Colorado State University Pueblo

The father of former then-Indian shortstop John Salas, Max Salas had the baseball field at Runyon Field named after him in 2008 … In a Pueblo Chieftain article in 2018, Salas was recognized by former CSU Pueblo coach and Class of 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Stan Sanchez as "the hardest working man on a baseball field I've ever seen. I've never seen a more driven individual who works with kids to get better. On top of it, everything he did was done voluntarily. He was a proud Pueblo man; he had this kind of steel-man mentality. Heck, we were in the World Series in three years, and a lot of it had to do with his drive to get our program on the map." … The article also stated that "Salas never asked for any compensation. Through it all, Salas did it because he loved his home of Pueblo. Seeing a successful college baseball program in his town became his main objective. At the CSU Pueblo Baseball and Softball Academy, Salas did some of his best work with players of all ages." … He attended Central High School before taking a job at the CF&I Steel Corp., and he retired from the mill after 37 years, including a long stint in the 25" Rolling Mill … For more than a half-century, he devoted his time, talents and heart to the teaching of baseball to hundreds of boys and young men … He served as an assistant coach for Sanchez and was a member of the ThunderWolves' team that competed in the NCAA Division II World Series in 1996 … Additionally, he also was an assistant for the South-Central League Champion Central High in 2000 and was the head coach of the Babe Ruth Bambino World Series entry from Pueblo that electrified the entire city in the summer of 1991.