LADERA RANCH, Calif. — To understand what makes new Rangers manager Skip Schumaker go, you must first know Clemente Bonilla.
Besides having the greatest baseball name ever, Clemente Bonilla is the baseball coach at Capistrano Valley Christian School here in Orange County and has been for nearly 20 years. Before that, he played two years in the minors, getting exactly one at-bat above Class A and another four in independent baseball. Playing baseball was a nice summer gig for him while he was finding his true calling.
“He is the nicest guy in the world,” Schumaker recently said over an avocado benedict — hollandaise on the side, please — on a beautiful Southern California morning that would be perfect for surfing, if only he didn’t have to spend it telling his life story.
“To me, he was enemy No. 1.”
Rangers
The idea for the day is to get to know 45-year-old Jared Michael Schumaker, who has gone by “Skip” since T-ball, when his father dubbed him that because half the roster seemed to be named Jared. The explanation: Though the kid was athletic, there was one thing he couldn’t do — skip. So an ultimately prophetic nickname was born.
Former teammates and employers have called Schumaker “the kind of person you do life with.” So the idea is to trail him throughout a normal day, which includes getting breakfast with him and Michael Young —perhaps his closest friend in the game; trailing him to a speaking engagement with a junior college team; visiting his home; and stopping by his son Brody’s high school practice, where he will step in and throw batting practice.
What emerges is the tale of a disciplined, loyal and principled baseball man. Above all, he is a husband, father and servant who made his faith central to how he lived his life after being handed a Bible by a teammate 20 years ago with the inscription: “The answers to every question you need are in here.”
But you can’t get to know Schumaker the baseball man without the Clemente Bonilla story. It goes like this: When they were both in high school nearly 30 years ago, Bonilla and Schumaker were invited to try out for the Area Code Games, one of the premier scouting showcases. To Schumaker, it was everything. He’d hit .589 to lead one of the best baseball-producing counties in America as a junior. He went to the Area Code tryouts determined to leave a mark.
Didn’t make it out of the first round. A fellow shortstop from just up the road did: Clemente Bonilla.
“I always have this edge; I’ve kind of kept receipts in my life,” Schumaker says. “It’s just what motivates me, what keeps me going. So I wrote in my hat ‘Clemente Bonilla.’ I wrote his name everywhere. Every rep I took off the tee, every set in the weight room, I was thinking Clemente Bonilla. It was that way through my senior year, college, into professional baseball. I was going to bury this guy. It was kind of an a-ha moment for me.”
As he will later share with the team at Saddleback College, a top junior college program just 10 minutes from his home, it was the thought of Bonilla, that made him change his diet, his workouts and galvanized in him a discipline so strict and regimented that, to clarify, he will say “I’m not OCD.” But, he acknowledges he is definitely Type A.
Texas Rangers Manager Skip Schumaker speaks to players at Saddleback College on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025 in Mission Viejo, Calif. He has had a long relationship with the local community college team and knows many of the players from helping coach his son’s high school team.
Nick Agro / Special Contributor
As soon as he’s done telling the Clemente Bonilla story (you can’t do the guy justice with only a last name), Young butts in with a similar story from his own Area Codes experience when he went to try out for center field and ended up in a corner. A kid named Darrell Dent won the spot over him. For the next year, Young was obsessed with Dent, adding a bit of alliterative profanity as a sub for the first name. It drove him, too.
It is a reminder of the similarities between these two, which is not an insignificant detail in the Schumaker story. Young, the Rangers legend, had been previously approached about managing the Rangers — and other clubs. He’s declined, choosing instead to spend more time with his family. While Young wasn’t approached this time around, Schumaker shares a ton of similarities.
Both are Southern California kids. Both played collegiately at UC Santa Barbara. Both were fifth-round draft choices. Both are hard-wired to compete. And both keep receipts.
It brings Schumaker to another a-ha moment in a playing career that spanned 11 major league seasons and now nearly a decade of front office/coaching experience. That came at a UC Santa Barbara alumni game in 2001. He’d not played much as a freshman at Loyola Marymount, the only Division I offer he’d received, transferred to UCSB, dislocated his shoulder and missed the next season. And as he was going into his junior season, there was a question about whether he’d play the field or pitch. He wanted to play.
After doubling, he found himself at second base and was greeted by the alumni shortstop, who asked him about his situation. He quickly explained.
The alumnus said: “Well, in this game you either prove people right or prove them wrong.”
Then he walked off. That was his introduction to Michael Young. It left a mark.
“It was another one of those moments,” Schumaker said. “And after that, I just started stacking up the people I was going to prove wrong.”
Guided by principle and loyalty
It’s as good a place as any to turn the conversation to his time with the Miami Marlins, his first managerial job, and how he became available to the Rangers in the first place.
Texas Rangers Manager Skip Schumaker greets his dogs Louie and Ribby at his home on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025 in Ladera Ranch, Calif.
