'Throwback, Blue-Collar Type Guy': Kade Snell Meshing Toughness with Team Captaincy

The Alabama left fielder has played an indispensable role in helping lead the Crimson Tide's roster this season.

Kade Snell (3) in a game against Tennessee. / Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— In the summer of 2014, Alabama assistant baseball coach Anthony Papio was playing summer ball in North Adams, Massachusetts. North Adams is 131 miles from Boston, and it was there that current Crimson Tide head coach Rob Vaughn, then Papio's hitting coach, had an idea.

"[He] kinda proposed this whole idea to me, basically, what he wanted that to be was, at the time we had three pillars of our offense," Papio told BamaCentral. "Approach, toughness and intensity... He wanted somebody to wear the No. 3, the guy that he felt best embodied those three pillars."

The pillars have undergone an adaptation in the decade-plus since the concept of wearing No. 3 as a tangible homage to them was first floated to Papio, who now serves as the Crimson Tide's third base coach. The current iteration has them as toughness, ownership and grit.

Papio wore the number for the rest of his playing career at Maryland, and then followed Vaughn from College Park to Tuscaloosa in the summer of 2023. The tradition endures in the Terrapins program, but its original lineage made its way to Sewell-Thomas Stadium with the two coaches.

That No. 3 now belongs to Alabama left fielder Kade Snell, the fifth-year senior and team captain whose other distinctions include leading the SEC in batting average and having the conference's lowest strikeout rate. He found out the mantle was his at last year's Christmas party.

"I knew there was gonna be some talk about it," Snell, who joined the program last season and wore No. 28, said. "I never even heard my name get brought up. I just wrote down some of the guys I thought could've embodied that as well. It comes around to it, and they start presenting the jersey and stuff, and they called my name."

His teammates have watched him spend the better part of two seasons in a new program with a new coaching staff, also being firsthand witnesses as the Dothan native adapted to left field, a new position. Snell began his college career as a P.O. (pitcher only).

"I was like, 'Wow.' All these guys are my age, and they think that of me. It shows, if you work hard, that you might not always get what you want, but if you work hard somebody's watching. I like to think of that every time I put on the 'A.'"

Snell's role within the team was already changing significantly from year one to year two, jersey number notwithstanding. The left-hander pitched last season, including an appearance against eventual national champion Tennessee, while maintaining a role as the primary designated hitter.

"At first, it did catch me off guard," he said. "I thought about, well, I don't want to add too much pressure to myself, as the captain. I think at first it was kinda like that. I expected me to be the superstar every single time. Now that I've kinda settled into my jersey... it's just baseball again."

Evan Sleight knows those pressures well. As teammates with Snell last year during Vaughn's first season coaching Alabama, Sleight was given the No. 3 jersey. Papio did not mince words. The number isn't exactly a lifetime achievement award. It's an acknowledgement of incredible responsibility.

"At the end of the day, you're the representation of what it means to play in our program. You're the living representation of that," Papio said. "That's something you carry with you, even away from the field... Evan did a great job, man. Evan was the same guy every day when he showed up to the yard."

Both of the captains selected by the Crimson Tide to date in the Rob Vaughn era undertook the privilege with only one year to go in their collegiate careers. The opportunity to make an impact does not necessarily diminish due to that timing.

"It's really just about being that teammate for the rest of your teammates, for the rest of the guys, no matter what happens," Sleight said. "Being that steady guy that they can look up to and try to model that the whole year. I think Kade has done an incredible job."

The former Crimson Tide right fielder understood that, even though the team believes in Snell as a player and as a human being, there would be increased expectations internal and external inherent to the captaincy.

"I love the kid. I think he's awesome. I spoke to him when he first got told that he was gonna be the captain. I told him, 'There's no one better. Just be yourself. At the end of the day, that's what people want.'"

- Evan Sleight

The second Alabama captain of the Rob Vaughn era, who is on an 11-game hitting streak, did pick up pointers from the first. One of them was compartmentalizing the game and not letting on-field outcomes dictate a given day, or life itself.

"He was a really good example," Snell said of Sleight. "He stayed level-headed with anything... This game really tests you sometimes. Of course, you hear all the possible bat slammings and helmet slammings and things like that, but in the grand scheme of things, if you just stay level with everything, you'll get the results that you need to get when you need to get them."

Those results really started rolling in around mid-March. Between March 11 and March 16, the Crimson Tide played four road games: one at UAB and three at Texas A&M, during the opening weekend of SEC play.

In that span, Snell amassed five hits, three home runs, four runs and four runs batted in. After the team's most recent game, a 10-2 win at Troy, he is hitting .394 with nine home runs, 44 batted in and has more than twice as many bases on balls as strikeouts (29 walks to 13 punchouts).

"UAB was kinda like, the game. I was like, 'Alright, I'm gonna be on the barrel. I'm gonna go for gappers and all that kind of stuff.' My first at-bat, I hit a seed [hard-hit ball] to center," Snell said. "I hit it, and I was like, 'That's what it's supposed to feel like. 'I know I'm out, but that's what it's supposed to feel like.'

