Steven James Rodríguez (born November 29, 1970) is an American

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

coach and former

second baseman In baseball and softball, second baseman, abbreviated 2B, is a fielding position in the Infielder, infield, between Baseball field#Second base, second and Baseball field#First base, first base. The second baseman often possesses quick hands and f ...

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball positions, baseball or softball fielding position between second base, second and third base, which is considered to be among the Defensive spectrum, most demanding defensive positions. Historically, the ...

. He played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played by Student athlete, student-athletes at institutions of higher education. In the United States, college baseball is sanctioned mainly by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); in Japan, ...

for the

Pepperdine Waves The Pepperdine Waves are the athletics teams of Pepperdine University, located outside the city of Malibu, California. They compete at the NCAA Division I, Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA. The school is a me ...

from 1991 to 1992. He played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB) during the 1995 season. He served as the head coach of the Pepperdine Waves (2004–2015) and the

Baylor Bears The Baylor Bears are the athletic teams that represent Baylor University. The teams participate in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as one of only three private school members of the Big 12 Conference. Prior t ...

(2016–2022). A native of

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, he was selected by Boston in the fifth-round of the 1992 draft out of Pepperdine. He would play briefly for the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...

and

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. One of the AL's eight chart ...

during the 1995 season. Rodríguez was hired as the 19th

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

of the

Baylor University Baylor University is a Private university, private Baptist research university in Waco, Texas, United States. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Te ...

baseball team on June 12, 2015. In 2022 Rodriguez joined

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

as a hitting coach until 2024.

Playing career

High school

Rodriguez attended Valley High School in

Winchester, Nevada Winchester is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States that contains part of the Las Vegas Strip. It is one of a number of CDPs in the unincorporated urbanized area directly south of Las ...

. Prior to being recruited by the

Pepperdine Waves baseball The Pepperdine Waves baseball team represents Pepperdine University in the sport of baseball. The Pepperdine Waves compete in Division I (NCAA), Division I of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and in the West Coast Conference. ...

team, he had never heard of

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private university, private Christianity, Christian research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ, with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Pepperdine's main campus consists ...

and did not know where Malibu was. Nonetheless, he was won over by handwritten letters from coach

Andy Lopez Andrew Lopez (born November 30, 1953) is an American former college baseball coach. He was most recently the head baseball coach at the Arizona Wildcats baseball, University of Arizona, and has served as the head baseball coach at Cal State Domin ...

College

A two-time All-American (1991–92), Rodríguez helped his team claim its only national championship in the

1992 College World Series The 1992 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was played at the end of the 1992 NCAA Division I baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Serie ...

, when he was named

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting o ...

Player of the Year and also was a member of the All-Tournament Team. Rodríguez collected a .419

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

–the third-highest single-season average in school history– and his 104 base hits that season are also a Pepperdine single-season record, as he finished with a .382 average in the round-robin phase of the

1991 Pan American Games The 1991 Pan American Games, officially known as the XI Pan American Games () and commonly known as Havana 1991 (), were held in Havana, Cuba from 2 to 18 August 1991. There were 4,519 athletes from 39 countries of the Pan American Sports Organi ...

for the Bronze Medal USA baseball team, earning Player of the Series honors against

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. Then, in 1992, Rodríguez was named one of the West Coast Conference's Top Fifty Athletes of all time.

Major League Baseball

In an 18-game major league career, Rodríguez was a .179 hitter (7-for-39) with five runs, two doubles, and two

stolen base In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base unaided by other actions and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe or out ...

s without

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the Baseball (ball), ball is hit in such a way that the batting (baseball), batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safe (baseball), safely in one play without any error ( ...

s or an RBI. He also played in the Red Sox, Tigers,

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

and

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos () were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League (baseball), National League ...

minor league systems from 1992 to 1998, hitting .263 with 16 home runs and 205 RBI in 613 games.

Coaching career

Following his playing career, Rodríguez served as an

assistant coach An athletic coach is a person coaching in sport, involved in the direction, instruction, and training of a sports team or athlete. History The original sense of the word ''Coach'' is that of a Coach (carriage), horse-drawn carriage, deriving ul ...

at his alma mater from 2000 to 2003, and was the

from 2004 to 2015. He was hired as the sixteenth head coach in the history of the Pepperdine baseball program in June 2003, to become only the third former Pepperdine player head coach for the Waves in the program's sixty-five-year history. Taking over a young team in 2004, Rodríguez guided Pepperdine to the WCC Championship where the Waves swept conference rival

Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. LMU enrolls over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, making it the largest Catholic university on the west coast of the ...

in the best-of-three WCC championship series. In 2015, Rodriguez was hired to be the head coach at Baylor. On July 7, 2022, Rodriguez joined the staff of the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and ...

as the team's hitting coach.

Head coaching records

Below is a table of Rodriguez's yearly records as an NCAA head baseball coach.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Steve 1970 births Living people All-American college baseball players American expatriate baseball players in Canada Baseball coaches from Nevada Baylor Bears baseball coaches Boston Red Sox players Detroit Tigers players Major League Baseball infielders Ottawa Lynx players Pawtucket Red Sox players Pepperdine Waves baseball coaches Pepperdine Waves baseball players Baseball players from Las Vegas Texas Longhorns baseball coaches Toledo Mud Hens players Winter Haven Red Sox players Baseball players at the 1991 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1991 Pan American Games Pan American Games bronze medalists for the United States in baseball American sportspeople of Salvadoran descent Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks players