How Cade Marlowe’s ‘very serious’ approach has fueled breakout rookie season

SEATTLE – Skip Fite has stories to tell about Cade Marlowe.

And he’d tell them all if you let him.

“Golly,” Fite said, “I’m just so dang excited for him.”

Marlowe’s coach at the University of West Georgia, Fite was one of the first people to reach out to Marlowe after the rookie outfielder’s dramatic, ninth-inning grand slam against the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 3, a defining moment for the Seattle Mariners in their second-half push into American League West contention.

Fite called the next day. Marlowe answered while riding the team bus into Anaheim, California.

For Fite, the conversation brought back memories of the first time he saw Marlowe play, as a senior at a small high school, Tiftarea Academy in southern Georgia (Marlowe’s graduating class: 55 students).

Fite, if he’s being honest, was skeptical anyone from a such tiny school would be able to compete even at a Division II program such as West Georgia.

Then Fite saw Marlowe step to the plate.

“Boy, could he hit,” Fite said.

Fite would go on to spend four years working with Marlowe on that swing. Early on, Fite learned that Marlowe could mash fastballs – he could always mash fastballs. Eventually, those Division II pitchers learned to stop throwing them to Marlowe.

What they butted heads on at times was the way Marlowe used his hips. As Fite saw it, Marlowe opened his hips too early. “He cheated a little bit,” Fite said, which he thought made Marlowe susceptible to off-speed pitches.

Marlowe was reluctant to change his approach, despite Fite’s prodding.

Fite was watching when Marlowe hit his first major league home run on July 25 at Minnesota – on a changeup.

“I’m glad I didn’t change him,” Fite said with a laugh.

Marlowe would go on to graduate from West Georgia magna cum laude in premed biology, and he was the first West Georgia athlete to earn Academic All-America recognition, in any sport, in five years.

If baseball didn’t pan out, he had always planned to be a doctor, either something in the field of neurology or orthopedics. (He was a straight ‘A’ student in college except for two classes in which he got a ‘B’ – Organic Chemistry and Physics II.)

During his sophomore year, he had biology labs that started midway through baseball practice most afternoons, which meant he would have to leave early. But after labs, he would come back to the batting cages at night, turn on the lights and get in extra work, often on his own.

There’s one quality that Fite said always stood out about Marlowe.

“He’s a very serious individual,” he said. “He’s about success. He just wants to be the best.”

That’s what also impressed John Weidenbauer, then the Mariners’ area scout, when he started scouting Marlowe.

“Just laser-focused,” Weidenbauer said. “He really paid attention to the small details.”

The Mariners made Marlowe, after his senior season, a 20th-round draft pick in 2019. He signed for just $5,000 and slowly worked his way up the minors. He was called up for his MLB debut last month after Jarred Kelenic broke his foot kicking a water cooler.

“I’ve become more comfortable and confident because of this,” he said recently, watching video of an opposing pitcher on his iPad. “Because of the preparation.”

Fite’s best story about Marlowe might not be Marlowe’s favorite.

You see, Fite was a strict, old-school coach. That’s how he described himself. Example: Practices were held each afternoon at 2 o’clock, and players who weren’t on the field warming up by 1:45 could expect to run punitive sprints after practice.

Marlowe got in a little hot water with the coach after one particularly poor loss on the road. Nothing major. Fite just didn’t like Marlowe’s body language in the team huddle afterward – thought he was pouting – and called Marlowe out in front of the whole team.

That night, the team had a long bus ride back to campus and didn’t arrive, as Fite recalled, until about 2 a.m.

When Fite showed up to his office the next morning around 8 o’clock, he was surprised to find Marlowe waiting outside his office.

“And he’s still got his uniform on from the night before,” Fite said.

The heart-to-heart conversation they had that morning turned out to be a breakthrough.

“For sure,” Marlowe said. “We kind of struggled that year as a team, and it was all pretty frustrating. But that was a big turning point for me, in baseball and just as a person.”

Fite laid out his expectations for Marlowe that morning, as a player and as an emerging team leader.

“After that day, we became real close,” the coach said. “I think he just decided, ‘I’m going to earn everything I get.’ And I’m telling you, he became a different guy from that day on. He became the best player I ever coached.”

Fite retired after Marlowe’s senior season in 2019, after 39 years of coaching. He spends much of his time now fishing and hunting … and reminiscing.

He subscribed to the MLB.tv package last month just so he could watch the Mariners.

“No doubt in my mind, with the drive he has, that he was going to have this kind of success,” Fite said.