Gehrig Richins

Gehrig coaches players of all ages — hitting, pitching and catching. A good part of his week is spent with the youngest of them, in small groups capped so that nobody stands in a line waiting for a turn.

Catching is usually handed to whichever player is willing, and it is the position that gains most from being taught properly and taught early. Gehrig coaches it from the first time a player puts the gear on. More about catching at 503.

Younger players are welcome. No experience is needed to start, and a player does not need to have picked a position yet.

What a first lesson looks like

The first session is largely conversation. Gehrig spends it getting to know the player and the parents, working out what they actually want to improve, what they are hoping for this season, and where they would like to be in a few years. Those three answers shape everything that comes after.

From there he meets a kid at their own level and grows them up from it. A player who starts at eight is not handed a shrunken version of a high school lesson — they get what makes sense for them now, with the next thing already in view.

His own playing career

Gehrig grew up in the game in California and made his name in Lake Oswego. At Lakeridge High School he helped his team to two state championships. He played at Yavapai College in Arizona in 2002 and 2003, then finished at George Fox University, graduating in 2006.

Coaching since 2006

He started coaching the summer he stopped playing and has not stopped since. Most of that has been youth and high school club baseball, including managing his own teams, plus four seasons coaching at the high school level — two of them as varsity pitching coach. He is a co-owner of 503 Baseball.

The bulk of those years has been spent with players young enough to still be working out whether they love the game. That is the part of the job he keeps coming back to.

Professional baseball, in the summer

Gehrig manages the Salem Senators of the Mavericks Independent Baseball League. He was hired for the 2025 season, has now completed two years as manager, and returns for a third in 2027.

He has been in the league since it started. When it played its first season in 2021 he was the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes’ pitching coach and right hand to manager Tony Torcato, a former Major League player — an apprenticeship Gehrig has credited publicly with preparing him to manage at that level.

The league itself is a piece of Oregon baseball history rather than a national brand. When Major League Baseball cut its affiliated minor leagues and the Volcanoes lost the San Francisco Giants affiliation they had held since 1997, Volcanoes ownership announced their own independent league in January 2021 and began play that summer. One of the founding four was a revival of the Portland Mavericks — the unaffiliated club that played the Northwest League from 1973 to 1977 and took on the players nobody else wanted.

That is the baseball Gehrig coaches from spring through summer: professional, run locally, built on the idea that a player willing to work deserves somewhere to do it. It is also why he is a useful coach for a young player and not only an advanced one. He has seen exactly what the levels above ask for, and he builds toward them from a player’s first lessons instead of correcting for them at sixteen.

Starting with Gehrig

Most families start with a single lesson or a drop-in session, which is enough for everyone to work out whether it is a good fit. Group sessions are small and fill up. Current openings, dates and prices are on the Camps and Clinics page, and anyone catching, or thinking about it, should look at catching at 503.