Rundgren orchestrating DPs not CDs

Dad's involved with New Cars, son prefers driving longballs

By Lisa Winston / MLB.com

 

 

 

 

There is certainly no shortage of family ties in baseball.

You have Major League superstars who have already eclipsed their superstar fathers, players like Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr.

 

You have three generations of Major Leaguers, the Bells, the Boones.

 

You have a slew of up-and-coming Minor League prodigies at any given time, baseball chips off the old blocks, such as Koby Clemens and Dustin Yount.

 

And, of course, you have more than your share of offspring who couldn't hold a candle to their famous dads, the most notable being players like Pete Rose Jr. and the late John-Henry Williams.

 

When you factor in genetics, exposure to the highest level of baseball from an early age and the simple desire to grow up to be just like dad, it certainly should come as no surprise that you find so many familiar names scattered around Minor League rosters at any given time.

 

 

But for me, ever since he signed his first pro contract with the Florida Marlins in 2001, there has been one "famous name" in the Minors that I have followed with special interest, and his dad wasn't even a ballplayer:

 

Rex Rundgren, the starting shortstop for the Carolina Mudcats, the Marlins' affiliate in the Double-A Southern League.

 

Permit me to rhapsodize for a moment here in the interest of full disclosure.

 

Rex's dad, Todd, is one of the greatest songwriters/musicians/producers in the history of rock and roll. He was one of the original visionaries and pioneers of the music video. The fact that he has not been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a travesty (and you can't blame that one on sportswriters).

 

I've seen him in concert about 40 times, give or take a few, dating back to my junior high school days. That doesn't count the time I waited on line in Central Park one hot summer day starting at 6 a.m. and passed out from sunstroke and heat exhaustion before the actual show. I even had vanity plates on my car that read Utopia 4 (his band was called Utopia ... 4 was just my lucky number). I truly don't know how I would have survived my teenage years without his music to keep me sane.

 

So what fascinated me about Rex was not just his impressive pedigree. Knowing what I did about Todd, who was about as much the antithesis of "the jock" as you can imagine, it was the fact that Rex would end up in the world of baseball rather than the world of music.

 

He didn't grow up in the baseball clubhouses and manicured backfields of the world. He didn't get his athletic gifts from his dad, but rather his mother, Karen Darvin, an accomplished dancer. And his dad didn't toss him bucket after bucket full of balls in the backyard to develop his swing.

 

Nor did dad coach his Little League team. Actually, his stepmother, Michele Gray Rundgren, handled those duties.

 

"She was the only woman coach in my league, but everyone liked her," Rex said of his stepmom, who was also a member of the trailblazing 70's-80's rock band, The Tubes. "She was a good coach."

 

If anything, you could probably make a case that Rex Rundgren is a professional baseball player in spite of his dad rather than because of him.

 

In a sense, it took a rock and roll village to raise a young baseball player who has established himself as a fan favorite in Zebulon, N.C., and a sleeper prospect for the Marlins. And it's a village that has had more than its share of publicity -- some of it inaccurate -- as Rex has moved through the ranks.

 

So, to set the record straight, here's a quick explanation of Rex's extended and amicable family tree.

 

He was born in 1980 to Rundgren and Darvin, who is also the mom of Rex's younger brother, Randy, also a shortstop prospect who was drafted by Kansas City out of high school in 2004 but didn't sign.

 

Rundgren's longtime girlfriend prior to Darvin was model/actress Bebe Buell, the mother of actress Liv Tyler. Tyler spent the first several years of her life thinking that Rundgren was her father, but in fact her dad is Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler. She still regards Rundgren as a "spiritual dad" and remains close to him, as well as to Rex and Randy.

 

I confess to having been a little nervous before meeting Rex on a recent visit to watch the Mudcats. I suspect there are few things that are more annoying and frustrating than feeling that people only want to talk about your relatives, rather than you, especially when you've accomplished some pretty remarkable achievements on your own, as Rex has.

 

But then it's indisputable that Rundgren's upbringing makes him unique. He grew up in Sausalito, just outside San Francisco, and started playing ball when he was 6 or 7.

 

"There wasn't much else to do in Sausalito, so all I did was hang around the baseball field all day," he explained.

 

He lived in a truly modern "one big happy extended family" setup, in a house where he and his brother and his mom lived with his dad and stepmom.

 

But even when he began playing baseball, he admits now, he wasn't so much a fan of the game as he was of just playing the game.

 

"I've really just started liking watching it since I started playing pro ball," Rex said, "now that I have more respect for the game and know how hard it really is."