"Later that game, I got a fastball in, that's probably the hardest-hit ball I've ever hit in my life. I hit it like 112 [miles per hour] and it cleared the wall... And then A&M followed, and it was just, I'm gonna keep setting myself up in these good situations and I'm gonna have confidence when I step into the box."

Buoyed in part by Snell's contributions from (almost too fittingly) the No. 3 spot in the lineup, the Crimson Tide is No. 23 in the D1Baseball Top 25. It has a winning SEC record through 24 games of league play and is one of the teams which could host an NCAA regional with a late-season hot streak.

"I've creeped back up," Snell, who hit fifth on Opening Day, said. "Whether I'm batting in the three, one, two, seven, eight, nine, it doesn't matter. Anything I can do to help the team win, sign me up." He added that younger players' alignment with that vision makes his leadership role easier.

Sleight and Snell went through a lot together. Both players also suited up for more than two schools. The former can attest to the latter's sincerity when Snell speaks about his willingness to send his individual inclinations off to the side in favor of the team and the bigger picture.

"He puts others first, which I think is really important," Sleight said. "You obviously want to do well, because then it's gonna help the team more, but Kade, he's really great about being able to put others first and being like a model teammate."

One thing that comes up when discussing Snell is one of the pillars: toughness. He has played in 48 of a possible 49 games this season. The one he missed was in early April following an outfield collision on March 30. He gashed his dominant hand but got stitches and was back days later.

"Kade is an extremely tough human being. He loves to work. He's kinda your throwback, blue-collar type guy... The first word that comes to mind is toughness. That guy is one of the toughest players I've ever been around. That's a physical toughness and also the mental toughness side of things."

- Anthony Papio

Sleight relayed a story from his own college days of a time Snell slid back into first base and wound up with his finger out of place. To his teammates' amazement, it was as if what might ordinarily be an injury equal parts inconvenient and painful was just a blip on Snell's radar.

"I think it was his pinky, was sideways," Sleight said. "He just stood there and clicked it right back into place and acted like nothing happened. We were all just like, 'Did you guys just see that?'... He knows when to be tough. He knows when to be serious. And then he's a real good friend."

Snell's dogged determination to help his team is manifest in more ways than one. He doesn't want this weekend's series against Georgia to be the last time he plays home games in college. To that end, he is ready, willing and able to pitch again.

"I keep on saying I've got one more inning left in me," Snell, who had four hits, a home run and five RBIs in the game against Troy, said. "I don't know when that's gonna get spent."

Papio takes a less eager approach to that possibility than the Crimson Tide captain does, but he nevertheless did not dismiss the prospect out of hand. Snell went from being cut by Auburn as a pitcher to being spoken about as a possible win-or-die postseason option by an SEC coach.

"That guy would do anything to help this ballclub and help us win," Papio said. "It's not completely off the table. If we're in game five of a regional, in a winner-takes-all type situation, and we're running a little thin on the mound, that guy would suit up for us in a second. Not completely out of the question."

One person has no doubt the southpaw will appear on the mound again before his tenure at Alabama is officially said and done. Sleight possesses certainty that Snell will pitch in 2025, and it will be a moment to remember.

"It's gonna be special, I'll tell you that," Sleight said. "I don't know when that inning's gonna come, but when you see him coming in from the bullpen, it's gonna be a special moment. I would look out for that."

Whether it's pitching or hitting, Snell is dialed into working to maintain high-level performance. He thought his baseball career might be over once his time at Auburn ended. Now, he's on the other side of the Iron Bowl rivalry as a player that others rally behind and respond to.

"When he speaks, and this is partly because of the way he goes about his business, guys respond when he opens his mouth. Guys take what he has to say in stride," Papio said. "We try to empower him, help him understand, your word carries a lot of weight in this program."

His goals are substantial too. The Crimson Tide has never won a national title, though it has played for the crown multiple times. Snell wants to change those fortunes, believing that if Alabama (which is currently 37-12) plays its brand of baseball, things could be "ugly" for other teams.

"Selfishly, I want to win the whole thing. I wouldn't say that's selfish. I'm talking for 40 other guys too when I say that. I want to walk off this field knowing I've done everything I can for the University of Alabama."

- Kade Snell

Alabama has not been to the College World Series since 1999. The 2023 team came close, the year before Snell arrived. Reaching Omaha was a goal of the 2024 squad, meaning Snell has been around a clubhouse with Charles Schwab Field in its sights since coming to Tuscaloosa.

"I want to do it the right way. It's easy to do things the shortcut way. It's supposed to mean something when you take things the hard way," Snell said. "It's worth it in the end. That's what I want people to pick up on. Whoever gets to wear this jersey next year... how people see me, I just want them to see a hard worker, and nothing was easy for him, he went out and had to go get it."

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