A (Farm) League of His Own

In baseball, that fickle game in which there is no crying but endless statistics that will never give way to abridgement, spending time down on the farm is bad news. The farm is where the Big Leaguers go when they are not performing well or have reached the end of their careers. Following more than four decades in baseball as a player, coach and manager, Ned Yost has spent his post-baseball years on a different kind of farm and could not be happier or more fulfilled.

A native Californian who became a baseball lifer, Yost has always enjoyed the outdoors. An avid deer hunter, he found alluring acreage near Greenville, around 60 miles southwest of Atlanta near the Pine Mountain Ridge, which is one of the most attractive landscapes in the state.

Photo credit: Andreas Volz

The hills and flora of the region also enthralled President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a frequent visitor to the community of Warm Springs, whose mineral waters helped soothe his pain from polio.

Yost went deer hunting in the region when he was coaching with the Atlanta Braves and became smitten. He bought 500 acres and turned it into a working farm. He named his spread Rising Rock and built a 26-acre lake generously stocked with bass and bream.

Yost cuts the grass throughout the property and plants acres of sunflowers for dove and plots of clover for deer. Fond of venison, he and his wife, Deborah, fill their freezers every year. There are egg-laying chickens and a vegetable garden, which yields a horn of plenty, including his favorite, sweet corn.

When he has dinner guests, Yost will do the cooking from what he produces. And when dinner is over, he even cleans up the kitchen.

When he retired from baseball, he told his wife that she had done enough, never complaining about moving the family from minor league job to minor league job – and the constant travel of his major league affiliations – cooking, managing the home front and doing everything from carpooling and domestic chores to grocery shopping and helping with homework.

“From now on,” he told her, “I will do the cooking and cleaning. Your home duties are over.”

His man cave is a multipurpose barn with a shelter, a lean-to where you’ll find tractors, including a John Deere 6120M and assorted farm equipment, which Yost keeps in good working order. There are sleeping rooms and lockers loaded with camouflage for him, his three sons Edgar “Ned” IV, Joshua and Andrew and daughter Jenny, who is also an outdoor aficionado – along with frequent guests. When he settles down at his desk to do any sort of paperwork, he is surrounded by dozens of animal mounts from his lifetime of abundant hunting.

There are a few photographs, and somewhere in his possession are a couple of World Series rings, one from when he was coaching for the Atlanta Braves in 1995 and another from 2015 when he managed the Kansas City Royals to victory over the New York Mets.

He is forever paying tribute to former Braves Manager Bobby Cox, his mentor, who influenced Yost’s managerial style, which essentially is: “It is not about the manager but about the players.”

Early on in his dozen seasons with Cox, Yost watched Cox’s every move. They often spent time drinking coffee and talking baseball – Cox the informative teacher and Yost the inquisitive pupil.

In addition to paying attention to what was going on in the game, Yost learned that imitating Cox’s work ethic would make a difference, as he worked his way through the Braves’ ranks, from catching coach to bullpen coach to third-base coach. His career as a manager began with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003, where he remained for seven years. Then came that unforgettable season in 2015 as the Royals defeated the Mets for the World Series title.

As a manager, Yost wore No. 3, which was also the car number of his close friend, the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Sr., whose death was a tough loss for Yost. During the major league strike of 1994, he spent time as a member of Earnhardt’s pit crew.

Anyone who spends time with Yost at his farm quickly learns that his life there and its rewards have been just as important to him as winning his World Series rings. 

Loran Smith is a veteran sportswriter and longtime UGA sidelines reporter.