Story by Dennis Arp '80
Image by Matt Brown
In the business of baseball, benchwarming is seldom the career path of choice. But for Jose Mota '94 (B.A. communications-TV/film), a dugout seat was a springboard to a major league dream so strong it takes two languages to convey.
"I learned to really appreciate baseball, and that I always wanted to be around it."
Now Mota lives his dream as a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. What's more, he's breaking new ground by broadcasting in both Spanish (for KTNQ 1020AM on radio) and English (for KCAL/9 on TV).
Mota's bilingual break came in 2003, when Angels TV analyst Rex Hudler was suspended after a drug-related arrest. Mota temporarily moved from the Spanish broadcasts into the TV booth.
His work was so good that when Hudler returned, KCAL found a way to keep Mota involved. Now he typically works six innings on the Spanish radio broadcasts and three as a dugout analyst for TV. He also works national TV games for Fox.
It's a long way from Mota's first announcing, done as a child into a tape recorder given him by his dad, longtime Dodger outfielder and pinch-hitter Manny Mota.
"When I got into broadcasting, I knew I wanted to work in English and Spanish," Jose Mota says. "I've never wanted to limit myself."
Mota says he owes much of his success to lessons in discipline and preparation learned from his parents as well as from then-Titan baseball coach Augie Garrido and professors such as radio-TV-film's Larry Ward.
Mota's most treasured baseball experience is still the national championship he and his Titan teammates won in 1984. "We didn't have the best talent in the nation," he says. "But we were a great team."
Now his goals are as close as his next broadcast.
"I don't really have an ultimate goal in broadcasting," he says. "I'm thinking more about what I need to do to make today's broadcast better."
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