North Carolina State University Athletics
Tim Peeler: Honoring His Father His Own Way
5/20/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 20, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- Last Father's Day, Aaron Bates and his dad talked on the phone. At the end of the conversation, the son said "I love you" and hung up, satisfied that he had done enough in his baseball career to make his old man proud.
They had seen each other just the weekend before, when former NC State assistant coach Billy Jones went to California to finalize Bates' plans to play for the Wolfpack. At the time, the Le Selva Beach, Calif., native was playing for the Santa Barbara Foresters of the Central Coast League, some four hours away from home.
"That phone call, we just talked," Bates said. "There is not one thing I wish I had said to him differently. He knew I was headed to NC State and that my future was pretty much taken care of. He knew I loved him and I knew he loved me. It was like, at that moment, he knew he was done raising me and that he could sit back and enjoy what I was doing."
What else could a father hope for?
The next day, Mark Bates died of a heart attack, as he headed to one of his three jobs. At the age of 46, the elder Bates had worked himself into an early grave, sharing with his wife the burden of putting his youngest two children, Aaron and younger sister Jacqueline, in private school. They believed it was a costly investment that would pay off in the future.
Aaron grieved the only way a 20-year-old baseball player knows how: on the field. That's where he had shared so much of his time with his father, whose dream it was to see his youngest son play in the major leagues.
So four days after the funeral, Aaron headed south to Santa Barbara to continue playing for the same team that had won the NBC World Series title in 2003. It seemed an odd way to grieve someone Aaron had considered his best friend, even for some of his own family members. "Some people were like `Does he even care?' " Bates said. "They thought I didn't stop and take a lot of time to mourn. I did, but I did it my own way."
That was one of the things Mark Bates instilled in his three children: take your own path. "Don't be a sheep," he told them.
"I know people look at me and say `What is he thinking,' because I don't always show a lot of emotion," Bates said. "I just like to take care of things my own way. So I hit a little more. I worked out in the field a little more. When I'm out working on the baseball field, it makes me feel like I'm working towards something for my dad."
Ever since his short hiatus, in the final six weeks of the summer-league schedule and in his first season at NC State, Bates has been paying tribute to his father with his bat, hitting the ball harder than the punch to the gut he took when he got the phone call from his mother last June 25, saying his father was dead of a heart attack.
Since April 1, Bates is hitting .481 with eight doubles, six home runs and 30 RBIs. He leads the Wolfpack in hitting (.421), home runs (9), RBIs (55), runs (53), hits (75), doubles (15) and slugging percentage (.669), all by wide margins. He's in the top 10 in the ACC in batting average and RBIs.
He's a key reason why the Wolfpack is 17-6 in April and May, surging towards next week's ACC Tournament in Jacksonville, Fla.
But first the Wolfpack hosts Florida State in its final regular-season series, which continues Friday at 7 p.m. at Doak Field. The Wolfpack (35-13) needs a sweep or a series win to move up in the final ACC standings and to put itself in better position to host a four-team NCAA regional.
Wolfpack coach Elliot Avent knew Bates could add some instant offense to the middle of the Wolfpack lineup. After all, Bates was a second team All-Western Athletic Conference selection and an honorable mention Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American in his one season at San Jose State. But he played there only one year. A class-schedule issue rendered him ineligible and he decided while the school was appealing his case to the NCAA that he wanted to look for a new baseball home, with the help of his father.
So he left school, keeping his skills honed by working out at several junior colleges around Santa Cruz and volunteering at a local high school. Meanwhile, he and his dad faxed letters to 25 programs across the country to let them know that Bates still had three years of eligibility remaining.
NC State, which was in need of some offensive pop, was one of the first schools to respond.
The elder Bates, who grew up a huge basketball fan in New York City, was excited to know that his son was heading to ACC country, even if that was some 3,000 miles away. He believed coming to Raleigh would be the best thing his son could do. And that, after all, is why he was working those three jobs all those years.
Bates, who was a catcher in high school and at San Jose State, made the move to first base to get himself in the lineup as quickly as possible. He's been solid in the field and spectacular at the plate.
"His numbers are fabulous," Avent said. "And he was playing the Duke series with a little bit of a bad back."
That didn't prevent Bates from getting nine hits in 13 at-bats, hitting two home runs and driving in nine runs in the three-game series.
In the end, the only way Bates really knows how to mourn is to keep doing the things his father taught him, day-after-day: play each game like it's your last, keep your energy level up at all times and be a good teammate.
"I guess that's my way of honoring him, by fulfilling my role as a teammate and making this team successful," Bates said. "And I have his name on the back of my jersey, so every time I go on the field, I'm representing him and my family."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
