Baseball Coach

Cal State Fullerton's baseball season ended Sunday in a Game 3 super-regional loss to Arizona State that also concluded the Titans' quest for a second consecutive national championship. So now that Fullerton no longer is focusing on finishing No. 1, it can focus on another important number: 14. That's how many Titan players were selected last week in Major League Baseball's amateur draft, tying the record set by Arizona State in 1982.

In a time when a win-at-all-cost mentality still exists, it's reassuring that a high school coach would risk losing out on a championship appearance to protect the health of an athlete. Five days ago, baseball Coach Aaron Moore of Riverside Poly looked out from the dugout at Blair Field in Long Beach knowing it was the perfect time to bring in his closer, Hector Rabago.

Larry Cochell was one of college baseball's biggest winners in nearly four decades of coaching at several schools, including Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Los Angeles, but his use of a racial epithet may have ended an otherwise distinguished career. Cochell, 65, resigned as Oklahoma's coach Sunday after using a slur to describe one of his African American players during off-camera interviews with ESPN last week.

I thoroughly enjoyed the "Remembering When" article by Bill Plaschke in Wednesday's paper. Phil Pote is truly an inspiration to us all. As a scout for the Mariners, he continually stresses the need for academic performance to all players he comes across. I overheard a classic quote several years ago from Mr. Pote at an MLB Scouting Bureau workout at L.A. Southwest College with inner-city high school players. After seeing several young men in a group after the workout, he approached them and asked them if they loved baseball.

The high school baseball career of J.D. Martinez has been dissected on TV and radio and in newspapers across the country. Twice his father sued his coach at Corona del Mar High, saying John Emme had derailed his son's college and pro prospects by making him pitch too much. Both cases were dismissed. Monday, it was Emme's turn, as the coach continued to testify in his $1-million defamation and slander suit against Marc Martinez, J.D.'s father.

As Compton softball Coach Sean Corrigan spoke to a couple of representatives from Mt. San Antonio College on Monday -- they were on campus to give the struggling softball program some used bats -- a baseball coach drove his pickup truck into the infield and yelled to a couple of girls. Corrigan heard part of the comment: "Your coach is making our school look bad!"

Mike Lee, fired as baseball coach at Newbury Park in July, has filed a civil suit in Ventura County Superior Court seeking unspecified monetary damages against seven parents, alleging that they made libelous and slanderous comments to have him dismissed. Also named as a defendant were the St. Louis Cardinals, who employ Chuck Fick, one of the parents, as a scout. Lee alleged that Fick assaulted him on school grounds and was verbally abusive, resulting in "severe emotional distress."

"Hub" Kittle, 86, a major league baseball pitching coach who also pitched professionally in six decades, died Tuesday in Yakima, Wash., of complications from kidney failure and diabetes. A native of Los Angeles, Hubert Kittle began his minor league baseball career in the mid-1930s with the Santa Catalina Angels of the Pacific Coast League. After serving in the Army during World War II, he continued a minor league baseball odyssey that included stints as pitcher, manager and general manager.

Re "Coaches' Lineup Could Include a Lawyer," May 5: As the father of a varsity baseball player at Corona del Mar High School for the past two years, I can tell you firsthand that Coach John Emme is far more than a baseball coach, a fact apparently lost on the disgruntled parent who filed suit against him because he thought his son was so gifted he deserved some sort of special consideration above and beyond that given any other player. For the record, Emme has gone above and beyond the call of most coaches I have been affiliated with for the past 13 years in youth baseball.

Rob Weil, who led Garden Grove Pacifica to the Southern Section Division III championship, has been named 2003 state coach of the year in softball by Cal-Hi Sports. The Mariners finished 31-2 and atop the Cal-Hi state's rankings. It was the fourth title for Weil, who won three in a row at Pacifica from 1997 to 1999. Woodbridge's Alan Dugard, whose Warriors (27-8) won the Division I softball title, has been named large-school coach of the year.