Miranda Rights With Solid Support of Family, Northridge Slugger Hits Stride

Attend a Cal State Northridge baseball game and hear the sing-song banter of Yolanda Miranda, mother of Matador slugger Jose Miranda.

The game fills her days with so much delight she wants to tell the world. And so she does.

Sitting in the stands with her mostly silent, smiling husband, Mario--a former professional player in the Negro and Mexican leagues--Yolanda is like a songbird perched in the corner of a room, providing constant melodic accompaniment to the action on the field.

Positive and encouraging, she tosses pearls of wisdom onto the diamond in a lilting combination of Spanish and English.

“Uno mas, Matadors,” she yells after marking two out in her score book.

Should Northridge fall behind, she exhorts the crowd to join her: “What time is it? Rally time!”

Game time is the best time for the entire Miranda family, which also includes Jose’s brother Tony, 23, a Kansas City Royal minor leaguer, and their sisters, Maria, 32, and Mercedes, 27.

No wonder Jose has developed into a poised leader who in 32 games is batting .405 with 14 home runs and 44 runs batted in. Matador Field feels like his family room.

“Jose’s best quality is that he’s tuned in on every pitch,” Coach Mike Batesole said. “He’s beyond his years in baseball sense. There are guys who can run faster and throw harder, but he is a baseball player.”

Never is that more obvious than when he wields a bat. Opponents ought to be read Miranda rights before the Northridge right fielder steps to the plate.

Anything you pitch can and will be used against you.

Miranda, 6 feet and 200 pounds, is a selective hitter whose .514 on-base percentage leads the team. He had a team-high .495 on-base percentage last season, when he batted .341, but he has dramatically improved his power numbers. He hit only three home runs in 1996.

“I changed the follow through on my swing to help get backspin on the ball,” he said. “Doing that, plus working in the weight room has made me stronger.”

Additional strength is drawn from his family. Mario and Tony spend time honing Jose’s skills. His sisters come to most of the games. And with Yolanda in the house, never is heard a discouraging word.

“Our lives have centered around baseball as long as I can remember,” Jose said.

Yolanda’s father, Jose Reyes, was a pitcher in the Mexican professional league, and she met her future husband when he played for the Mexico City Tigers in the early 1960s. Mario left Cuba in 1950 at 15 to pursue his baseball career.

“He was the black Mickey Mantle,” Yolanda said. “He had a lot of power. We fell in love.”

The Mirandas eventually moved to the U.S. and have lived in the same Lynwood home for nearly 30 years. Yolanda does not drive, but nothing stopped her from becoming a driving force in her sons’ baseball careers.

“She walked us to practice when I was little,” Jose said. “She always found a way to get us there.”

She didn’t leave herself behind, either.

“When I was in high school she rode to the games on the team bus,” Jose said. “Every team I’ve been on has accepted her as the team mother.”

Tony and Jose both played at Cerritos College after leaving Lynwood High, and Tony walked on at Cal State Fullerton, starting as an outfielder on the Titans’ 1995 national champion team.

Yolanda, of course, yelled “Uno mas!,” every time Fullerton needed an out to end an inning.

“That was a baseball team,” Yolanda said emphatically. “A dream team.”

Complete with a fairy-tale ending for the Mirandas. Tony hit a home run in the national championship game, and Jose hit a home run the same day playing for Missouri in the Jayhawk Summer League.

All that, and it was Yolanda’s birthday to boot.

“We dedicated the home runs to her,” Jose said.

Summer league games are the only time Jose has played without his parents sitting in the stands. Yes, he felt a strange void.

“I would always tell my teammates about my mom, and when my parents finally came out to see some games, they saw what I was talking about,” Jose said. “Everybody loves my mom. She gets the other parents cheering.”

Early this season, there was less to cheer about than usual. Batesole attempted to convert Miranda into a third baseman, but after several errors and a ball that nearly decapitated him, Miranda was returned to the relatively safe confines of right field.

“That was a bad coaching move,” Batesole said of moving Jose to third base. “I tried to do something in a few weeks that normally takes a few years. I knew he could handle it mentally, that if he kicked a few balls he wouldn’t take it to his at-bats.”

All Miranda brought to the plate was the resolve to produce as the Matadors’ cleanup hitter. Northridge lost 83 home runs and 327 runs batted in from last year’s lineup, and Miranda needed his best shots to go from the gap to beyond the fence.

His first home run was perhaps his sweetest, coming in a 5-3 victory over Cal State Fullerton in the second game of the season. Despite Tony’s success, the Titans made no scholarship offer to Jose coming out of Cerritos.

That home run started a streak of six in seven games. Miranda hit a three-run shot at USC that put the Matadors back into a game they eventually lost, 8-7. Last week, his three-run homer gave Northridge (21-10-1) a 5-2 victory over Gonzaga in the Fresno tournament.

The added power has not detracted from Miranda’s ability to hit for average. He opened the season with a 10-game hitting streak, and after one hitless game, promptly began another seven-game streak.

Miranda, who bats left-handed and throws right-handed, currently has an eight-game hitting streak, and he has been held hitless in only four games. He has 21 walks and 17 strikeouts.

The extra production has major league scouts finally noticing him. Miranda was disappointed that he wasn’t drafted after last season, and he eagerly wants to follow in Tony’s footsteps and launch a professional career.

“The power is what he needed to improve, and he has done that,” one scout said. “There’s not much doubt now that he’s going to get a job.”

Despite the aborted effort this spring, Miranda believes he might eventually end up at third base.

“I’m still excited about it,” he said. “I hadn’t played infield since my freshman year in high school, but I feel it was a good learning experience. If I do go on, I’ll take a hard look at that position.”

Wherever he plays, Miranda will be able to count on one thing: The full, very vocal support of his family.

The Mirandas plan to travel this summer to Lansing, Mich., where Tony is expected to be assigned by the Royals. That will be followed by a trip to anywhere Jose might be playing.

But first, Yolanda Miranda is planning one more trip to Omaha and the College World Series.

“We can go, I know we can,” she said.