An Early Hit : Sophomore Kotsay Doing All He Can to Lead Titans Back to College Baseball’s Promise Land

Mark Kotsay has a perpetual picture in his mind’s eye. The game is tied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and his team needs a hit to win.

He walks to the plate, swings the bat and it might as well be a magician’s wand. There is no doubt what will happen.

“I always want to be in the box in that situation,” he said.

Kotsay’s fanciful moments already have become reality.

One of them happened last June at the College World Series, when Cal State Fullerton defeated Florida State, 10-3. Kotsay hit a grand slam and tied a tournament record with seven runs batted in.

He hit .463 in the series and finished the season with a team-leading .372 average.

Not bad for a first season in college baseball.

This season, Kotsay is even more a force for Fullerton (39-8), ranked No. 1 in the nation.

Kotsay leads the Big West Conference in all the major hitting categories. He is hitting .418, with 61 RBIs and 13 home runs. His slugging percentage is .730.

He also has played superbly in center field. Two catches this season have preserved victories.

Kotsay’s contribution doesn’t end there. He’s also the Titans’ top relief pitcher with eight saves and a 2-1 record in 14 appearances. He has given up only one earned run in 18 2/3 innings.

And, according to Coach Augie Garrido, there’s much more to Kotsay than what you see on the field.

“Mark does so much for this team with his leadership,” Garrido said. “He’s our hardest working player in practice. No matter how much he does, he still has an over-achiever’s mentality.

“His whole personality is based on achievement. He thrives on it. He has fine natural skills, but they didn’t fall out of the sky. It’s his great work ethic that has helped make it possible.”

Kotsay is a candidate for national player of the year as a sophomore, and his chances would improve considerably if Fullerton reaches the College World Series for the third time in four years.

“He’s certainly the right player at the right time for us,” Garrido said.

Kotsay’s quick, compact swing erupts at the last second. He seems to be able to direct the ball exactly where he wants it to go.

He has struck out only seven times.

“Some of the demonstrations he puts on in batting practice are almost unbelievable,” said George Horton, Fullerton’s associate head coach. “We have a drill where the hitters have to hit to a certain spot, no matter where the ball’s pitched, and it’s amazing how many times he can do it just right. He has great bat control and hand-eye coordination.”

People have been saying those kinds of things about Kotsay for a long time.

“I remember when he was just a kid, starting to play Little League, and everyone would always say to me even then that he was a natural, that he was made for the game,” said Kotsay’s father, Steve. “He was the starting shortstop at 9 on a team of 12-year-olds.

“He’d be out in the back yard throwing a tennis ball against the brick fence time after time when he wasn’t more than 4 or 5. He’d do it for hours, throwing and catching. And later on, he’d play whiffle ball in the park until we’d have to go and pull him out of there.”

He loved any competition, his father said. “He even raced bikes in the U.S. Grand National in Oklahoma City when he was 6. He loved to compete, and he loved to win.”

Kotsay also played football and basketball at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs. He was a star quarterback and played free safety.

But baseball always was special. “I met Clyde Wright, who used to play for the Angels, when Mark was around 10 or 11, and Clyde worked with him for a while,” Steve Kotsay said. “Clyde used to call him ‘Little Lefty.’ He said then that if he grew to size, he’d play some good baseball.”

By the time Kotsay was a junior in high school, he hit .420. The next year, he hit .465 and was 11-0 as a pitcher.

“He was the most coachable player I’ve ever been around,” said Santa Fe High Coach Steve Hendry. “I remember once he was having a little trouble with his hitting, and I made a suggestion to him after the game. He went straight to the batting cage and must have stayed there for more than an hour working on it. The next day he tore the cover off the ball.”

Kotsay wasn’t drafted out of high school. One of the reasons, he said, might have been that he told the two scouts interested in him that he was committed to Fullerton.

Kotsay, 6 feet and 180 pounds, was only about 165 pounds at the time, which also might have been a factor.

Fullerton recruited Kotsay early, signing him to a letter of intent before his senior season began. Horton remembers that night in the Kotsay home.

