Arizona’s Mason White is one of the leading candidates for Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. Although deserving of the award, it wouldn’t be surprising if it goes to someone else Tuesday morning.
White has been overlooked for years, so why should now be any different?
Despite being a UA legacy kid — both his grandfather, Tim, and his father, Ben, played baseball for the Wildcats — and playing shortstop at a high level for high-profile Salpointe Catholic High School, White didn’t receive a flood of offers from big-time programs. More like a trickle.
His commitment to Arizona, the school he grew up watching, didn’t happen until mid-July before his senior year — way late in the process for a player of his caliber (at least before the new recruiting rules went into effect this spring).
Perfect Game rated White as the 16th-best player in the state of Arizona in the class of 2022. As early as last fall, UA coaches believed he was the best.
Asked recently if he thought Arizona got a steal in White, Wildcats coach Chip Hale said: “Yes. One hundred percent. There’s no way that he should have been on the market.”
White carries a .313 batting average into Arizona’s Pac-12 Tournament opener against Arizona State on Tuesday at Scottsdale Stadium. He leads one of the nation’s most prolific offenses with six triples and is tied for the lead with 18 doubles. He has become the Wildcats’ regular second baseman and could be their shortstop next year.
“You can see there’s a little chip on his shoulder, which is great,” Hale said. “We’re very lucky to have him.”
You could call White Hale’s first recruit. Hale got the UA job on July 5, 2021. White announced his commitment — to the school he wanted to go to all along — nine days later.
“Crazy ride,” White said. “Eventually it ended up working out.”
Arizona second baseman Mason White turns the pivot over USC’s Jacob Galloway but can’t nail Ryan Jackson, settling for a fielder’s choice in the seventh inning of the first game of a Pac-12 doubleheader at Hi Corbett Field on Friday, May 19, 2023.
Knocks against him
How does the grandson and son of Division I ballplayers — who also happens to be really good at baseball — get overlooked by coaches and scouts? Why, in White’s words, did he have to “beg my way” into tryouts and showcases?
It starts with size, or lack thereof. White is listed at 5-9, 171 pounds.
“He’s taller than that,” his father said. “I told him to correct that in the program. He just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about things that don’t matter.”
But as Ben White also conceded: “It’s definitely easier to garner attention if you’re bigger.”
Regardless of Mason White’s actual height, that was strike one. Strike two? The pandemic. It wiped out all but four of Salpointe’s games in 2020 when White was a sophomore. It made scouting, especially in person, difficult.
Strike three? White, a left-handed hitter, has an exaggerated leg kick. Many coaches disapprove of leg kicks because they can create extraneous movement.
White said no coach ever tried to talk him out of it. But it’s possible they just never made a direct plea.
Ben White said “many coaches” have tried to get Mason to ditch the leg kick. Hale wasn’t one of them.
“The pitchers will tell him when to get rid of it,” Hale said. “At times he’ll go away from his leg kick, leave his foot on the ground and hit a line drive to left field. He’s smart. I think that’s the one thing that was super underrated by everybody.”
White picked up the leg kick from watching former Wildcat J.J. Matijevic, also a left-handed-hitting infielder who appeared in 32 games for the Houston Astros last season.
“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” White said. “So I started leg-kicking. Now I’m leg-kicking wearing his number (24) at the same school.”
Salpointe Catholic's Mason White hits a three-run home run during the bottom of the sixth inning in the first round of the Class 4A playoff game between Salpointe and Flagstaff at Salpointe on April 30, 2022.
Earning it
Dave Lawn saw what others failed to recognize. The UA pitching coach watched White at an Area Code Games tryout in June 2021 after the Wildcats were eliminated from the College World Series. Lawn realized that White was someone Arizona should pursue.
White talked to then-UA coach Jay Johnson. But three days after Arizona’s season ended, Johnson took the LSU job.
