Neal Cotts

While the highlight of southpaw reliever Neal Cotts’ pitching career was undoubtedly being a contributing part of the 2005 World Series champion White Sox, his career was so much more than that memorable experience. He returned to college to complete his degree and fulfill a promise to his mother more than two decades after he had left to pursue his big-league dream. And in returning to pitch in the majors after an absence of almost four seasons, Cotts’ baseball journey offers lessons about determination, dedication, and resilience that transcend the game of baseball while serving as both an inspiration and an example for any aspiring professional athlete.

Neal James Cotts was born on March 25, 1980, in Lebanon, Illinois, a town of less than 3,200 in southwest Illinois about 25 miles from St. Louis. His father, Jack, worked for US Steel and his mother, Jane, was a high-school math teacher.1 The older of two boys, he was fortunate to have “hyper-supportive parents” as he grew up.2 Cotts attended Lebanon High School, graduating in 1998. He was a strong student, regularly earning a place on the honor roll. He earned membership in the National Honor Society and was one of two students at the school who were awarded honorable mention honors from the American Legion at graduation.3

Unsurprisingly, Cotts was a star athlete, playing soccer (until an injury ended that pursuit), basketball, and baseball, where he shined most brightly. In his senior year he pitched both a no-hitter and a perfect game, struck out 105 in 62 innings, and posted an ERA of 1.92. His efforts earned him numerous accolades, including selection to the Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat’s 1998 Class A All-Area Baseball team as both a pitcher and an outfielder.4 His future as a big-league pitcher notwithstanding, Cotts also won the Illinois Class A state hitting derby in the spring of 1998 when his point total more than doubled that of the runner-up. His hitting prowess was no surprise; as he batted .557 and drove in 25 runs during his senior year at Lebanon High School.5

But despite his Lebanon High accomplishments, efforts reinforced by his play in American Legion ball, where he received the Most Valuable Player Award, Cotts had never really envisioned his baseball career amounting to anything big.6 He received little attention from colleges, and Illinois State University gave him a look only because the Lebanon coach knew the team’s pitching coach, Tim Johnson.7 But once Cotts arrived, he developed impressively and by the start of his sophomore year he was the top hurler on a squad that included three other major-league prospects.8

Cotts earned the attention of major-league scouts, being named first team all-Missouri Valley Conference after leading the team to a 31-22 mark in 2001. He finished his college career with an 18-9 record and an ERA of 3.58.9 Cotts was selected in the second round of the 2001 amateur draft by the Oakland Athletics. Deciding to forgo his senior year, the young southpaw signed with the A’s and split the summer between the Vancouver Canadians of the Class-A Northwest League and the Visalia Oaks of the high A California League. Pitching in 16 games (14 starts), he had a combined record of 4-2 with an ERA of 2.73. Cotts spent all of 2002 with the Modesto A’s of the California League, logging 137 2/3 innings in 28 appearances, all as a starter. He went 12-6, 4.12, striking out 178.

Cotts’ fortunes took a decided turn in December of 2002 when he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, one of two players to be named later in a deal that brought Billy Koch to the White Sox while sending Keith Foulke, Mark Johnson, Joe Valentine, and cash to Oakland. Joining a team in transition, Cotts was initially assigned to the Birmingham Barons of the Double-A Southern League. After going 9-7, 2.16 in 21 starts and giving up only 67 hits in 108 1/3 innings pitched, and with the White Sox struggling to find a fifth starter, he was brought up to the big-league team.10

Cotts made his major-league debut on August 12, starting against the Anaheim Angels in Anaheim. Staked to a 2-0 first-inning lead, the 23-year-old left-hander retired the Angels’ leadoff batter, Chone Figgins, gave up a single to Alfredo Amezaga, and got Garret Anderson to hit into an inning-ending double play. After the White Sox upped their lead to 3-0, Cotts struggled with his control in the second, walking the first two and giving up a run-scoring single before a double play and a strikeout ended the inning. Cotts’ control issues worsened in the third as he walked the first two batters, who moved up on a sacrifice. Cotts then walked the next two, forcing in a run, whereupon White Sox manager Jerry Manuel removed the lefty, who had walked six and given up two hits in 2 1/3 innings. (The White Sox won the game, 10-4.)

Cotts started three more games, in one of which, on August 22, he went five innings and earned his first major-league victory. He finished the season with a big-league record of 1-1. The White Sox determined that Cotts could be a contributor to the team out of the bullpen. In 2004, under new manager Ozzie Guillén, Cotts pitched 65 1/3 innings in 56 games (all but one in relief), went 4-4 with an ERA of 5.65.