“I thought for a while we might lose him,” Horton said. “We offered Mark a partial scholarship, as we do everyone we recruit, but Mark and his father knew it wasn’t worth as much as the one we’d given to Jose Peraza, a pitcher who played on a summer league team in Norwalk with Kotsay.

“I could tell that it upset Mark’s father. I remember him saying: ‘Do you think he’s better than Mark?’ I just tried to explain to him that we just didn’t have that much scholarship money left, and we were doing the best we could.”

Mark’s father was preparing to retire from his job as a Los Angeles motorcycle patrolman.

“For a while, I thought George was going to walk out that night,” he said. “When we talked not long ago, I mentioned that to him, and he said he sure was glad he didn’t walk out.”

Horton laughs. “He just knew how good his son was, probably better than we did at the time,” he said. “But the more we saw of him his senior season, the more we liked him. Even after that, though, we thought he might be better as a pitching prospect.”

It didn’t take long for Kotsay to establish himself as a hitter at Fullerton.

Kotsay made his first college start in right field against Wichita State last March, threw out a runner at third, hit well and became a fixture in the lineup. His performance in the College World Series capped a sparkling season.

“That was my dream, to play in a College World Series,” Kotsay said. “I never thought it could happen to me, but when it came true last year, I was just so amazed by it all. Maybe that helped me. I felt like I was just in a zone most of the time there.”

By the time the 1994 season ended, Kotsay already was on the road to national recognition. He was named to the College World Series all-star team, selected to Collegiate Baseball’s all-freshman team and then picked to a 1995 preseason All-American team.

When the coaches began planning for the new season, with the pitching staff looking thin, they considered Kotsay as an occasional starter. But they decided he could help most as a late-inning reliever.

“We used him some that way last season, coming in from the outfield to pitch, and it didn’t seem to bother him,” Horton said. “Normally, a reliever can get pretty warm in the bullpen, throwing 25 or 30 pitches. When Mark comes in, he only gets the eight pitches allowed on the mound. But he has the ability to handle that too.”

Does Kotsay have any weaknesses as a player?

“The only thing he doesn’t do as well as the pro scouts would like is run,” Garrido said. “But he makes up for it the way he moves for the ball in the outfield, and through his baseball instincts. I can’t even tell you what his time is to first base, but I do know that he runs it hard every time.”

Whether Kotsay has a genuine shot of being college player of the year probably will depend on how successful the Titans are in the playoffs. That and whether Kotsay can continue his pace.

“I think most of the time those kinds of rewards come to the players on the teams that do very well,” Garrido said.

Another player of the year candidate, Todd Helton of Tennessee, has skills comparable to Kotsay. Helton, who turned down a pro offer of more than $500,000, plays first base, hits for power (13 home runs) and average (.416) and is his team’s top reliever (5-1, seven saves).

Dave Serrano, a former Cerritos College coach who is an assistant at Tennessee, also coached Kotsay on a summer league team before Kotsay came to Fullerton. He says Kotsay and Helton are a lot alike.

“They both have that pure left-handed swing, and are excellent hitters,” he said. “But I think either one of them would have a chance to make it to the next level as a pitcher if that’s what they wanted to do. And they both have the same great work ethic.”

The last Titan to win the honor was Phil Nevin, who was the No. 1 pick in the 1992 amateur draft after leading Fullerton to second place in the College World Series.

“Phil was a different kind of hitter, more explosive,” Horton said. “But Phil probably wasn’t quite as consistent on a day-to-day-basis as what Mark’s been this season. Mark adjusts very well to the pitch, and that’s one thing that makes him such a strong hitter.”

Kotsay also is looking forward to the USA baseball camp in Millington, Tenn., this summer. He hopes he can do well enough to make the team that will play in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. “That would be another dream come true if I could do that,” he said.

Garrido is happy that Kotsay hasn’t yet felt the burden of high expectations, and he sees that as a big advantage for him.

That’s a contrast to the pressure outfielder Dante Powell had last season before he signed as a first-round draft choice with the San Francisco Giants.

“Dante felt it for three years, and it made it extremely difficult for him,” Garrido said.

“But, with this team, Mark doesn’t have to feel he has to do any more than his share. More than anything, the game is fun for Mark. He gets the most he can out of it. And that’s the way it should be played.”