Brad Ausmus

Bradley David Ausmus (born April 14, 1969) is an American professional baseball player, coach, and manager.

He is the bench coach for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB).

In his 18-year MLB playing career, Ausmus played as a catcher for the San Diego Padres, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

He also managed the Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, and Israeli national baseball team.

Ausmus was a star in baseball at Cheshire High School; as a freshman he was a teammate of National Hockey League defenseman Brian Leetch, who was then a pitcher on the school's Connecticut state championship team in 1984.

As a sophomore Ausmus played shortstop and batted .327.

As a junior (when his coach moved him to catcher) he hit .436, and as a senior he hit .411 and was named the Cheshire Area High School Player of the Year.

He was named to the All-State team both his junior and senior years.

Ausmus was also a standout athlete in high school as a basketball guard.

Academically, Ausmus scored a 1220 on his SAT exam.

A 1987 draft pick of the Yankees, Ausmus chose to alternate between attending Dartmouth College and playing minor league baseball.

Ausmus then had an 18-year major league playing career with the Padres, Tigers, Astros, and Dodgers.

The New York Yankees selected Ausmus in the 48th round of the 1987 Major League Baseball draft.

He declined to sign with the Yankees so that he could attend Dartmouth College, until the Yankees allowed him to attend classes during the baseball offseason.

(Dartmouth has a quartered academic calendar, which allowed Ausmus some flexibility.) Given NCAA rules barring paid professional athletes from playing college sports, Ausmus could not play for the Dartmouth Big Green, and instead served the team as a volunteer coach and bullpen catcher.

Though Ausmus was not drafted until the 48th round of the 1987 draft, he played in MLB longer than any of the 1,150 players drafted ahead of him did.

Ausmus spent five years in the Yankees' minor league system with the Gulf Coast Yankees (1988), Oneonta Yankees (1988–89), Prince William Cannons (1990–91), Albany-Colonie Yankees (1991–92), and Columbus Clippers (1992).

Ausmus graduated in 1991 with an Bachelor of Arts in government, and was a member of Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity and the Sphinx Senior Society.

He was subsequently selected by the Colorado Rockies with the 54th pick of the 1992 MLB expansion draft.

During his playing days he was an All Star in 1999, a three-time Gold Glove Award winner (2001, 2002, and 2006), and won the 2007 Darryl Kile Award "for integrity and courage".

A five-time league-leader at catcher in fielding percentage, Ausmus led the league twice each in range factor and in percentage caught stealing, and once each in putouts and assists.

He was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.

In 2005, Ausmus became the first Ivy League catcher to play in the World Series since Dartmouth's Chief Meyers in 1916.

While at Dartmouth, the lowest grade Ausmus received was a B. College graduates are uncommon in major league baseball, with only 26 players and managers with four-year degrees in 2009.

Ausmus was also one of six Ivy Leaguers on major league rosters at the beginning of the 2009 season.

Ausmus finished his playing career in 2010 ranked third in major league history with 12,839 putouts as a catcher (trailing only Iván Rodríguez and Jason Kendall), seventh in games caught with 1,938, and 10th in both range factor/game (7.12) and fielding percentage (.994).

He also ranked first all-time among all Jewish major leaguers in career games played (1,971), fifth in hits (1,579), and eighth in runs batted in (607; directly behind Mike Lieberthal).

Ausmus worked in the Padres' front office as a special assistant from 2010 to 2013.

In 2010, The Sporting News named him the ninth-smartest athlete in sports.

In November 2013, Ausmus became the 38th manager in the history of the Detroit Tigers, succeeding Jim Leyland, a position that he held for four years.

In October 2018, he was named the 17th manager in the history of the Los Angeles Angels, but was dismissed after one season in September 2019.

In January 2022, he was named the bench coach of the Oakland Athletics.

Ausmus was a coach for Team Israel, under manager Ian Kinsler, when it competed in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

He joined the Yankees as their bench coach after the 2023 season.

Ausmus is Jewish, and was born in New Haven, Connecticut.

His mother, Linda Susan (née Dronsick), was Jewish, and his father, Harry Jack Ausmus, is Protestant.

His father is a retired professor of European history at Southern Connecticut State University, and the author of A Schopenhauerian Critique of Nietzsche's Thought, which Ausmus calls his "favorite book."

Ausmus' mother was raised in a Jewish household, and he said in an interview that those values were instilled in him.

He takes pride in his heritage.

Ausmus stated in an interview with the Jewish Journal: "I wasn't raised with the Jewish religion, so in that sense I don't really have much feeling toward it. But, however, in the last 10 or so years, I have had quite a few young Jewish boys who will tell me that I am their favorite player or they love watching me play or they feel like baseball is a good fit... I'm all for it."