Nick Agro / Special Contributor
We’ve retreated back to the kitchen island of the comfortable, airy cottage Schumaker and Lindsey, his wife of nearly 21 years, call home. Surrounded by his pair of twin 10-year-old white labs Louie (a nod to the organization in which he grew up) and Ribby (a play on RBIs), a retirement gift from Lindsey because she “wasn’t going to be his hobby,” he’s trying to explain the circumstances as best he can.
It’s not entirely simple.
How does a guy go from Manager of the Year as a rookie to unemployed in a year’s time? Well, the easiest answer is: The Marlins.
But there is more to it, a lot of which has to do with other non-negotiable essential elements of Schumaker. Namely, principle and loyalty.
His road to managing started with principle a decade earlier. He retired in the middle of an intrasquad game as a non-roster player with San Diego in 2016. Just not with any announcement. His manager that day, Rod Barajas, had asked him if he wanted an extra at-bat.
“I told him, ‘If I make another out off this guy who was throwing like 84 mph, I’m done,” Schumaker says. “And then I rolled over a pitch. Again. And I packed up my stuff and left. Rod thought I was done for the day, but I was done.”
The Padres rookie manager, Andy Green, tried to convince Schumaker to stick around. Took him for coffee the next morning and informed him he made the team. He didn’t need to worry about spring training performance.
“I begged him,” Green said. “We needed veteran leadership. But he was adamant. He looked at me and said, ‘I can’t in good conscience take a job from a player I know is better than me.’ Those are just his core values. He’s got a ton of integrity.”
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Green wouldn’t let him go, though, until he addressed the team. Two weeks later, the Padres talked him into an advisory role, not dissimilar to the role he played with the Rangers the last year. He audited the system. He spent time on the phone with Green after almost every game. And, after the season, Green composed a hand-written letter to Lindsey to convince her that Schumaker should turn to coaching.
And when he offered a spot on the staff as the first base coach with responsibilities that included baserunning, Schumaker responded with a spring training outline within the first week of the season, then booked a flight to go visit his old first base coach, Dave McKay, a coaching legend who was steeped in the “Cardinal Way.”
He spent four days with him to soak up whatever he could. While he fought and clawed to be on major league rosters early on as a player, as a coach he was on the fast track. By 2020 he was “associate manager,” and in 2022 became St. Louis’ bench coach. Still wasn’t sure he was ready to manage when he talked to the Marlins and Kim Ng, the first female GM in baseball history, who was making her first managerial hire. No pressure there.
“A manager with experience was high on our list,” Ng said. “He didn’t have experience. But it was very clear, very quickly that we were in alignment on our offensive philosophy. I’d seen a lot of carelessness with our club. I wanted attention to detail. I wanted commitment. I remember him talking about how you hit the base when running, just an example of the small details.
“His set of non-negotiables and the way he talked about communication and accountability, it was all very genuine and well-thought-out. Ultimately, the room was divided. It was by no means a consensus. But I was sitting in the chair. It was my call. And, in my opinion, it was a no-brainer. Sometimes, there are just cases that are compelling and you go with your gut.”
But to do so, she also knew she was putting her job on the line to make the hire. Then they went about remaking the Marlins.
“I knew who did not want me and who did,” Schumaker says. “So, I was going to prove one right and one wrong. That’s my personality. I was going to make sure that they felt me and heard me loud and clear when I had a message and how I thought the direction of this organization should go compared to what they were doing, which was losing. I was not going to go down the path of losing anymore. They knew what losing looked like; I knew what winning looked like.”
On the field, it seemed to work OK. The Marlins won 84 games. No small accomplishment for an organization that had posted only four previous winning 162-game seasons in its 30-year history. They reached the playoffs for just the fourth time in team history, the first in a 162-game season since 2003. Schumaker was named NL Manager of the Year, only the ninth rookie manager to capture an MOY award.
And ownership still sought change, opting to seek out a president of baseball operations over Ng. She got wind, knew she was being demoted or forced out and opted out of her contract option for 2024. Schumaker tried to work with a new administration that brought in a two-time manager in Gabe Kapler as assistant GM, but also had loyalty for Ng.
Did he think about walking away when Ng did?
“Yes,” he says. “But I don’t quit. I had signed a two-year contract and I had a responsibility to those players in that organization to do whatever I could to keep some sort of stability and structure inside that organization. I’m not a one-foot in, one-foot out type of person. This is what I signed up for.”
He reconciled it by asking the club to remove the option in his contract for 2025. Both sides would give the new arrangement a try. By the middle of a disappointing season, it was clear they were not on the same page. Schumaker knew he wouldn’t be back. With two games left in the season, he left the club to spend a final day with his grandmother, who was in hospice.
Some things still come above baseball.
“Never Ever Give Up”
Though he is intensely focused on baseball, it’s clear he has other priorities, as well. They, more than the game, define him.
In short: Family, faith and community.
That is on display this afternoon. First stop is Saddleback College where he will address the baseball team. He’s a regular on the baseball-speaker circuit in the large, but tight-knit Orange County baseball community. Many of the players on the team are familiar faces, having played with Brody, now a senior at Santa Margarita Catholic School, a year earlier.