Cotts played an important role on the 2005 World Series winners, emerging as a central figure out of the bullpen. While compiling a 4-0 record with an ERA of 1.94, he gave up only 38 hits in 60 1/3 innings. He was no less impressive in the postseason as the White Sox won 11 of 12 games to win their first World Series crown since 1917. Pitching in all four World Series games as the White Sox swept the Houston Astros, he was the winner of Game Two, when he got the final out in the top of the ninth to squelch an Astros rally, then was the beneficiary of Scott Podsednik’s ninth-inning walk-off home run. He was named Setup Man of the Year in an MLB poll.11

Neither the White Sox nor Cotts were able to duplicate the magic of 2005 the following season. The team got off to a strong start, only to fade, and Cotts’ performance dropped across the board. He posted a record of 1-2, but more telling was the ballooning of his ERA to 5.17. He made a career-high 70 appearances, but pitched only 54 innings. He gave up 33 runs, more than twice as many as he had in 2005, and the 12 home runs he yielded represented a painful contrast with the single blast he surrendered in 2005.

Barely a year removed from earning his championship ring, on November 16, 2006, Cotts was traded across town to the Chicago Cubs for minor-league pitcher Carlos Vasquez and reliever David Aarsdsma.

Cotts started strong with the Cubs in 2007, starting the season with 11 straight scoreless appearances (10 2/3 innings) during the first month of the season. But after allowing runners to score in four of what proved to be his final five appearances with the Cubs in 2007, all of which sent his ERA to 4.86, he was sent down to the Triple-A Iowa Cubs in the Pacific Coast League. His effort to regain his form in Iowa was hampered by injuries as he spent a month, from June 20 to July 21, on the disabled list with a left hamstring strain. Overall, his record with Iowa was 2-2 with a 4.83 ERA in 24 games, six of which he started. Despite the ups and downs, in December of 2007, the Cubs re-signed Cotts, giving him a one-year deal. While he started the season back in Iowa, he was recalled in May and assumed the role of primary left-handed reliever after the team traded away Scott Eyre. Overall, he appeared in 50 games for the Cubs, all in relief, posting a record of 0-2 and an ERA of 4.29 in 35 2/3 innings pitched.

Cotts started the 2009 season with the Cubs, and while he pitched less than an inning in 11 of his first 19 appearances, he gave up only one run in his first eight outings. However, his effectiveness diminished and on May 27 he was sent back to Iowa. While he was scored upon in only two of his 12 appearances with the Iowa Cubs, he suffered an injury and on July 2 he underwent Tommy John surgery on his elbow, ending his 2009 season and beginning a medical nightmare that at one point seemed poised to end his pitching career.

The problem for Cotts was not the surgery, which by all accounts went just fine, but what came next. Released by the Cubs at season’s end, he signed a free-agent contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates at the end of December. But things got complicated when he injured his left hip while rehabbing, aggravating an old high-school injury, a broken leg from a “cheap shot,” Cotts recalled, but one that had not been set right.12 It resulted in hip surgery and the insertion of a rod in his leg.13 The surgery left his right leg “microscopically shorter” than the left, which put more stress on his hip, causing a labrum tear during his rehab efforts. Another surgery followed but it was complicated by a staph infection that led to a month on antibiotics and one more surgery.14 To no one’s surprise after his medical marathon, the Pirates released Cotts but the New York Yankees offered him an invitation to spring training in 2011. However, when he flunked the physical immediately upon reporting to camp, the Yankees released him.15

Thus began an unceasing effort to get one more chance, an effort marked by more failed physicals, numerous conversations that ended abruptly upon the disclosure of Cotts’ medical records and countless unreturned phone calls. Among teams that worked him out and were impressed by what they saw there was still the overriding fear that another injury could result in a career-ending injury.16 It reached a point where his agent, Joe Bick, candidly told Cotts that he had done all he could and that Cotts’ career was probably over. Bick recalled that Cotts “had been through hell and back medically and he had come so far. The thought of not being able to get that last opportunity was just heart-wrenching. We felt like we had failed him.”17 Cotts took the news stoically, figuring he would go back to school, finish his degree, and do some pitching instruction as a sideline.18

Cotts did find some consolation in being out of the game, for while the whole process made for a real-life medical drama, it did afford him a chance he had never previously had to spend extended time in season with his wife, Jaime, and their two young children. But he remained determined to give baseball another try. It was a determination that Jaime understood. Recognizing that Neal had “baseball in his heart,” she said she “didn’t think of other options, because when you have that drive … it’s easy to support.”19 She added, “He made it easy for me to say, ‘Keep going, keep going.’”20

