Remembering Rags: His spirit lives in the family

    This city is famous for its honor roll of historical characters. And the more colorful of these treasures have come from the sports community. Their lives and times remain a precious chapter in the lore of this southern port.
    Many of the names are fading into the moving chapters of life:
    “Black Cat” Lacombe, whose love for and devotion to the Fair Grounds culminated in his funeral procession – a final lap around the Gentilly oval in a hearse…
    Harold “Dutch” Fenasci, who supported a family of 10 by retrieving golf balls from the City Park lagoons and re-selling them to the golf shop, friends and politicians. He swam the lagoons well into his 70s…
    The three voices of sports – Buddy Diliberto, Hap Glaudi and Wayne Mack – all brilliant in their knowledge, if not their unique and sometimes hilarious delivery of the latest news.
    Another of the city’s gems is the man the baseball field at Kirsch-Rooney Stadium is dedicated to: Louis “Rags” Scheuermann, who coached Loyola University and Delgado Community College’s baseball teams to nearly 900 combined victories over a 40-year span.
    Rags was a character, but more importantly, he was a teacher. And the lessons he taught his son, Joe, became his legacy. Only Joe Scheuermann could have continued Rags’ success as the head baseball coach, and now athletic director, at Delgado.
    The remaining Scheuermann family members are caretakers of the baseball stadium. Kirsch-Rooney has become a family member. Without the Scheuermanns, I shudder to think what would become of the aging facility they maintain so well. And it’s all because of Rags.
    He was a prophet of sorts who quit school in the eighth grade, had a fledgling baseball career ended with an injury, then became a coach of the sport he loved.
     And his legend lives on in the tales of those who knew him.
    Former player and local entrepreneur John Blancher recalls, “We had a player who was crazy about this girl. We’re leading Southeastern, 5-2, in the sixth inning, and the player’s sitting on the bench next to Rags,” Blancher recalls.
    “Rags sees the girl waving at the player, and says to him, ‘You know what’s going to happen? They are going to tie the score and I’m going to send you in. You’re going to score the winning run and that girl is going to come down and give you a big hug.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”
All the name implied
    Not given to tonsorial splendor, Rags would come out of the Audubon Park field dugout to argue a call with an umpire, in full uniform, and wearing bedroom slippers.
    On one particular occasion, Rags had his fill of what he deemed incorrect decisions by a plate umpire. And the ump had his fill of Rags. “One more word from you and you’re out of here,” the umpire told the coach during their final confrontation.
    Rags replied, “Then can I think something?”
    “Think what?” the ump asked.
    “I think you stink.”
    Rags was banished for the remainder of the game.
    Joe Scheuermann said his dad transferred his baseball genetics to him.
    “It’s not the balls and strikes calls that bother me as much as the umpires’ lack of knowledge of the rules and their game management. I work 360 days at my job. They can screw it up in 15 minutes,” he said.
    Rags has been gone since 1997, dying just days short of his 74th birthday. He spent 40 years of his life teaching baseball at the recreation, college and post-college levels. He coached Loyola to a 340-92 record, and when the university dropped its sports programs in 1971, he became the founding coach of Delgado’s diamond fortunes. There his teams compiled an incredible record of 527-199.
    His New Orleans Boosters of the All-American Amateur Baseball Association won an additional nine national championships. And every year Joe organizes a fund-raiser to keep the Boosters going to the national tournament. Hundreds of former local baseball players from most every school attend the annual gala.
    Joe inherited his father’s love of the game, but was self-conscious as a young player. “I was afraid to make an error or strike out because people might say, ‘He playing because he’s Rags’ kid.’ So I quit.”
    The teacher set him straight. “He told me, ‘Listen, you’re going to be Rags’ son for the next 20-30 years. Be yourself.” So Joe joined coach “Skeeter” Theard’s team at Redemptorist High where he contributed to the Rams’ only state championship in 1980.
    Joe learned the game from a coach’s standpoint sitting next to his father in the dugout. He learned the quirks as well as the strategy.
    “Depending on who we were playing, dad moved the outfield fences in or back.
    “Loyola was playing a doubleheader at South Alabama. Former Major League player Eddie Stanky was the coach and built his team around speed instead of power,” Joe recalled.
    “The infield was hard as concrete because he liked to hit and run.
    “Dad told him the infield was ridiculous; that the players were getting scraped sliding. Stanky told him, ‘Well, Rags; you can forfeit the second game.’”
    When Stanky brought his team to New Orleans for the second series, Rags had dug the dirt around first base to take away traction. He also moved the outfield fences close to accommodate his big hitters.        
    “Stanky complained after the first game, and dad replied, ‘Well, Eddie, you can forfeit the second game if you don’t like it.’”
    A relic of baseball past, a man named “Monk” Milazzo, served as Rags’ assistant at Loyola.
    Former Wolfpack catcher, Vic Hughes, noted that Milazzo did not wear a Loyola uniform.
    “I think he wore an old (New Orleans) Pelicans shirt.
    “To get the field ready for a game after a rainfall,the grounds crew (primarily Rags and Milazzo) would pour gasoline on the infield to speed up the drying process,” Hughes noted.
    “One day, Monk set second base on fire. The headline in next day’s newspaper read, Loyola burns the bases.”
    Blancher recalls his first road trip to Keesler Field in Gulfport, Miss.
    “Rags gave us a stern warning. He said, ‘One thing I can’t tolerate … and if you do it, you’ll never play ball in this city again.’ We wondered: Alcohol? Drugs? Women?
    “‘I won’t tolerate pillow fights!’”
    The Scheuermanns learned that Loyola had discontinued its baseball program in 1971 through an indirect source.
    “We were driving through Audubon Park when we heard Wayne Mack announce it over the radio,” Joe Scheuermann said. “No one spoke a word at dinner that night.”
    Little did they know that Rags was about to start a whole new career.
    Ron Brocato can be reached at [email protected].