Texas Rangers Manager Skip Schumaker with Chris Malec, Santa Margarita Catholic High School’s baseball head coach at practice at Santa Margarita Catholic High School on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025 in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. His son plays for the school’s baseball team, the Eagles, and Schumaker is a fixture at practices often throwing in batting practice. Malec and Schumaker played baseball together at UC Santa Barbara.
Nick Agro / Special Contributor
He will share with the team the need to “bloom where you are planted,” a phrase he picked up from a buddy in his weekly bible study. The message is about doing your best, wherever you are. God, he says, has planted you there for a reason. It’s about being present. The example: He was a utility player. He understood his role, but he also understood that it meant being the best possible role player he could be.
“I believe you don’t just do something every day to check boxes,” he says. “You don’t stay the same. I hate the phrase ‘it is what it is.’ I believe you are either getting better or getting worse. And I want to work to get better every day.”
About that, the study group is loosely called “Bible and Bourbon.” Schumaker jokes there is at least some bible studied every week. The joke aside, you get the vibe his perspective on it is as intentional as everything else he does. As far as bourbon goes, even there, there is intent. He shares that he only drinks products from the Buffalo Trace distillery. Why?
“Because I like the story of the buffalo and the cow,” he says. “The buffalo runs to a storm; the cow runs away from it. Everybody goes through storms, right? I’d rather run through it and identify the problem. I’m a fixer at heart. Leadership means you know storms are coming and you’ve got to be ready for them. So, I’m not going to run away from adversity or issues in life or in the clubhouse.”
On the same field where he talks to players, he will hold a two-day camp in December. It will benefit the Jessie Rees Foundation, whose motto is “NEGU,” for “Never Ever Give Up.” The foundation supports pediatric cancer patients. The foundation was named for Jessie Rees, a 12-year-old girl who created “Joy Jars,” of toys, activities and other mementos for other pediatric cancer patients before succumbing in 2012.
NEGU ties together so much for Schumaker. In 2009, dealing with some performance anxiety over a position change to add infield duties, Wainwright and Matt Holliday suggested he join them for a visit to a pediatric cancer wing. They hoped to take his mind off what was bothering him. As usual, he didn’t simply make a visit and fade away. The visit gave him perspective, allowed him to overcome his own fears and allowed him the opportunity to give back.
He’s made regular visits to kids ever since and expects to bring some of his players along with him in 2026.
“I didn’t take the visits because of my anxiety, but it helped with it,” he says. “And I haven’t thought about it since. I saw life differently. It wasn’t just baseball. My identity shouldn’t just be baseball.”
Cade Spinello first met new Rangers manager Skip Schumaker when he was 7, battling cancer. Spinello, now 19, has addressed the Padres, Cardinals and Marlins clubhouses at Schumaker s request and will undoubtedly do the same with the Rangers this season. (Courtesy/Mike Spinello)
Courtesy/Mike Spinello
Along the way, he met Erik Rees, who runs the foundation in his daughter’s memory, and he met Cade Spinello, then a 7-year-old, who’d undergone surgery to remove a brain tumor, had a stroke while on the table and had lost the use of his right side. Schumaker took on Spinello as a baseball student, bringing him home to hit in the cage at his house as he slowly made progress. Spinello, now 19, has addressed the Padres, Cardinals and Marlins clubhouses at Schumaker’s request and will undoubtedly do the same with the Rangers this season.
Both Rees and Cade’s father, Mike Spinello, are now part of the bible study group.
“He just gets it,” Mike Spinello said. “He sees the importance of the role he plays. He takes the time. He gives them attention and interaction. He’s not just there to pose for a picture with these kids. It’s very easy to write a check; that’s awesome. But he genuinely wants to be involved.”
Said Rees: “He is just a guy who wants to make a difference. He’s not a one-and-done kind of person. He wants to move needles.”
Back where he belongs
Back at the house, between throwing to Brody’s team and taking Presley, an elite soccer player, to an evening practice, Schumaker and Lindsey are talking about the coming year.
When he was in Miami, it was a six-hour flight and virtually impossible to do for a quick weekend visit without interrupting the kids’ schedules. He didn’t see any of Brody’s games last year as he rose to a top prospect in Orange County. There is hope that he’ll get to see some games in college, though, especially since Brody is a TCU commit. He’s hoping Presley and SMU match up for soccer. But both he and Lindsey know the next year will be full of separation.
But, Lindsey says, she can’t really imagine Skip being whole without baseball.
“He’s such a perfectionist and that’s why he’s so good at what he does,” she says. “He’s so intentional about relationships; I always tell him it’s one of his best qualities. He’s got such a gift for baseball. He knows how to do this so well and it would be tragic if he stopped. He was born to do this.”
Said Ng: “When he got the job, I just sent him a text that said ‘you are back where you belong.’ He deserves the world.”
Where he belongs now is Arlington. Come April, he will plant himself there. And there he intends to bloom. And maybe keep a receipt or two.
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