And keep going Cotts and Bick did. Finally, perhaps because Bick was also the agent for the Rangers’ star young outfielder Jurickson Profar, as 2012 spring training was about to start, the Texas Rangers’ GM, Jon Daniels, a man known for being willing to take a risk, agreed to give Cotts a chance despite his medical history.21

After all the surgeries and all the rehab, doubts remained, but they were quickly erased when Cotts was “so impressive after arriving in minor league camp that he joined the major leaguers within a week and was contending for a spot in the bullpen.”22 Reflective of his recent history, on the last day of spring training, Cotts tore his left lat muscle.23 But he had shown the Rangers enough that they assigned him to their Triple-A club in Round Rock where he rehabbed the injury, finally returning to the mound for the first time in three years on June 11, 2012.

Cotts spent the 2012 season in Round Rock. By his own account he pitched “here and there decently,” but overall he did “not throw great.”24 But while he did not get a late-season call-up, his performance in compiling a record of 2-1 with an ERA of 4.55 in 25 games and 31 2/3 innings pitched was enough to warrant an offer of a contract for 2013.

Cotts started the 2013 season back in Round Rock, but an impressive early start brought inquiries from other teams and the promise by the Rangers of an imminent call-up.25 The long and winding road back to the big leagues, one marked by the anxiety, the frustration, and the questions about whether he would ever pitch again, all came to a head on May 21, 2013, when, with six pitches, he got three straight outs against the Oakland Athletics, completing his first inning in the major leagues since May of 2009.26 It was the beginning of a storybook season. In 58 games and 57 innings Cotts gave up only 7 earned runs for an ERA of 1.11, the best on the Rangers staff, and the fifth best among American League relievers who pitched at least 20 innings. He compiled a record of 8-3 with his victory total topping all AL relief pitchers. And it earned him a new one-year, $2.2 million contract with the Rangers.

The distinctive nature of Cotts’ comeback was recognized when the now Chicago resident and former White Sox and Cubs hurler was given the Chicago-Area Major League Player of the Year Award by the Pitch and Hit Club, a local group that promotes baseball in the area.27

Cotts did not enjoy the same level of success in 2014. Like the Rangers, whose win total plummeted from 91 in 2013 to 67 in 2014, Cotts finished at 2-9 with an ERA of 4.32 in 73 appearances and 66 2/3 innings pitched. Once again a free agent, Cotts signed with the Milwaukee Brewers in January 2015. However, his time in Milwaukee was short-lived when, after 51 appearances in which he had a 3.26 ERA in 49 2/3 innings, on August 21 Cotts was traded to the Minnesota Twins for a player to be named. He finished the season pitching in 17 games with the Twins, getting no decisions and posting a 3.95 ERA in 13 2/3 innings. He made what proved to be his final major-league appearance on October 3, 2015, in Minnesota against the Kansas City Royals, when, in the top of the seventh with two outs and the Twins trailing 2-1, Cotts replaced Blaine Boyer, who had just given up the tiebreaking run. Cotts walked Eric Hosmer before Jonny Gomes reached on an error by shortstop Eduardo Escobar. Cotts then gave up a two-run double to deep right-center field by Mike Moustakas and was removed from the game.

In the summer of 2015 it had been announced that Cotts had been elected to the Illinois State Athletics Percy Family Hall of Fame. The 2016 baseball season was a series of trials as Cotts sought to keep his major-league career alive.28 Again a free agent, he was signed by the Houston Astros in late February, only to be released on March 25. Over the course of the season he appeared in 41 games for Yankees, Angels, and Rangers’ Triple-A farm clubs, compiling an overall record of 2-2 with an ERA of 3.83 in 44 2/3 innings. In January 2017, Cotts, again a free agent, signed with the Washington Nationals. He appeared in 52 games for the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs where he was 1-3 with an ERA of 3.94 in 48 innings. He was released on November 6, 2017. His professional career was over.

