He Does His Job, Even if the Scouts Don’t Do Theirs

Above him, a cold, stiff wind swept through the stadium, blowing straight out to right field.

Behind him, the CBS cameras zoomed their lenses in, training on his every move.

In front of him stood the USC Trojans, with their big headlines and their bigger dollar signs, the rich kids from the neighborhood back home.

And all around him sat the scouts, who two years ago considered him too slow and too small to even burn as much as a 55th-round draft selection on.

Was this Mark Kotsay’s kind of ballgame or what?

Augie Garrido, coach of the Cal State Fullerton Titans, knows his sophomore center fielder well enough to plan for these occasions.

“We decided to protect one of your treasures here,” Garrido informed a gathering of local sportswriters, “and we put hard hats on the monkeys and the gorillas in the zoo.”

That would be Henry Doorly Zoo, located just down the right field line from Rosenblatt Stadium.

Were those cries of “Incoming! Incoming!” emanating from the parrot sanctuary as Kotsay completed his first two swings Saturday afternoon?

First swing, Kotsay deposits a baseball over the College World Series message board behind the outfield fence in right center, right over the roster of teams already eliminated from this tournament.

Second swing, Kotsay pummels a ball over the right field fence. Going . . . going . . . and quite possibly scattering a herd of endangered water buffalo.

Without question, the Trojans were in disarray. Two swings, two home runs, five RBIs, a 7-3 Fullerton lead--and USC wasn’t out of the second inning yet.

By the end of the day, Cal State Fullerton’s day, Kotsay would set College World Series records for most home runs and RBIs in a championship game, would rob USC’s Chad Moeller of extra bases with a lunging backhanded catch deep in the right-center field gap and would close out an 11-5 Titan victory by pitching the final 1 2/3 innings without giving up a run.

The P.A. announcement that soon followed was so anticlimactic it was laughable:

“Mark Kotsay of Cal State Fullerton has been named most outstanding player of the 1995 College World Series.”

Yeah, you could say that.

Then the P.A. announcer rehashed the raw numbers--Kotsay’s career World Series statistics--for the crowd:

“Twenty-nine at-bats, 15 hits, 11 runs, five doubles, four home runs and 18 RBIs, which ties him for second place on the all-time list. . . . “

At which point Fullerton catcher Brian Loyd hollered up from the infield grass, “He’ll be back next year!”

Let the 1996 College World Series field be forewarned.

Robin Ventura of Oklahoma State hit .600 at Omaha in 1986, but he never had a College World Series like this.

Bob Horner of Arizona State drove in 11 runs at Omaha in 1978, but he never had a College World Series like this.

Kotsay, in this World Series, batted .563. Only two players have hit for a higher average here. Kotsay delivered three home runs in four games. Only two players have hit four. Kotsay finished with a slugging percentage of 1.250. Only LSU’s Gary Hymel, at 1.357 in 1991, did it better.

On top of that, Kotsay appeared in two games as a relief pitcher, saved one, clinched the title in the other and did not give up a run in 3 1/3 innings.

To those people voting for Tennessee’s Todd Helton as 1995 college baseball player of the year, five words:

Care for a second ballot?

“He’s just the best player in college ball today,” Titan left fielder Tony Miranda said. “That’s all that needs to be said.”

“I know Todd Helton,” said George Horton, Fullerton’s associate head coach, “and he’s a tremendous player, very deserving of all his honors. But he’s not better than Mark Kotsay. Not this year. Nobody can tell me otherwise, and they can keep trying until the day I die.”

The Titans have beaten the elephant-as-underdog theme to a bloody pulp--how can a program win three NCAA titles in 17 years and still be underrated?--but Garrido trots out Kotsay anyway as his latest case in point.

“Mark played center field for us all year, and I really didn’t think he was fast enough,” Garrido said. “The scouts told me, ‘He can’t do this, he can’t do that.’ I listened to them, but he put it in my face.

“This year, he let three balls drop in front of him that only Devon White could’ve caught. That catch he made today in right-center? That’s as good as it gets, guys, I don’t care how fast you are.”

That Kotsay went undrafted out of high school in 1993 speaks volumes about the process of major league scouting. How can six feet be too short, 170 pounds be too light, 6.9 seconds in the 60 be too slow when the total package is capable of terrorizing an entire Midwestern city?

“All my life, it’s either been my size or my speed,” Kotsay said. “Out of high school, the scouts said I wasn’t big enough. And they like outfielders to run 6.8 or 6.7 in the 60. I run 6.9. I had a 7-flat at the USA team trials.”

But not on that play on Moeller Saturday.

“When I’m in a game and the adrenaline’s flowing,” Kotsay said, “I can move pretty fast. When I run a 60, the stopwatches should be able to motivate me, but they don’t.”

Kotsay derives his motivation from scanning a long draft list and not seeing his name on it; from playing important games every June in Omaha (“I don’t know why, but I seem to get in a zone here”); from playing the big school that used to be the last word in West Coast baseball but, in reality, has been out-titled by the Titans, 3-nil, since 1978.

“USC still gets most of the notoriety in Southern California,” Kotsay said. “A lot of young guys in high school say, ‘Hey, SC is the place to be.’ Today we proved that our program is just as respectable as USC’s.”

With a center fielder better than the one at any other school you want to name.

“Maybe now he’ll get recognized,” Horton said. “He played like this all year long, and he did it here--not against the Mercers and the Armstrong States, but against the best in the country. He was unbelievable.

“Hopefully he can repeat next year and get some of that stuff.”

Maybe even get drafted while he’s at it. Let the imagination run wild.