ARLINGTON — Ronnie Gideon is now in his third decade in the Colorado Rockies organization and has been around baseball for most of his life. And the Tyler native who is the current first base coach for the Rockies couldn’t be happier to have spent his life around the game and to maintain his strong East Texas roots.

“I’ve been very lucky, especially from the Rocky organization. This is my 30th year and you don’t see that much anymore if at all,” Gideon, 61, said during the Rockies’ May 12-14, 2025 trip to play the Rangers. “I was playing six-and-a-half years. Then, I became a coach. Matter of fact, my last game was in Tulsa with the Jackson Mets. Clint Hurdle (now the Rockies’ bench coach) was the manager (of Jackson) and we got into a huge brawl. I broke my clavicle and the next day I became a coach. There have been a lot of people look out for me, grateful for that. This is all I’ve ever done. I love it. I don’t know what else I’d do.”

A product of Hallsville High School, which is where he met his wife, Kim, he was a two-time All-American at Panola College before Philadelphia drafted him in the first round in 1984. He played two seasons in the Phillies organization before being traded to the Mets in 1986. After retiring from playing in 1990, he became a coach in the Mets organization, coaching and managing several different minor league affiliates.

Gideon joined the Colorado organization in 1996 and managed six different affiliates, served as their minor league field coordinator and their player development supervisor. However, in 2017, Rockies manager Bud Black named him to the big-league coaching staff and that’s where he’s been ever since.

Unfortunately, the Rockies started this season an MLB-worst 7-33 and on Sunday, May 11, 2025, ownership relieved Black of his duties. Gideon was retained under interim skipper Warren Schaeffer but admits it’s a rough part of the business side of baseball to see the man, Black, who gave him his shot to coach in the show, depart.

“It’s tough because he gave me my first big-league job. This was the ninth year of it (us working together) and to see something like that happen the way it did, it hits you hard because he’s a great man and he did a lot for me,” Gideon said.

However, at the same time, he’s also happy to see Schaeffer, who also played in the organization and is a former minor league manager, get his first shot at managing in the big leagues.

“Yeah, Warren played for me in Tulsa. The big thing with him is (he’s) a communicator with the players,” Gideon said. “(He’s) very close with them, personal. That’s big in this game. He was (always) that way. He was taught that way. Yeah, I’m happy for him. He played that way, he played with a passion, he was a dirtbag who’d grind it out. He had to grind it out (as a player) and now it’s paying off for him.”

And Schaeffer knows that if not for all the sage advice he’s received over the years from baseball lifers like Gideon that he wouldn’t even be in position to manage in the big leagues, even if it is on an interim basis.

“He’s like the lifeblood of this entire organization. I remember as a player myself, he was the field coordinator in the minor leagues and everybody goes through the field coordinator,” Schaeffer said. “When you think of the Colorado Rockies, you think of Ron Gideon. Everybody that comes through always calls Giddy and thanks him for everything that he’s done in their life. He is a very, very special man and I think everybody in that room (the clubhouse) agrees with that statement.”

Gideon’s son, Ronnie Jr. played collegiately at Texas A&M and in the Brewers organization. And like his father, he is now coaching.

“Yeah, he played. He did all the travel ball. We came up to Dallas and played on the Dallas Tigers and a couple of teams up here,” Gideon said. “He went to A&M and then was drafted by the Brewers.

“Played two-and-a-half years and they released him. Then, he goes dad, I think I’m done, so it was kind of one of those things where yeah, we probably burned him out on it, but hey, we knew what his calling was too. He’s a coach now and he loves it. The flipside is he is a girls’ softball hitting coach (at Hallsville) and he absolutely loves it.”

Whenever the Rockies make their annual trip to Arlington, his wife and family always drive over to see him. And once the grind of the 162-game season is over, Gideon, as he has done every year in the game, heads home to East Texas to decompress.

“Well, when you come from smaller towns, it seems like you’re more close knit. You’re together because everybody knows everybody in the town you’re in. I guess it comes with the heart of East Texas, that’s where your roots are. Everybody sticks together,”

Gideon said. “I’m not a big city person because of where I came from. I don’t dislike it, but if I’m going to live, I’m going to live in the country. A lot of people do that, a lot of sports people. It’s a cool part for me, being in East Texas, a little country boy back in the day. Still love it.”

Stephen Hunt is a Frisco-based freelance writer.