For most of the student body, it was spring break. For Kobe Kato and one of his Arizona baseball teammates, it was spring make-or-break.
The Wildcats had left for a road trip. Kato, an undersized freshman infielder, was redshirting for the 2018 Cats. He and pitcher Quinn Flanagan, who was rehabbing from elbow surgery, stayed behind. They spent their spring break doing two-a-day workouts with strength coach Jim Krumpos, starting at 7 a.m.
“We were both just exhausted after the first day,” Kato said. “Like, ‘Oh my God.’ ”
It wasn’t the spring break experience they envisioned.
“But we did it for the rest of the week,” Kato said, “and it actually really benefited both of us.”
Flanagan became a rotation mainstay the following season. It took a little longer for Kato to establish himself as a regular. But he’s on track to start at second base in Arizona’s season opener against Ball State a week from Friday, the continuation of an improbable journey made possible by hard work, grit and persistence.
“His perseverance, belief in himself and putting together a bunch of quality days in a row has led him to the point that he’s at,” UA coach Jay Johnson said. “He’s done everything that I’ve asked of him the entire time that he’s been here. He’s turned himself into one of our best players.”
That’s lofty praise considering (A) how good the 2021 Wildcats are supposed to be and (B) the fact that Kato came to Arizona as a walk-on.
He is still a walk-on, three-plus years later. He receives some financial assistance via academic scholarship, but he’d prefer the limited athletic scholarships available for baseball be used “on getting other players here.” He also never wants to lose that walk-on mentality.
“The job’s never done,” the fourth-year sophomore said. “It does feel good to kind of reach that point where you’re like, ‘All right, I got here after working this hard.’ But it can easily get taken away, just like that. So I’ve got to continue to keep working, always act like someone’s on my back, chasing me down.”
Before this year, Kato always was the one doing the chasing. After redshirting in 2018, he served as a reserve in ’19 and ’20. He appeared in 30 games but registered only 28 plate appearances. He played multiple positions, including catcher, which he learned because Johnson asked him to.
“My first thought was if I’m putting the shin guards on the right legs,” Kato said.
Kato made the most of his time, even when he wasn’t playing. During his redshirt year, he ran through scenarios in his head and learned as much as he could. During his brief stints at catcher, he experienced the game from a different perspective.
“When you’re back there, you see everything going on,” Kato said. “You see every little miscue, you see every little false movement, and that just allows you to understand the game a lot better.”
Kato also gained a better understanding of how pitchers attack batters, and that helped him grow as a hitter. In the summer of 2019, Kato was named Offensive Player of the Year in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. The left-handed hitter batted .441 and had a .612 on-base percentage for the Bethesda Big Train. Both were league records, as were Kato’s 48 walks.
“I would like to take a lot of credit for it, but baseball is a game where it can go really good or really bad or in the middle,” Kato said. “To have a stat line like that, a lot of it is luck.”
Johnson doesn’t view it that way. He sees in Kato someone who understands exactly “who he is as a player and what our team needs him to do to win.” Offensively, that means getting on base and utilizing his speed.
Kato stole 26 bases in 37 games for Bethesda. Last summer he produced a .455 on-base percentage and swiped 24 bases in 45 games for the La Crosse Loggers of the Northwoods League. He was named the team’s MVP.
Kato has a .500 OBP for Arizona. Predictably, he has more walks (nine) than strikeouts (five) in 18 career at-bats.
“I think what you would call his ‘how-to-win awareness’ is exactly what we want all our players to have,” Johnson said.
He added that if he ever were unavailable to coach third base, Kato would be a suitable substitute “because of his understanding of what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.”
Kato came to the UA with a keen understanding of the game. He played for his father, Ryan, at Aiea High School in Hawaii. As a middle schooler, Kobe would tag along with his father to Aiea’s practices. Ryan, who played baseball at Hawaii and Sacramento State, taught his son how difficult the sport can be — how it requires a certain degree of mental fortitude.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, Kato’s parents named him after Kobe Bryant. The Lakers are the most popular NBA team in Hawaii. Bryant was rising to superstardom when Kato was born in 1999.
Kato naturally became a fan of the late Laker. He especially admired the work Bryant put in away from the court. If anything ties the two Kobes together, it’s that.
“He just had that mindset that I’m gonna go win this game. I’m going to work harder than you, and it’s going to show on the court,” Kato said. “That’s what I want to do. I’m going to work hard. It doesn’t matter if anyone sees it. I’m going to put the work in and ball out when the lights turn on.”
Remembering Pedro
Johnson and the program had a personal connection to Pedro Gomez, the former Arizona Republic columnist and longtime ESPN reporter who died unexpectedly Sunday at age 58.
Gomez’s son, Rio, was a left-hander for the Wildcats from 2015-17. He pitched a critical scoreless inning in the 2016 NCAA Super Regional game that Arizona rallied to win at Mississippi State, clinching a berth in the College World Series.
“The part that was really enjoyable for me was to see how regular of a guy he was,” Johnson said of Pedro Gomez. “A superstar as a dad. I loved seeing the pride he took in Rio’s success.”
Johnson recalled “how excited Pedro was when we went to Omaha and that Rio was a part of that.” Rio had a bigger role for the 2017 Wildcats, and “Pedro’s pride in that was very pure,” Johnson said.
“It spoke to his character and how full of life he was,” Johnson said. “(His death) was a kick in the gut for everybody. My heart’s broken for Rio and their family.”
Inside pitch
- Baseball America pegged Arizona as a regional host and No. 15 overall seed in its first projection for the NCAA Tournament field of 64. BA also had No. 2 UCLA as a host and Arizona State making the tournament as a two-seed.
- Arizona landed at No. 17 in the recently released National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association preseason poll and at No. 19 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
