NORTHRIDGE HAS WINNER IN BATESOLE.

Byline: Kevin Acee Daily News Staff Writer

His professional baseball career, likely limited anyway, had been left on five different operating tables where they tinkered with his elbow, knee and shoulder.

So Mike Batesole took a job as an assistant coach at Orange Coast College.

He also went back to school, spent 60 hours a week working various construction and moving jobs, helped rear two young children and did his best to be a decent husband.

"That's not something that anybody should try to do," Batesole said of the exhausting balancing act that was his life.

But the tales he tells of those years offer a revealing glimpse of the staid man who is the Cal State Northridge baseball team's interim head coach. Because, admittedly, it is those bleak memories that drive Batesole in his job to mold college baseball players and young men.

Under Batesole, Northridge won 19 of its first 20 games and was rated No. 3 in the nation. The team set an NCAA record with 13 home runs in one game against Fresno State. Now 21-5, the Matadors are ranked 12th and are still considered one of the nation's surprise teams.

A "kind of bond has already been established," senior pitcher Evan Howland said of the team's relationship with Batesole.

How has Batesole, at 31, become a promising ideal Division I baseball coach?

"He was mature beyond his years," said former Orange Coast College coach Mike Mayne, whose batting cage Batesole would frequent as a teen-ager and for whom Batesole coached under for four years. "He was a no-nonsense competitor. He was calm, cool under pressure. . . . He has a tremendous grasp for detail. He knows what's important."

Batesole graduated from Garden Grove High School in 1982, having batted .500 with 24 doubles his senior year. Before spending four seasons in the minor leagues, he played three years at Oral Roberts, at the time one of the country's finest college programs. Then-assistant coach Pat Harrison said Batesole was not as gifted as some of his players, but few could match his intensity.

"The tougher the competition, the better he played," said Harrison, now the head coach at Pepperdine. "He wasn't a Fred Lynn or a Roy Smalley. He was a guy who had to work, and it made him a better player."

Batesole's many injuries may have come because he was always running into other players, running into fences, throwing himself around.

And he was always around.

It was that devotion that prompted his coaches and bosses to take him under their wing. They knew he desperately wanted to learn more about the game.

"His work ethic is probably the No. 1 thing," said Bill Kernen, whose retirement after seven seasons as the Northridge coach afforded Batesole this opportunity.

Kernen also got his first job under Mayne. And when Kernen needed an assistant in 1993, Mayne told him, "Look no further. Mike Batesole is your man."

Kernen tried to discourage Batesole from taking the job, stressing Northridge's shortcomings compared to other top baseball schools. But Division I is where Batesole wanted to be.

For two years Batesole impressed Kernen with his "loyalty and honesty" and his desire to improve as a coach. Last season, Batesole coordinated recruiting, made this season's schedule, was in charge of travel and ran practices.

When Kernen left, he told the Northridge administration, "Look no further. Batesole is your guy."

But will he be the guy? The California State University system requires that Northridge open the job to a national search. Applications are not yet being accepted.

Batesole and his assistants are "covering all our bases." And Batesole might not even want the job.

"Who the athletic director is. How the team finishes. Do they want me back? What other jobs are out there? These are all major factors," Batesole said.

Batesole also has four children now. He and his wife, Susie, high-five each other as they pass in the driveway each morning - she on her way home from the graveyard shift at UPS and he on his way to the ballpark.

"She's the one I'm going to have to deal with," Batesole said of making the decision.

But Batesole is clearly uncomfortable talking about himself and his future plans. He speaks often about taking this fantastic season as it comes.

"Most young coaches would be tight right now," Mayne said. "Not him. He expects it. . . . He's been around the game long enough to know you ride it. This game can be brutal to you."

Batesole knows that.

When he returned to school following his playing career he was only a second-semester sophomore. His years at Oral Roberts were for baseball.

"No one could tell me I wasn't going to play in the big leagues," he said. ". . . I was slamming my head against the wall, and that's one thing I'm not going to let these kids do."

He monitors his players' attendance at classes and study hall. He wants them to graduate as much as he wants them to be major-leaguers, as much as he wants to win the College World Series.

"That's really important for me," he said. "Because like most other things, I learned that the hard way."

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PHOTO

Photo (color) Interim coach Mike Batesole, left, shown advising Robert Fick, has led CSUN to a 21-5 record and No. 12 national ranking. David Sprague / Daily News