“BOTE BALL” MEANT BASEBALL EXCELLENCE»
Coach’s imprint on game stretches from Colorado to Chicago
Editor’s note: Last of a fivepart series on Colorado baseball icons. The first four profiled were Scott Bullock, Jenny Cavnar, Chris Hanks and Jim Danley.
Back in the day, when Bob Bote was a fiery young coach at Niwot High School, he preached a certain kind of baseball.
He required knowledge, discipline and exactitude from his young players. Heroic plays in big moments were thrilling, and truth be told, not all that unexpected.
Around Boulder County, it became known as “Bote Ball.”
“My dad knows baseball better than most,” said Bote’s oldest son, Danny, who played shortstop and second base for his dad’s Niwot teams that won three consecutive Class 4A state championships from 1998-2000. “He has this keen mental approach to the game and knows all of the skills. He always taught us how to approach the game correctly and play the game the right way. And everything this family has done in baseball is just an extension of what our father taught us.”
The pinnacle of Bote Ball arrived Aug. 12, 2018, at Wrigley Field.
On that summer night in Chicago, David Bote, the Cubs’ 25year-old rookie and Bob’s third son, came up to the plate as a pinch hitter with two outs, the bases loaded and his team trailing the Washington Nationals 3-0. Washington closer Ryan Madson needed two more strikes against Bote to get out of the jam.
“There was a called strike which looked like a ball and it stood out to me the David didn’t blanch, he did not turn around, he did not get upset,” then-cubs manager Joe
Maddon told reporters after the game. “He went on to the next pitch. All those things are good indicators.”
On a 2-2 count, Bote hit a low Madson fastball into the centerfield bleachers for a 4-3 Cubs victory. Bedlam ensued. Bote’s blast was just the 25th known “ultimate slam” in baseball history — a walk-off shot with the bases loaded and his club down three.
“It’s magical,” David said after the game. “It’s incredible. It’s an unbelievable feeling.”
While David’s ultimate slam stands as the apex of his family’s baseball legacy, the essence of Bote Ball came years earlier at Greeley’s Jackson Field.
On May 27, 2011, in the Class 3A state semifinals, the Faith Christian Academy Eagles were locked in a tight game with Hotchkiss. Danny Bote, the Eagles’ head coach, was in the third-base box. His dad, the assistant coach, was on the bench. David, The Post’s 3A player of the year, was perched on third base.
“David looked at me on the bench and I knew exactly what he was thinking,” Bob recalled. “Nobody said a word. I just gave him the steal home sign.”
Added Danny: “It was a very, very close game. I was thinking, ‘We have to get this run in.’ I’d been practicing that steal all year with the team and it was the right time. I also looked over to my dad, saw the look, and gave the sign.”
So David stole home and Faith Christian went on to beat Hotchkiss 3-2. Then the Eagles beat Holy Family 10-8 to win the state title.
All told, the Bote trio won six state titles, five under Bob’s leadership at Niwot to go along with the 2011 championship at Faith Christian.
Bob began coaching at Niwot in 1978, where he compiled a 459-123 record before moving on to Erie, Faith Christian, Littleton and Standley Lake. He stepped down as a head coach this year and caught on as an assistant at Ralson Valley to keep himself involved in youth baseball. Bob planned to spend much of his time watching
David play for the Cubs.
“I’m 66 now and I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to be a head coach anymore,’ ” Bob said. “As long as David is playing, I want to be free to go and watch him. And then, of course, the coronavirus happened.”
This was expected to be a pivotal season for David, who made his major-league debut on April 21, 2018, at Coors Field against the Rockies and hit a double in his first at-bat. Last season, he slashed .257/.362/.422 with 11 home runs and a .785 OPS. It was an inconsistent season for David, but his future is bright enough that last spring the Cubs signed him to a five-year, $15 million contract extension. He plays third and second base, as well as shortstop in a pinch.
The contract extension was a remarkable chapter in David’s unlikely story.
In 2012, Bote was cut from Liberty University’s baseball team as a walk-on and transferred to Neosho County Community College in Chanute, Kan. But the Cubs took a flyer on him, drafting him in the 18th round as the 554th overall selection in 2012. He spent six-plus seasons climbing up, and sometimes sliding down, the minor-league ladder.
Bote Ball is not limited to the aforementioned trio. Mark, 30, played baseball at Faith Christian and then one year at Manhattan Christian College in Kansas. Luke, 22, also a Faith Christian graduate, played three years at Colorado Christian University.
Sports took up huge chunks of the Botes’ lives. Bob’s wife, Therese, was the linchpin of the family, organizing, scheduling and putting untold miles on the family car. High school baseball games in the spring were followed by summer leagues and tournaments. Throw in the volleyball talent and passion of daughter, Sarah, and it was a non-stop circus.
Central to it all, and bonding the family together, is their strong Christian faith.
“Faith is our foundation,” said Danny, the executive pastor at North Metro Church in Thornton, where he’s been on staff for 14 years. “No matter the circumstances that have come into our lives, our faith has been there and it’s bonded us.”
That faith helped carry David through some trying times in the minors.
When he was playing at Double-a Knoxville, Tenn., Cubs veteran Ben Zobrist was sent down for an injury rehab stint.
“Ben, like David, is a devout Christian,” Bob said. “He took David under his wing and he taught him a lot. When Ben got back up to the big leagues, he sent David money every month, because he knew that David had two kids and he knew how hard it is live on a minor-league salary.
“David thought that was so cool that he now adopts somebody from the Cubs’ minor-league system and sends them money.”
The man who unveiled Bote Ball more than four decades ago remains a true believer in the power of sports.
“Sports teaches kids so much,” he said. “It teaches them hard work and about reaching for goals. But the first thing that I taught my kids — and David was as good as any of them about this — was knowing that they were going to fail. So when you strike out as a little kid, I don’t want to see you throw your bat and I don’t want to see you cry.
“I don’t want anybody to know whether you hit a home run or whether you struck out. I want you to act exactly the same, every time. They took that to heart.”
Of course, when David launched his historic slam to beat the Nationals, he was a volcano of emotions, rounding the bases with his arms spread wide and leaping into his teammates’ embrace at home plate.
“That was cool, that was OK,” Bob said. “The time was right for that.”