How the Schaeffers turned MLB life into a family adventure

DENVER -- Callie Schaeffer planned a trip to Houston to meet her husband, Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer, for a special day for their children: son Beauman, 12; and daughter Emerson, 10.

The day was arranged through the brother-in-law of Rockies clubhouse assistant director Mike Pontarelli, who works in Mission Control for NASA.

“It was right after Artemis had landed,” Callie Schaeffer said. “They still had the donuts in there from the celebration of the landing. We got to go right into Mission Control. They were getting ready to dock a supply ship at the Space Center, so the kids thought that was great. And Buoyancy Lab, which is a big pool where they do a lot of the zero gravity underwater training.”

This was not just one of those perks of celebrity that comes from Warren Schaeffer’s job; it was a true educational experience.

The Schaeffers decided it was best for the family for Callie and the children to live in Freeport, Pa., a neighboring county of Pittsburgh near where Schaeffer grew up, and about 4 hours from where Callie grew up in Virginia. But as a way of increasing time togetherness, the Schaeffers also decided to homeschool Beauman and Emerson.

Callie Schaeffer has the credentials, with a master’s degree in education and history as a fifth-grade teacher. Beyond the academics, the Schaeffers wanted to back the lessons in the books and online with real-life experiences.

The timing of a baseball life is odd. Spring Training comes a month after the holidays and before most school systems have spring break. The traditional school year ends a couple of months into the season, and the next one begins with a couple of months left in it.

For families like the Schaeffers, the current plan is one of many that they’ve used to stay together and raise children -- with much of it done long before Schaeffer first set foot in the Majors after the 2022 season. The Schaeffers met at Virginia Tech, where Warren played through his senior year before the Rockies took him in the 38th round of the 2007 MLB Draft, and where Callie was a sparkplug leadoff hitter -- “stolen-base queen,” her husband said -- on the softball team.

Warren Schaeffer played in the Minors through 2012 and began his coaching career immediately thereafter. To make ends meet, he regularly took two jobs each offseason. He moved furniture, worked in the family painting business for his father, Jim. He worked on the security team at live events. While Callie was in graduate school at East Tennessee State, where she was a grad assistant with the softball program, her husband worked at Abercrombie & Fitch.

Callie enjoyed teaching, but wanted to be in the same town as Schaeffer as he began his managing career. This led to a wonderful camping experience with the family while Schaeffer managed at Double-A Hartford on his way to the Majors.

“We camped one summer, probably during the All-Star break, at Acadia National Park in Maine,” Callie recalled. “The kids were pretty small then, but it was so beautiful up there. Warren got to go with us. He’s not much of a camper; he tolerates it. But all of our jaws dropped. We walked across the road from where we camped, and there were these rocks overlooking the ocean. We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain.”

When Warren Schaeffer joined the Rockies as a coach in ‘23, the family moved to Englewood, Colo., but “when I would go on the road, they didn’t know anybody, so that was tough.”

The Schaeffers’ solution was to fall back on their education and love of real-life experiences to make it work. Both love history. Warren Schaeffer is the kids’ math teacher in the offseason. As a fan of the Harry Potter series, he also leads the reading of one book a year -- complete with Dad imitating character voices -- before they watch the movies.

Their academic curriculum is based on the liberal arts philosophy of Charlotte Mason, a British education innovator whose approach became popular in the late 1800s.

“Homeschooling was not on my radar, but it’s turned out to be the biggest blessing,” Callie said.

This has allowed a walking tour of monuments and a Pentagon tour in Washington; Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia; a family bike excursion across the Golden Gate Bridge and numerous other trips to art museums where they see the works they’ve studied.

The experiences allow the children’s personalities and dreams to emerge.

“Emerson collects baseball cards,” Callie said. “When she comes to games, she’s in full uniform -- eye black, socks, the whole thing -- and she plays softball. She watches every inning, listens to her dad’s press conferences and is 100 percent invested.

“Beauman is not really interested in athletics at all, but he has a lot of wonderful interests. He loves to read. He likes wood carving. He whittles. He collects rocks. He really loves nature and the outdoors.”

Warren Schaeffer is only partly involved in an upcoming family trip.

“The kids and I are going to drive cross-country and kind of do all the sightseeing stuff on the way. We did that when they were babies, but not that they remember,” Callie said. “We’re doing Mount Rushmore. When we get out to Denver, and the guys take their California trip, we’re going to Yellowstone and the Tetons. It’ll be an adventure.”

Warren Schaeffer is more than happy to honor his wife, and not just on Mother’s Day.

“She knows how to raise children, most importantly,” he said. “She’s special and unique, and her job is way harder than mine, even though she gets paid no money to do it. What an incredible woman she is on a daily basis, the way she shows her patience basically as a single mother for six months of the year.”