May 17, 2001
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Carroll Fadal appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
The last time Steve Smith brought in a senior transfer to his Baylor baseball team, the guy's name was Charley Carter. Let go by new head coach Augie Garrido at Texas, Carter moved 90 miles up I-35 for his senior year. All he did in 1998 was hit .402 with 99 hits, a Baylor-record 21 home runs and 86 RBI. The first-baseman also owns the BU record with 538 putouts.
So when Smith announced this year that he was bringing in another senior transfer, Bear fans took notice. This year's transfer is second-baseman Trevor Mote, who came from the University of Arizona. And while his numbers aren't Carteresque, he's been a solid, sometimes spectacular, contributor to Baylor's 33-18 campaign entering the last week of the regular season.
"Right off the bat, I heard the Charley Carter comparisons," Mote said.
"Coach Smith said it seemed a lot like Charley's situation where he transferred because he wasn't happy (at Texas) and ended up having a great year because he felt so comfortable here at Baylor. I understood like that and kind of laughed at it, because I knew those weren't the kind of numbers I would put up.
"BUT I THOUGHT I could bring some things to this team that would help us go pretty far."
Indeed, Mote's not a big power guy. But his offensive numbers are solid. He's hitting .317 with three homers, 26 RBI, five stolen bases and a team-high 57 runs scored. He's also played a terrific second base, committing only nine errors in 253 chances. His range is excellent, and he's solid at turning the double play. His defense has been so good, in fact, that he's drawn very favorable comparisons to fellow Arizonan Preston Underdown, who had a spectacular season at second last year.
"In Division I baseball, you can get a one-time release to go from one four-year school to another four-year school," Smith said. "It can happen one time in your career. It's becoming kind of prevalent, it becomes sort of the Division I free-agent market. We've benefited a little bit from it, going back to Charley Carter, and now Trevor.
"WHEN JACE BREWER changed his mind last year and decided to sign (with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays), I wasn't terribly concerned from a defensive standpoint, because I thought Mark Saccomanno could play shortstop defensively. But I was concerned from an offensive standpoint that we're not going to get a lot of offense out of Mark, and then if we had to play Trey Webb as a true freshman at second base or Tim Hartshorn every day at second base, we were losing quite a bit offensively. Our goal was to try to find somebody who could step in and play in the infield and be an offensive player.
"We were fortunate Trevor was not happy at the University of Arizona, he had gone to Yavapai Junior College, and we had a little bit of a connection there with (former BU assistant) Mark Rardin there, so we knew about Trevor wanting to leave early on. When I first met him, I thought the potential was there for a great fit as a person. I had never seen him play, but just judging by his numbers, he had some ability. But just his maturity as a person was pretty noticeable right off the bat. I thought he was going to be a pretty good fit for us, and he's certainly not disappointed us in any regard."
Actually, Mote knew about Baylor long before this season. After a stellar high school career in which he earned all-state honors in both baseball and football, he was recruited by BU baseball assistant Mitch Thompson. But at that time, he had dreams of playing both sports on the collegiate level.
"BAYLOR DIDN'T WANT to recruit me for football, so that door kind of closed," Mote said, "but as it ended up, I only played baseball in college." Back then, when he was a pitcher/shortstop in baseball and a free safety in football, Mote was 20-25 pounds lighter but a step or two faster. So has he asked Kevin Steele for a tryout next fall?
"It's funny," he said. "You sit there on Saturdays and watch guys you played against in high school and guys that you know. I always wonder what I could have done on the football field, but I know my body doesn't miss the contact. I don't think my body could take the punishment that those guys take."
Not that he's a sissy. Mote played for the first third of the season with a broken right thumb, severely limiting his ability to grip the bat, particularly when hitting from the left side.
"I've only been hitting left-handed since I started college," the natural righty said, "but throughout my college career, I've always hit better from the left side. This season, the broken thumb really contributed to my slow start from the left side. Surprisingly, my right-handed swing has been comfortable all year."
A LIFELONG ARIZONA resident, Mote grew up in Kingman, more notorious recently as the sometime home of Timothy McVeigh. Now, he's playing college ball in the city made notorious by the Branch Davidian standoff that McVeigh says triggered his bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"You know, Kingman's not a bad town," Mote said. "I'm really glad I was born and raised there in a small-town atmosphere. It gave me a lot of opportunity. The community was really behind the high school, and that was fun. But what we're known for now is that bad mistake by just those few guys, it caused a lot of bad publicity for a city that's really growing and a nice place to live. Now, I come here. It's kind of a small circle."
Trevor's trek to Texas started with dissatisfaction at the University of Arizona. "I was going into my junior year, and had been drafted twice," he said. "I wanted to play pro ball after last year and thought I had put up good enough numbers to do so, but I didn't even get a chance. I didn't even talk to anyone, and I kind of felt like the coaches didn't do anything to help. The coaches up there didn't give me a chance to showcase what I could do on the field, they recruited me for a certain reason, then when I got there, they tried to change me, and I didn't like that. It was just one of those situations where I didn't have any fun with the game.
"There's not very much support for the baseball program at the U of A, it's a big basketball and football school. I wanted to get out and really enjoy my senior year, so I decided to try to find a place where there was a lot of support and where the coaches would let me play and just enjoy baseball for what possibly could be my last year."
CERTAINLY, HIS STATS through high school and junior college would dictate that Mote would play. At Yavapai, he was the Arizona junior college player of the year after hitting .481 with 17 home runs, 25 doubles, 77 RBI and 33 stolen bases, leading his team to two straight conference championships. It was those numbers that caught Smith's eye.
And Mote has continued to impress at Baylor.
He does a lot of the little things well, having spent most of the season hitting in the two-hole, he's adept at bunting and moving runners along with the hit-and-run. Smith calls him a "baseball junkie."
"He's a pretty heady player," Smith said. "His insights into the game are good. He's always looking for something little. We haven't had a lot of guys here who are what I call baseball junkies who would want to steal signs or relay pitches or things of that nature. He's into that, and that stuff can rub off on the other kids. That part's very good."
Mote's leadership qualities are so evident that last fall, even though he'd only been at Baylor a couple of months, he received several votes for team captain.
"I THOUGHT THAT was pretty impressive," Smith said. "I thought it spoke well of him, and it also spoke well of the guys who voted for him. They recognized something about him and weren't afraid to vote for him."
It's turned out to be a blessing for Baylor that Mote wasn't afraid to leave the desert for the banks of the Brazos.
"He's been very good defensively, and he's been very good offensively," Smith said. "He's been kind of what the doctor ordered when we lost Jace. He's probably got the best hands of anybody we've got. I think it's huge that we got him. If he hadn't been there, if he wasn't available, I don't know what we'd have done, because you've kind of got your hands tied, late in June. I'd say we were pretty fortunate."
And that works both ways.
"If this does end up being my last year," Mote said, "I'll feel like I've had a good career. I'm really glad I came to Baylor. It's nice going out to play and actually having people there to watch who are behind you. Baylor's a great place."
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Carroll Fadal appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
