realty office talking to Kristi Hiner Wilcox one day, and I saw a picture of Nick on her desk and asked how she knew him. She said, ‘That’s my fiancé!’ It’s a small town.

Q: What’s it like coaching the Pirates with Nick?

A: I can teach one of the kids something and I know Nick teaches the same way. Many of these kids have had limited opportunities to play beyond high school; this is definitely changing. We teach them baseball skills, life skills and how to be part of a team. We want them to have fun and realize it isn’t the end of the world when we don’t win.

Q: What’s key in coaching boys through disappointment?

A: I coached my youngest daughter in softball, and it couldn’t be more different. They lost a championship game, and I went out on the field to wrap up the season and to discuss the good and the bad parts. I was thinking how boys react when they lose. They will get mad, or cry in the dugout, and be super upset. I walked up to the girls and when I was 15 feet away, I could hear giggling and laughing. They were saying that it was the greatest season ever and exchanging phone numbers and making plans to get together and I realized, ‘Wow, I did my job.’ Yeah, we could have won, but this shaves the edge off [the mentality] of kill or be killed…. I try to impart this type of attitude to the boys.

Q: What is rewarding about coaching?

A: Hearing the feedback and results from kids I’ve coached in the past is great. I got a text from one of my kids that I used to do private lessons with thanking me and letting me know he just signed his letter of intent to attend Princeton University. There’s another kid who sends me videos of his practice workouts and asks me for feedback. It feels like I’m paying it forward. I was a pretty good player but I’m a better coach than I was a player.