Yankees take flight with pitcher Clarke Schmidt’s father piloting team charters

AP Baseball Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Schmidt family has helped the New York Yankees take off this year.

Sure, pitcher Clarke Schmidt is expected to start Game 3 of the World Series on Monday. But his dad, Dwight Schmidt, has also helped the Yankees get to this point — he’s piloting the team’s family charter flights during the World Series and has been at the controls of the club’s plane for some trips during the season, too.

“Everybody feels like the pilot’s a little bit more personally invested into the flight, so they feel a little safer,” the pitcher joked ahead of his start at Yankee Stadium on Monday night, when New York tries to rebound from a 2-0 Series deficit.

Dwight Schmidt, 59, is a retired Marine Corps colonel and Delta Air Lines captain who has worked for the company for 25 years, handling MD-88s, 727s and 757s and 767-400s. He’s twice piloted the Yankees on road trips, including ahead of 2021’s Field of Dreams game in Iowa. Unfortunately, Clarke was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre the day before that game.

“Growing up, we used to have the printout of what it was like in a cockpit in my room. So we knew all the buttons and stuff. I didn’t really know what it was. We were just messing around,” Clarke said. “I’ve flown with him a few times in smaller planes and stuff like that. And he’s tried to kind of bestow his knowledge on me, but I was always baseball first.”

Dwight Schmidt arranged for Yankees manager Aaron Boone to use a Delta flight simulator during a visit to Atlanta. A landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport was programmed.

“It was really cool. Mr. Schmidt said I did a good job,” Boone recalled. “I was in there for probably 10, 15 minutes flying and then landing the plane and everything. It was something I was pretty fortunate to get a chance to do.”

Clarke Schmidt, a 28-year-old right-hander, was 5-5 with a 2.85 ERA in 16 starts during the regular season and has a 3.86 ERA in a pair of postseason starts, no-decisions in Game 3s against Kansas City and Cleveland.

Dwight and wife Renee were at Dodger Stadium for the Series, though Clarke wasn’t scheduled to pitch.

When New York’s World Series family charter took off from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Dwight had Delta collectors cards ready for the kids. He landed the 757 at Hollywood Burbank Airport, the families deplaned and Schmidt flew the aircraft 18 miles (29 kilometers) to Los Angeles International Airport.

“I’ve heard a lot of really good things about the landing this time,” Clarke said. “Everyone said it’s the best flight they’ve ever been on, and they felt no turbulence.”

Dwight Schmidt planned to head to LAX with his copilot on Sunday, fly back to Burbank, pick up the families and return to Newark.

Much of the time, Dwight Schmidt is on long-haul routes to Europe and South America. The Yankees charters are a special route.

“We bid for those, to try and get a trip,” Schmidt said. “That’s how I was able to get it.”

Clarke’s 30-year-old older brother, Clate, was a 32nd-round draft pick by Boston in 2015 and spent 2016-19 in the low minors. Now he’s following his father into aviation.

“Fifteen hundred hours is what you need to be an airline pilot,” Dwight said. “Clate has just hit that. He’s been an instructor for literally the last two years and so he is now getting ready to get hired.”

Clarke has no desire to join his father’s profession when he’s done pitching.

“That’s a hard no on that,” Clarke said.

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