So in the summer between his junior and senior years, after he hit .354 with eight doubles and four home runs in 65 at-bats for Salpointe, White was in limbo. He had interest from some mid-majors but really wanted to play in the Pac-12. He said he had one offer from another school in the conference that was pulled.
That period became an exercise in self-belief.
“I kept telling myself, ‘Just keep going. It’ll eventually work out. Someone will want you,’ ” White said. “Then Chip gets the job.”
Lawn had remained on staff. He worked with Hale to keep the UA roster together — and on ways to enhance it.
A workout was arranged at Salpointe. Hale watched White field grounders and take batting practice. Hale came away impressed with White’s “natural skills.” He also displayed strength that belied his frame.
An offer was made. White committed that night.
“They offered me in person, and they said call us when you want to commit,” White said. “I got out of the car, went to my room and called them.”
White had grown up watching UA baseball games at Hi Corbett Field. Now he’d be playing there with the Block A on his cap.
Was he ever frustrated along the way?
“Not really,” White said, “because I believe you deserve everything that you get. You earn it.
“I thought that I wasn’t doing enough. It just kept driving me to work harder and get in the weight room and keep going to big tournaments and succeeding.
“I told myself, every tournament I went into, ‘This is it. This is the biggest one you’re gonna play. There’s eyes here. There’s coaches everywhere. If you didn’t get an offer, a coach didn’t like you, you didn’t do enough.’ ”
Shortstop Mason White hops over runner Nik McClaughry after unsuccessfully leaping for an errant throw on a stolen base during Arizona baseball’s 2023 ‘Meet the Team’ scrimmage at Hi Corbett Field on Feb. 11, 2023.
Commitment, adjustment
No one had a bigger influence on White than his dad, who played for Arizona, mostly as a pitcher, from 1993-96.
Ben worked out with Mason whenever he wanted to — and sometimes when he didn’t. Ben’s most valuable piece of advice: Don’t assume you’ve made it. There’s always another level to chase.
“To be excellent and to succeed on an elite level, you have to have a certain commitment to the details and the process overall,” said Ben White, whose younger son, Dane, plays baseball and football at Catalina Foothills. “As a younger player, I tried to instill in him the same level of ... trying to be great that Jerry Kindall had instilled in us when I was at the U of A.
“I knew how hard it would be to not only make a Division I team but also to play. From the time Mason was little, it was pretty obvious that’s what he wanted to do. I tried to give him what he wanted — to lead him in the direction to play a high level of baseball. The rest is up to the kid.”
Mason was willing to put in the work and to challenge himself against bigger, higher-profile players in national events. Ben described his older son as “deadly honest” about himself. He would come away from those tournaments knowing he was good enough — but that he also had to keep working.
“I wanted to play with the best,” Mason White said, “and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
This past fall, White quickly proved that he belonged. He made the starting lineup for Arizona’s first exhibition game in the Mexican Baseball Fiesta. He batted sixth on opening night against then-No. 2 Tennessee.
And then ... White didn’t hit.
After going 0 for 2 vs. Grand Canyon on March 28, White was batting .224. He had gone from full-time to part-time. The slump, the scrutiny, the self-doubt — it was all new to him.
“It was hard,” White said. “I’d never really gone through something like that ... It’s kind of a shock.
“You have to go back to who you are.”
White spent hours studying video of himself. He noticed that he was holding his hands higher than usual, throwing off his bat path.
“I was doing stuff that was unnatural and forced,” White said. “I got in the cage and really had to get serious and have a coming-to-Jesus talk with myself: ‘You need to figure this out because it’s not gonna work.’ ”
White figured it out. Since March 31, he has batted .355 with 14 doubles, six triples, six home runs and 24 RBIs in 124 at-bats.
“We took him out. He lost, basically, his job for a while,” Hale said. “Then he got an opportunity to get back in there. And he would not let us take him out.”
Arizona baseball coach Chip Hale discusses the new format of the Pac-12 Tournament, which begins Tuesday at Scottsdale Stadium (video by Ari Koslow / Special to the Arizona Daily Star)