With his playing career definitely over, the 37-year-old Cotts turned his attention to some long- overdue business – the completion of his college degree. When he left Illinois State after being drafted by Oakland in 2001 after his junior year, he was on track to graduate. During his playing career he had “tried to chip away at the remaining credits,” but did not have the time to make any real progress.29 However, with the daily rigors of baseball now behind him, and encouraged by a conversation he had had with Illinois State athletic director Larry Lyons at his Hall of Fame induction in 2015, Cotts took the plunge, taking advantage of online offerings and working with the university to make it happen.30

In the early going, he did his studying and his work on school projects during the day when his children were at school and things were quiet. In the after-school hours and evenings he would work at a baseball school with which he signed on when he retired.31 When Covid arrived in the spring of 2020, Cotts had only an internship to complete and while he was able to do it, he, like countless others, was deprived of a spring graduation ceremony. But much to the delight of his mother, a longtime teacher, and his wife and children, he had earned his degree, a Bachelor of Applied Science in General Studies.

As of 2025, Cotts and his family resided in Chicago, where they have lived since his early days with the White Sox. Cotts worked with the Slammer Illinois Baseball & Softball Academy in Lake Forest, a Chicago suburb. Cotts is one of a number of former professional ballplayers on the academy’s staff. The organization’s website touts the number of professional prospects it has developed, but speaks of using baseball as the vehicle for “Developing Future Athlete Leaders.”32 As a staff member, Cotts can describe for his students the way he overcame the physical challenges he faced on his road back to achieving a second act in his baseball career. He offers them a vivid reminder of the human dimension in athletics.

Last revised: March 1, 2025

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted MLB.com, baseball-almanac.com, and Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 David Haugh, “Help Was Lying in the Weeds,” Chicago Tribune, October 25, 2005.

2 George Castle, “The Award Cotts Doesn’t Yet Have Is the One That Really Marks the Man,” Chicago Baseball Museum, January 28, 2014; https://chicagobaseballmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/CBM-Neal-Cotts-20140128.pdf.

3 “High School Honor Roll,” Lebanon (Illinois) Advertiser, April 16, 1997, February 11, 1998; “The Lebanon High School Seventy-Seventh Annual Commencement Program,” Lebanon Advertiser, June 3, 1998.

4 Haugh; Rod Kloeckner, “Lebanon Senior Named as Pitcher, Fielder,” Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat, July 7, 1998.

5 “Neal Cotts Is Champion of Hitting Derby,” Lebanon Advertiser, June 10, 1998.

6 “Cotts Shows Promise for Pro Baseball,” Lebanon Advertiser, July 25, 2001; Kevin Bersett, “Former Redbird Star Makes Unlikely Return to the Big Leagues,” Illinois State News (campus newspaper), February 17, 2014; https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2014/02/former-redbird-star-makes-unlikely-return-big-leagues-2/

7 Bersett.

8 Bersett; Jeremy Accardo, Eric Eckenstahler, and Brian Forystek were all members of the Illinois State team that Cotts joined; the first two went on to play in the major leagues. “Redbirds in the Pros,” Illinois State Redbirds; https://goredbirds.com/sports/2014/4/30/Pros_baseball.aspx.

9 Bersett; Randy Reinhardt, “Cotts Making His Pitch,” Bloomington (Illinois) Pantagraph, May 16, 2001; Nick Carta, “Little-Known ISU Baseball Great Is White Sox Hero,” Normal (Illinois) Vidette, February 5, 2021; https://www.videtteonline.com/blogs/carta-little-known-isu-baseball-great-is-white-sox-hero/article_6c0c1a4c-67db-11eb-bbb0-23d3346605ec.html.

10 “Cotts Strong in Loss,” Bloomington Pantagraph, August 18, 2003.

11 Bersett.

12 Evan Grant, “How Neal Cotts Went from the Brink of Baseball Oblivion to Key Cog in Rangers Bullpen,” Dallas Morning News, July 1, 2013; https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/rangers/2013/07/02/grant-how-neal-cotts-went-from-the-brink-of-baseball-oblivion-to-key-cog-in-rangers-bullpen/.

13 Grant.

14 Grant.

15 Castle.

16 Bersett.

17 Grant.

18 Grant.

19 Castle.

20 Castle.

21 Bersett; Grant.

22 Grant.

23 Castle.

24 Castle.

25 Grant.

26 Bersett.

27 Castle.

28 Tim Van Duyne, “2015 Hall of Fame Class Announced,” Illinois State News, July 9, 2015; https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2015/07/2015-hall-fame-class-announced/.

29 Mike Williams, “Cotts Completes Degree at ISU After Long MLB Career,” Illinois State Redbirds, May 9, 2020; https://goredbirds.com/news/2020/5/9/baseball-cotts-completes-degree-after-long-mlb-career.

30 Williams.

31 Williams.

32 “Slammers Baseball & Softball Training Academy; https://www.slammersillinois.com/.