A Long, Winding Road to Omaha

The longest day in Jason Moler’s life as a cleanup hitter began in the third inning of last week’s South I NCAA regional opener, Cal State Fullerton versus Ohio State.

Ohio State intentionally walks Phil Nevin in order to pitch to Moler.

Moler flies out on the first pitch to center.

Fifth inning: Ohio State intentionally walks Nevin in order to pitch to Moler.

Moler flies out on the first pitch to right.

Seventh inning: Ohio State intentionally walks Nevin in order to pitch to Moler.

Moler pops out to first base.

Fullerton’s cleanup hitter was down, as down as a cleanup hitter can be. Three times, Moler had been slapped in the face with a white glove, taunted, insulted--and three times, he had done not one thing about it.

“You have no idea how humiliating that is,” Moler says.

Augie Garrido, the Fullerton coach, had a clue, though. Sensing a need to relieve some slumped shoulders, Garrido sidled over to Moler’s sullen corner of the dugout to offer a few words.

“Don’t worry about it,” Garrido assured Moler. “Tomorrow, we’ll put a better hitter in the No. 4 hole so that won’t happen again.”

To understand what happened next--Moler broke down in convulsions of laughter--is to understand the working relationship between Garrido and his catcher. The needle is never more than an arm’s length away.

After Fullerton beat Ohio State, 3-2, despite the seven runners Moler left on base, Garrido told his team, “That’s not surprising. We’ve been picking up Moler all year.”

And after Moler got the message and went six for 12 with five runs batted in the next three games, Garrido was asked in a press conference about the tournament MVP trophy Moler was then cradling.

“Weak regional, weak regional,” Garrido chanted.

Moler has endured four years of this and has loved every minute. He had to. Moler’s college years have been occupied following Garrido all over the map--from Esperanza High to the chill of Illinois, where Garrido coached from 1988-1990, and then back to Fullerton in 1991 once Garrido had his fill of snow-outs and hail delays.

Simple journeys these weren’t. Moler hated the weather in Champaign, but shivering through two winters was the easy part for him. To make the move back to Orange County, Moler had to fight the system, taking on an embittered Illinois athletic department with all the postage and phone calls he could muster.

Garrido’s hasty exit did not sit well with John Mackovic, then the athletic director, who issued a team-wide ultimatum: No baseball player intending to accompany Garrido out west would be released from his obligation to the Illinois program.

Moler transferred anyway, risking ineligibility for the 1991 season.

“The A.D. gave me 100 excuses why he wouldn’t release me,” Moler says. “And for every one, I came up with an answer.

“The last one was that they weren’t going to let me transfer and play for Coach Garrido unless I could prove I was planning to transfer before he was hired by Fullerton. . . . So I got statements and letters from everybody I could. Friends, ex-coaches, Coach (Dave) Snow at Long Beach, where I was thinking of playing. The local sportscaster at Channel 4 in Champaign wrote me a note.

“I probably had 30 letters in all. We did everything we could. We fought it from August to February.”

By the time Mackovic finally acceded, the Titans had played 13 games with Moler never removing his practice grays.

Wasted days and wasted nights?

Moler and the Titans might not be where they are today, in the Omaha Marriott, awaiting the opening game of the 1992 College World Series, without them.

“I learned how to catch during those games,” Moler says. “If I hadn’t been ineligible, I’d have been playing third base and would have never had the time. Those 13 games really worked out to my benefit.”

Garrido knew that in ‘92, he was facing a future without Matt Hattabaugh, the All-Big West first-team catcher, so Moler was asked to transfer again, this time 90 feet down the third-base line.

Moler had the build for it--6 feet 1, 195 pounds. The temperament, too. Nevin might be the most talented Titan, but he hits and runs to a different soundtrack. Moler is tuned into the same frequency as his other, sub-galactic teammates. He’s a leader, and when he calls a team meeting, as Moler did a day after a disgusted Garrido canceled practice 2 1/2 weeks ago, the Titans listen.

“We had a lot of players griping about their playing time,” Moler says. “We had a lot of dissension on this team, so we called a meeting to talk about it. Nothing else had worked.

“Basically, we set down some guidelines. Anybody caught complaining or pouting about not playing, we were going to recommend to the coaching staff that they’d be suspended. Anybody throwing a helmet or yelling at an umpire was going to run three miles.

“It seemed to work. We haven’t seen any more of it since.”

Just as scarce have been Titan defeats. Fullerton didn’t simply win the South I regional in Baton Rouge, La.--the Titans obliterated it. Four consecutive victories, 35 runs scored, three runs allowed.

One week later, Moler and Garrido are in Omaha, the intended destination all along. Yorba Linda to Champaign to Fullerton through Baton Rouge is not the customary flight pattern, but once on board, Moler was hooked, needles and all.

“We’ve developed a close relationship the last four years,” Moler says. “He gets on me, oh yeah, but most of it’s in fun. I take it the right way. He knows how I’m going to react to his criticism.”

The regional MVP trophy was a pretty fair reaction. But the best comeback of all begins today and continues through June 6.