 

When he was a high school freshman, the Rundgren enclave moved its roots to Hawaii.

 

"I hated it at first," he said. "I had to leave all my friends and wasn't happy about that, but it turned out to be good for me. I played for a great coach there, who helped me out more with baseball than anyone in California did."

 

Unlike the baseball offspring who spent most of their summers in their dads' respective big-league clubhouses, Rex didn't tag along on his dad's tours very often, because he was usually busy playing baseball.

 

A star shortstop at Mid-Pacific Institute for his last three years of high school, he was drafted in the 24th round in 1999 after hitting .350 with just two errors as a senior. But he opted to return stateside and attend Sacramento City College, where he played alongside such current Minor Leaguers as Joey Thurston (Phillies) and Brandon Pinckney (Indians).

 

His draft status rose after two seasons there, and the Marlins took him in the 11th round in 2001.

 

He has moved slowly through the Florida ranks in five-plus seasons, hitting a combined .243 but being lauded for his fine defense. This year, he was hitting .209 at Carolina, his third go-round with the Mudcats in the town a few miles down I-264 from Raleigh.

 

In 2005 at Carolina, Rex shifted to second base for most of the season, where he teamed up on the double play combination with top prospect Robert Andino. But with Andino's move up to Triple-A Albuquerque this year, Rex was back at shortstop again.

 

And when Andino went home to Miami for a few days in May, it was Rex who got the call to fly cross-country to fill in for the new papa, and make his Triple-A debut.

 

"I found out I was going while my dad was here (at Carolina)," Rex said. "He'd just gotten here and he said, 'You know you're going to get called up to Triple-A just because I'm here.' And the next day I got called up."

 

In his first Triple-A game against the Omaha Royals on May 3, he went 2-for-4 and made a few four-star plays in the field. Though the trip was only supposed to be for the three days Andino was home, it ended up being a nine-day stint.

 

"I knew I was going to come back but was kind of hoping they might keep me around for a little longer," Rex said. "But now that I know what it's like there, I just have to work that much harder to get back."

 

Carolina skipper Luis Dorante, who has managed Rex for four seasons, suspects that a return trip to Albuquerque is in Rex's future.

 

"He's not a fancy guy who makes unbelievable plays, but he's one of the best shortstops in the organization," said Dorante. "He's saved the pitching staff a lot of runs. He played well there and I heard a lot of good things about him from the manager there, so I don't think there would be any hesitation about calling him back up."

 

Mudcats fans might have mixed emotions about that. They'd love to see him move up, but they'd also miss watching him play every day.

 

"Rex is just fun to watch because he loves to play," said longtime Mudcats season ticket-holder Mike Emeigh, who called Rex one of his two all-time favorite Mudcats along with current Marlins third baseman Miguel Cabrera. "I wish he could hit just a little bit better because he'd have a Major League career."

 

Meanwhile, Rex is happy in Carolina, where the fans love him for being Rex and regard Todd as "Rex's dad," just another proud baseball father who comes through when he can to cheer for his son.

 

One of the ironies of Rex's career choice is that, in a funny way, it's brought father and son together over what are proving to be two new mutual passions for the pair.

 

While Todd had never been a baseball fan in the past, he's become an avid follower of whatever team his son happens to be playing for.

 

"He loves coming to watch me play," Rex said. "He listens to the game every night (via the Internet) if he can, or if he has a show he'll call me afterwards to see how it went. He's a huge fan now. He's really into it."

 

He also comes to see Rex when his touring schedule allows, often with the entire extended family in tow.

 

On the other side of the coin, the son who never really had much interest in music or, he admits, talent for it, has a newfound passion of his own.

 

"I can't live without my iPod, which has about 3,500 songs on it right now," he said. "I love music and would really like to eventually get into the music industry and do something with my dad when I'm done playing baseball."

 

His tastes run the gamut from rap to rock to reggae, pretty much "everything but country." And the CD currently in his player? His dad's latest CD, "It's Alive," recorded with the New Cars, a reformation of the '80s band of which he is now a member.

 

Rex has no preferred choice of song for when he comes up to the plate, letting whoever is working in the press box that night select it for him. Not surprisingly, on the road that usually means either "Hello It's Me" or "Bang the Drum All Day," but he's fine with that.

 

Finally, Rex has just started taking guitar lessons from teammate Chris Mobley, and the day after that first lesson he was excited about his progress.

 

"I guess it must be genetics," he laughed.

Great Story Butchy. Thanks !