From the Mag: The Batboys
by Rowan Kavner
The evening of March 19, 2018, conjures up an infamous moment for most Dodger fans, when a Cactus League pitch from Oakland’s Kendall Graveman ran too far inside and fractured Justin Turner’s wrist. Turner, however, chooses to remember the night for the more nostalgic moment that occurred hours prior.
In a career packed with noteworthy Major League memories for Turner — from five trips to the postseason, to a walk-off home run in Game 2 of the 2017 National League Championship Series, to a homer in Game 2 of the following year’s NLCS — how could a seemingly random Spring Training game compete with the rest?
“It was three generations, hanging out on the field, of Titan baseball,” Turner recalls.
Turner’s time as a Cal State Fullerton Titan traces back before his days as a baseball player at the school.
As a kid, he was a batboy for the Titans. And, as it turns out, that’s not the worst ticket on a path to Major League stardom.
On the field before that March 19 spring game, Turner chatted with Oakland quality control coach Mark Kotsay, a former Cal State Fullerton player Turner looked up to prior to Kotsay’s 17-year Major League career. Adding to that memorable moment, Turner wasn’t the only former Fullerton batboy standing next to one of his college idols.
As Turner parlayed his time as the school’s batboy into an illustrious career at Fullerton — earning freshman All-American honors in 2003, winning a title in 2004 and posting a .324 batting average in 2005 — one of Fullerton’s batboys at the time was a kid named Matt Chapman.
More than a decade later, after mirroring Turner’s path as a Cal State Fullerton batboy turned Titan star turned Major League standout, Chapman is coming off a Gold Glove season in Oakland in which he was named the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year.
Like Turner does now, Chapman patrols third base.
“I looked up to Justin Turner,” Chapman says. “Justin Turner’s like my favorite player.”
Growing up in Southern California, Dodger fandom was understandable for Turner and his family. But as a kid, it was Cal State Fullerton games, just 15 miles from his hometown of Bellflower, that fueled his attraction to the game. And what better way to stay as close to the team as possible than by serving as its batboy?
Turner’s father and Rick Vanderhook, then an assistant coach at Fullerton and now Fullerton’s head coach, grew up together and remained close after college.
“That allowed me to be up there all the time,” Turner says. “I went to all the camps, got to be a batboy and spend time in the dugout, be around the guys and really just see how guys acted and carried themselves — the preparation, all the details of the game they were paying attention to.”
For five years, Turner stood feet away from eventual Major Leaguers. He was enamored.
“Kotsay might’ve been the most talented of all of them, but Reed Johnson and Aaron Rowand had to bust their tails for everything they got and had lengthy careers in the Major Leagues and a lot of success,” Turner says. “When I finally made it to the Major Leagues, those guys were actually still playing. I got to play against all three of them, which was pretty special.”
George Horton, Turner’s head coach at Cal State Fullerton, enjoyed opening the door for kids to become batboys for his teams. After all, it’s how he first learned. As a kid, Horton says he used to batboy for one of the first travel teams in Southern California. He wanted to be just like the college-aged kids he saw playing.
“That’s kind of what drew me to my career and my love for athletics and my coaching mentality,” says Horton, who most recently coached the Oregon Ducks for 11 years.
Whether or not his batboys end up successful in baseball, Horton believes he can tell at a young age based on their passion, focus, energy and care if they’ll be successful in life. It’s hard, after all, for a 10-year-old kid to stay focused for hours upon hours of baseball. The ones that can tend to stand out.
With Turner, there was little doubt about those attributes. But at such a young age, the talent to play at a top college couldn’t be forecasted.
Horton says “Red” — as Turner’s college coaches called him — wasn’t on all the “Who’s who?” lists of top recruits and five-tool talents. With Turner standing under 6 feet tall, at around 170 pounds, Vanderhook recalls the same thing.
“You got other guys that look the part. They could be a show pony,” Vanderhook says. “But JT was what you call in baseball, he was a ‘baseball player’ — and a really good baseball player.”
From a young age, Turner could make plays in the field that astonished Vanderhook, who tried to stay largely out of Turner’s recruitment because of his close relationship with the family. But after hitting .488 as a sophomore, .392 as a junior and .450 as a senior middle infielder at Mayfair High School, the Fullerton staff was in.
“One thing he knew how to do is he always knew how to get a hit,” Vanderhook says. “When he flipped those balls to right field with two strikes, that’s something he could always do. When he launches the ball way over the fence, that’s something he didn’t do. He learned how to hit before he learned how to crush, and I think that’s paid dividends for him.”
Turner, who would go on to hit 100 home runs in the Major Leagues, hit fewer than five home runs every season at Fullerton. But he also had a batting average above .300 and an on-base percentage of at least .380 every season. His final season was his best, slashing .355/.404/.491.
His batboy could tell you that.
“I watched him play at Fullerton all four years, and he always got better and better,” Chapman says. “He played a little shortstop, but mostly second base, and he was a really good second baseman. Just the way he took grounders, he’s always had really good hands and he could always play.”
Growing up in Orange County, Chapman went to Cal State Fullerton games often as a kid — just like Turner. And he had a connection to the coaching staff — just like Turner. The father of one of Chapman’s best friends was friends with Vanderhook. That was his path to becoming a batboy for Turner and the team he knew so well from playing college baseball video games.
Asked about the 2004 College World Series-winning Fullerton team, Chapman can still rattle off the roster.
“Ronnie Prettyman at third,” Chapman starts. “Blake Davis at short. Justin Turner at second. They had Bobby Andrews in center. (Pitchers) Jason Windsor, Ricky Romero. Kurt Suzuki was the catcher.”
Turner remembers a young Chapman coming to all of Cal State Fullerton’s camps. Chapman’s travel ball team was named the Titans. He had Fullerton apparel all over his house, including a jersey in his closet. Somewhere in his possession is a photo of him as a kid next to Turner in their Fullerton uniforms.
“Fullerton was it back then,” Chapman says. “They were legit. They were amazing. Always went to the Titan camps. It was cool, and Justin was always somebody I looked up to. To see what he’s doing is awesome.”
Chapman knew from a young age if he could go to Fullerton, he would. Vanderhook attended some of the clinics in Lake Forest, where Chapman grew up. But, like Turner, he was often overlooked. There was another star third baseman in the area garnering more attention.
“I’d stick around and watch a game before we got over to the pizza parlor and got something to eat, but they were talking about (Nolan) Arenado and how good he was when they were 10 and 11,” Vanderhook recalls.
Chapman wasn’t drafted out of high school. Still, he hit .422 as a senior at El Toro High School. And it didn’t take long into his freshman season to capture a starting job. Like Turner, Chapman had to work his way to the top.
He watched closely as Turner blossomed into one of the Major League’s top third basemen. And now, the same way Turner followed the Cal State Fullerton players before him, Chapman is amazed he gets to play on the same field as Turner and the idols he grew up admiring — and still admires.
“He’s been amazing, and the things he’s done as a Dodger, I don’t know how many people have ever done that,” Chapman says. “He’s an amazing player.”
