Riley Schultz and the tale of the perfect swing

There are those swings so sweet you can taste them. There was Ken Griffey Jr.’s effortless swipe, Hank Aaron’s whipping wrists, Barry Bonds’ compact cut.

Close your eyes and imagine them unleashing those smooth swings like a graceful ballet. Is there a smile on your lips? Riley Schultz’ swing can impart that same grin.

From each side of the plate, his body works like a concerto: the front foot tapping, the back elbow rising, the hips swiveling, the shoulders torquing, the wrists snapping, the back foot pivoting and finally the arching follow-through, carrying the bat up to the heavens; the only place that swing ever truly belonged. The adjectives sound vicious; the swing is anything but.

Faribault High School baseball coach Brent Hawkins didn’t tweak it. Legion coach Charlie Lechtenberg claims no credit for it.

The tale of Riley Schultz’ swing is one of the oldest known to mankind.

It is the story of a father and a son.

•••

If Riley is the son with the sweetest swing, Terry Schultz is the dad with the rubber arm. One begets the other.

When Riley was a kid, he would happily trundle along to his dad’s Waterville amateur baseball games, darting around as a bat boy. Terry’s love of baseball was quickly endowed on his only son.

“I always had a bat or glove or something,” Riley says, sitting in the quiet dugout at Bell Field as a light rain falls on the tarp-covered field in front of him. “Since whenever I could hold a bat; one of those big, orange wiffleball ones. My dad got me into it.”

Like the age-old debate of nurture vs. nature, a baseball swing is equal parts natural coordination, repetition and instruction. Riley had a couple of huge advantages. Not only does his family have a batting cage in the backyard, but Terry works at Faribault Middle School and the two spent hours inside the gym hitting balls in the winter. Whenever a wrestling practice wasn’t using the space, Terry would toss 500 pitches to his son — mixing in changeups and breaking balls, working on the outside corner or hammering him inside so Riley would learn to keep the ball fair.

“We would always get in there as much as we can,” Riley says. “It’s a good thing to have. I’m lucky.”

“Usually it was up until the time that his hands would get blisters,” Terry says. “He would keep swinging as long as he could.”

When asked what aspect of his swing he focused on the most, what adjustment he’s made that all those hits flowed from, Riley doesn’t have an answer. He rattles off a string of cliches. A level swing. Timing. Trigger. Consistency.

“I think a lot of times as a coach or a parent you’re trying to tell them too many things,” Terry says. “I just wanted him to use that talent and skill and repetition. It’s not something I wanted to take and break.”

Riley, a lefty, wasn’t just learning a consistent swing, once he reached ninth grade he spent those hours in the cage learning to bat right-handed because he hated facing lefties so much. By 10th grade he switch-hit for the first time in a game.

“I had to work on that,” he says. “It wasn’t too hard. It’s just kind of different. I started golfing left handed and then I golfed right handed. I shoot a basketball both ways.”

From the left side, he has a better eye and a little more power. His right-side swing is more compact and he gets the bat through the zone quicker.

•••

In order to spend that many hours perfecting his swing, Riley had to love baseball. Not love it in a ‘I want to spend time with my dad’ or a ‘I want to make him proud’ kind of way, but in the truest sense of the word.

“It just came natural to him to keep working at a game he loves,” Hawkins says.

“I like everything about baseball,” Riley says unequivocally, then he realizes how serious he has gotten and starts to joke. “It’s outside. You can eat while you play. You can spit.”

He chuckles, then realizes he can’t trivialize his one, true love without giving it its proper due: “It’s the challenge. It’s hard to hit a ball going that fast. It’s a team sport, but it’s also that one-on-one battle between the pitcher and the hitter.”

Ah, the battle.

For all the baserunning and fielding and defensive shifts, baseball can be simple. A battle between men and minds. A pitcher and hitter, 60-feet, six-inches apart with a ball and a bat.

“That’s probably the best part,” Riley says. “You get in that box and you have to beat him. You have to get a hit.”

More often than not, Riley got a hit. He hit .330 for the Falcons as a junior, his first year on varsity. He led the team in runs, RBIs, home runs, walks and slugging percentage. He was named the team MVP in 2010. As a senior he hit .358 and led the Big 9 conference in triples and was selected All-Conference and All-Section.

“When he puts a swing on it, he doesn’t get cheated,” Hawkins says. “This year was a little tougher, he didn’t get as many pitches to hit because he was so good last year.”

After his senior season, Riley was selected to play in the 37th annual Lions All-Star baseball tournament in Chanhassen which showcased the best senior baseball players in the state. Then he pulled back on his stirrups and took the field for Faribault’s Post 43 legion team over the summer.

“All the work and time he’s put in and how hard he’s worked, it makes you feel good,” Terry says. “It feels very, very good.”

•••

Riley’s love for baseball is no secret among those who coach him. Neither is his baseball IQ.

“He’s like a sponge,” Hawkins says. “He can’t get enough of it. He knows the game. He just absorbs everything. He loves the game so much he just builds on stuff. He’s a very smart young man both on and off the field.”

“He’s a smart, smart player,” Lechtenberg concurs. “He’s thinking all the time. He knows what he’s going to do if the ball is hit to him. He’s a heads-up ballplayer.”

Baseball isn’t the only place Riley applies his smarts. After his senior season he was was named a Big 9 Scholar Athlete and Academic All-State. He plans on pursuing his loves of science and math by majoring in plastics engineering at Division III University of Wisconsin-Stout, where he will also suit up for the baseball team.

“I thought he could have played somewhere even higher,” Lechtenberg says. “I think he’ll fit in well at Stout and be a good ballplayer for them. They’re lucky to have him.”

“He’s just a top-notch young man who has a very bright future in whatever he does,” Hawkins says. “He works hard at everything he’s done, classroom and athletics.”

As Riley finishes up talking about his baseball career in the third-base dugout at Bell Field, he’s headed off to work at Faribault Rental putting up party tents. Then it will be back into the batting cage in his backyard, Terry’s rubber arm firing buckets of pitches. Inside. Outside. Fastball. Change up. Riley will offer at each one of them, shifting his weight back and then transferring through that scintillating swing.

Two men, a father and a son, sixty-feet, six-inches apart with a ball and a bat.