Slugger Lutz dialing long distance

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By Tom Archdeacon 2:18 AM Sunday, July 31, 2011

When it comes to distance, nothing, it seems, is too far away for Donald Lutz.

• The Dayton Dragons 6-foot-4, 230-pound slugger has swatted a ball onto the roof of Mendelson’s across from Fifth Third Field. He’s deposited two home run balls into the intersection of Sears and First streets beyond the ballpark. In fact, he’s cleared the home run fences a team-leading 16 times this season.

• When it comes to his mom (her name is Marlen), his grandmother, even his 95-year-old great grandmother, all of them back home in Friedberg, Germany, his exploits here in Dayton had them hopping and squealing like giddy schoolgirls the other day as they watched an Internet feed.

• As for his dad, an Army vet living in Virginia whom he never really knew the first 20 of his 22 years, he has bridged that gap, too. In fact, when the two first got together in 2009, they did everything from salt-water fishing to take in a George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic concert that had Dad singing along on “Atomic Dog” and “Give Up the Funk” as son watched with wide-eyed amusement.

Seven years ago, Pete Kiefer, now Lutz’s Connecticut-based agent, had begun helping out with the German national baseball team. One of the players he met was Sascha Lutz, who was five years older than Donald.

“Everybody kept saying, ‘Wait until you see what’s comin’ down the pike,’ ” Kiefer said. “They said. ‘Sascha’s little brother — Big Donald — is really something special.’ ”

Homesick mom

Friedberg, an old town of some 28,000, is 20 minutes north of Frankfurt. For many years it was home to the U.S. Army’s Ray Barracks. It was the duty station of Elvis Presley during his military stint in Europe and today the King of Rock ‘N’ Roll is commemorated all over town, including with the Elvis Presley Platz shopping center.

Donald Lutz (Sr.), an American serviceman, also was stationed in Friedberg. He met Marlen there, they married, and after Sascha was born, they moved to the U.S.

Daughter Vicki was born at Fort Collins, Colo., and young Donald — “He was a huge 10-pound baby,” Marlen laughed — was born in Watertown, N.Y., when his dad was at Fort Drum.

Bouncing from Army post to Army post for seven years wasn’t easy for Marlen. “To tell the truth I was always homesick,” she said by phone from Friedberg. “There were some other problems, too, and we divorced and the children and I moved back to Germany when Donald was eight months old.”

With the help of her mother, she mostly raised her family on her own, though many years later she remarried and now has a young son, Chondi.

“It was a struggle sometimes, but Mom worked a job, took care of us and really taught us how to get through life,” Donald said.

“When I was growing up, we had some photos of my dad, but I didn’t hear a lot of stories about him and there wasn’t a lot of contact and I didn’t think a lot about it. My big brother kind of took care of me if I did something stupid.”

Donald said Sascha eventually led him to baseball: “Early on we lived in a little apartment and I could see the baseball field from my window. Sometimes they had the circus there and in the winter — because the field was made below ground level — they’d flood it so it would freeze over and everyone could skate.”

A hockey player, Donald was coaxed to try baseball at age 15. The first time he came to the plate in a game, he hit a home run.

“I didn’t know much about baseball,” he said. “I remember my brother had a little poster from the era of Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, but other than that I didn’t know any players.

“That’s why I feel embarrassed sometimes here when they ask me about this person and that and what they did. I don’t know them, so I’m always online trying to catch up with the history of baseball.”

By age 16, though, he was doing well enough on the field that he had joined the national team. “You start getting more and more involved,” he said, “and next thing you know there’s an American knocking on your door with an offer.”

Finally meets Dad

After signing with the Cincinnati Reds in 2007 as an international free agent, he played two years in the Gulf Coast League and last season was with Billings in the rookie Pioneer League.

Two years ago he finally flew to Virginia to meet his dad. “A lot of people have asked me, ‘Wasn’t it really awkward?’ ” he said. “Sure I had a lot of feelings going through my body, but when I first saw him, he gave me a big hug and pretty soon it was like hanging out with a really good friend.”

Donald (Sr.) said it’s “wonderful” to have his son back in his life: “He’s really a great kid. Wherever he goes he’s able to fit right in. And I’ve got to say it’s because of his mother. She gets 98 percent of the credit. She did an excellent job raising him and his brother and sister. She made her children first in every aspect of her life and it shows.”

These days father and son stay in regular contact. “When he was in a little slump a while back I suggested he talk to his own pitchers and see how they’d pitch him,” Donald (Sr.) said.

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