Learning to Give Something Extra : Baseball: Jason Hodges, Esperanza’s designated hitter, applies the same principles to hitting as he does to school work.

Things were pretty serious in the Esperanza High School batting cage, where Jason Hodges was getting some personal attention.

Assistant coach Bob Kent hurled advice and pitches. Hodges, a senior, listened and hit line drives.

Hodges is a designated hitter who’s not hitting right now. Through the first three games of the Southern Section 5-A playoffs, he is a measly one for six.

It’s a far cry from his .453 average during the regular season.

Still, there’s no need to panic. Hodges knows that with a little extra work, things will fall into place.

“It’s not like I’m struggling,” he said. “I’m hitting the ball well, but I’m hitting it right at people. I just need to bear down and focus.”

Words he has heeded before.

Hodges’ baseball career was put on hold a year ago after becoming academically ineligible just before the season began. But instead of brooding, he went to work.

By putting in extra time studying, he became eligible a few games before the start of the 1990 playoffs. But Hodges wasn’t satisfied with just getting by and has continued to work on his academics.

As a result, he has a 4.0 grade-point average this year.

“I had a chance to be a starter last year and blew it,” Hodges said. “It really woke me up. I knew I had to put a lot more into school. Once you develop good habits, it gets pretty easy.”

In the batting cage, Hodges tried to pull a pitch. But instead of hitting a line drive, he bounced the ball weakly back to Kent.

“You got to take that pitch the other way,” Kent said. “Concentrate.”

Hodges knows the Aztecs don’t depend on him to carry the team. As he put it: “I don’t think there’s a guy on this team that doesn’t have Little League All-Star patches in his room. I’m just one of the crowd.”

Still, on a team chock-full of good hitters, Hodges has been the Aztecs’ best run producer.

Esperanza, which is ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today, has four players hitting better than .400, but when it comes to hitting in the clutch, Hodges stands out from the rest.

He has 33 runs batted in, nine short of the school record set by Tom Redington in 1986. Hodges also has four home runs and is hitting .422.

In a game against Mater Dei, he drove in five runs. In another against Cypress, he hit two home runs.

That’s why a one-for-six drought has people noticing.

“Jason is due,” Coach Mike Curran said. “He’s overdue. It’s a tribute to this team that we’re still alive even though our top RBI guy isn’t hitting.”

Still, Hodges is unconcerned.

“There’s nothing wrong mechanically, I just haven’t had a break,” he said. “I think the problems I had last year helped me become a better baseball player. I’ve learned to deal with the mental aspect of the game. I don’t get worried when I don’t get a hit.”

A year ago, Hodges was a baseball player first and a student second. He would spend hours refining his hitting and barely minutes studying for tests.

That was nothing new for Hodges, who spent his first two years at Esperanza barely clinging to his eligibility.

“We warned him that he’d better shape up,” Curran said. “We kept telling him and telling him.”

Hodges finally listened when his first-semester grades fell below the required 2.0 GPA to remain eligible.

“I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t let me play,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

First, he went to Curran.

“He told me he was ineligible and I said, ‘See ya,’ ” Curran said. “He had to get his grades or he couldn’t play. I told him to figure it for himself.”

Said Hodges: “It was my own fault, so I had to face the embarrassment on my own.”

Looking back, Hodges said it could have been easy to give up. But he was determined to get another chance.

Hodges threw himself into his studies and, by the end of the third quarter, had pushed his GPA above 2.0. He rejoined the Aztecs on April 6.

After sitting out two more games until he was in shape, Hodges got his first at-bat against Loara and doubled down the first base line.

He played in 10 games last season, mostly as a pinch-hitter, getting nine hits in 14 at-bats (.643).

During Esperanza’s two playoffs games, he started at designated hitter and had four hits in five at bats.

“He certainly made up for the time he missed,” Curran said. “It’s tough on a kid to give up half a season when he only has two years on the varsity.”

It was the only time on the baseball field that Hodges ever wanted to give up.

Hodges was still teetering on the brink of ineligibility by the end of the school year, so he enrolled in summer school. There, he forged a relationship with Bob Benson, a chemistry teacher at Esperanza.

“I was in Mr. Benson’s class that summer and he told me I was too smart to be in that situation,” Hodges said.

Benson tutored him in science and other subjects during the fall. That, plus the extra time devoted to studying, improved Hodges’ grades dramatically.

Said Curran: “At the end of the semester, one of Jason’s teachers came to me and said he got an A. Then, the next day, another one of his teachers told me the same thing. I checked with the office and he had A’s in all his classes.”

That afternoon, Curran told the team that Hodges had a 4.0 grade-point average for the semester. The players gave Hodges a standing ovation.

“That was almost as embarrassing as being ineligible,” Hodges said.

In the batting cage, Kent fired a fastball and Hodges ripped it into the top of the net.

“That’s it Jason, explode on it,” Kent yelled.

Hodges said his GPA is better than 3.0 these days, which he attributes to meticulous study habits. He has also applied that hard work to baseball.

During the off-season, he worked in the weight room three days a week to improve his strength.

The time he spent away from baseball also helped to make him think better as a hitter.

“After an at-bat, I come back to the dugout and think about what the pitcher threw me,” he said. “I go through the at-bat again. Then I grab a bat and start thinking how to improve on it.”