Snitker family soaks it all in
HOUSTON — No matter how this year’s World Series ends, a Snitker will get a championship ring.
This Fall Classic is a family affair with Braves manager Brian Snitker in the dugout opposite his son, Astros co-hitting coach Troy Snitker.
Close their whole lives, they’ll be rivals when the teams take the field Tuesday night for Game 1.
“Quite honestly ... he’s going to want to kick my (butt),” dad said Monday.
But on the eve of the opener, which ended too late for this edtion, the elder Snitker still found time to play the role of proud papa when talking about his son’s success.
“I kind of validated the fact that maybe I did something right, the way he turned out,” he said. “He’s a heck of a young man.”
Troy Snitker grew up in clubhouses and dugouts, following his father as he toiled as a minor league skipper for most of his childhood. Brian Snitker taught his son so much during that time, but as he watched him bounce around teams from Macon, Georgia, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, it was not what he said, but what he did that served as the most important lesson.
“Just his work ethic,” the 32-year-old Snitker said. “I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve taken away from him, being able to watch him from a young age at the ballpark. He’s so consistent, hard working. He’s the same guy every day when you’re in the clubhouse with him.”
The 66-year-old Snitker spent 15 seasons a manager for various Braves’ farm teams before working as the big league club’s third base coach from 20072013. He was the manager of the Triple-A Gwinnett Braves from 2013 until becoming the big league club’s interim manager when Fredi Gonzalez was fired in May 2016.
Brian got the job fulltime in 2017 and has led the Braves to the postseason the last four seasons.
“He’s been through so much in his career where there were plenty of times where he could have easily decided to go do something else,” his son said. “But he stuck with it.”
Troy Snitker coached in college a bit before joining the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks as their hitting coach in 2018. He spent one season there before moving on to work for Astros’ major league club.
Brian Snitker is impressed with the way his son has incorporated the things he learned about baseball growing up with his dad with the newer side of the sport.
“I love the fact that he’s meshed (things),” Brian Snitker said. “Because I raised him in a dugout, on a bus, on the field a long, a long time ago before analytics were ever invented. I think he’s a good blend of the old-school way of doing things and he’s very open and gets all the new information that’s out there. I think it’s a good mix.”
The entire family is thrilled about two Snitkers being in the World Series. But for Ronnie Snitker, wife of Brian Snitker and Troy Snitker’s mom, navigating through this week might be a bit difficult.
“I think she’s just slightly overwhelmed at the moment trying to get her mind around that this is actually happening,” Troy Snitker said.