One Coach’s Plea to SDSU: ‘Help Us’ : Dietz Says Aztecs’ ‘Brutal Facilities’ Make Life Tough for Baseball Team

Playing in ramshackle ballparks, Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson barnstormed for years, throwing no-hitters and hitting mammoth home runs.

On a team of glittering stars, they won consistently in less-than-ideal conditions.

The era of the Negro Leagues is long over, but the conditions do not seem much better for the sixth-ranked San Diego State baseball team.

This is a team that each year holds its own against some of the best teams in the country--Arizona State, Arizona, USC and Hawaii.

But, there is a new 4,312-seat stadium at Hawaii, SDSU’s chief rival in the Western Athletic Conference.

The Aztecs play at Smith Field, which resembles a minor-league park in a Last Picture Show hamlet in Texas. The 1,000-seat stadium has dilapidated stands and an almost charmingly out-of-date scoreboard, but it has not stopped Jim Dietz’s team from winning. SDSU is 7-0 this season.

“We don’t have a lot of things here,” senior relief pitcher Kevin Piper said, “but we can play good, solid baseball.”

In his four seasons with the Aztecs, Piper has played on the artificial surface at Hawaii and in the 8,000-seat Packard Stadium at ASU.

He also has spent many mornings tending the grass at Smith Field.

Yet, he is pleased with his decision to play baseball at San Diego State.

“I’ve learned more here than I would have learned anywhere else,” Piper said. “Things have worked out real well.”

Freshman pitcher Mike Erb of Madison High School narrowed his choices to SDSU and Arizona, and chose the Aztecs. Erb said he has been very impressed by the coaches at SDSU and the personal instruction he has received.

“When we bring a kid in here,” Aztec pitching coach Gary Kondratek said, “we have to sell him more on other things than the facilities. We’re kind of down-to-earth people here, and the players realize that. We work hard with them and don’t pull any punches. . . .

“Yet, they (recruits) don’t look at the stadium and say ‘This is neat.’ I’m positive that’s why we lost so many top athletes to those programs.”

When baseball coaches talk about being inventive, they usually refer to trick pickoff plays and intricate methods of relaying signs.

For Dietz’s program, inventiveness is a matter of survival.

Dietz cuts corners and works marathon days so that his players will have adequate practice and game facilities, a strong schedule and proper equipment.

On the way to work, it’s not unusual for Dietz to pick up baseball shoes for his players and padding for the outfield wall at Smith Field, which is next to Peterson Gym at SDSU. Before practice starts, Aztec coaches and players tend the field.

“I don’t want to complain,” Dietz said, “but if the administration expects quality, they should be able to help us with facilities.”

Dietz sent a memo to the SDSU administration in November. He asked that the stadium be fixed, but said no action has been taken.

“Somebody in the administration is going to have to make a concerted effort to help us out,” Dietz said. “This is embarrassing.”

Said Dr. Thomas B. Day, president of SDSU: “I’d like to better facilities for all our sports, better playing and practice fields in general. All sports suffer because we don’t have direct state support for intercollegiate facilities like our competition.

“I don’t think it would be fair for the president to single out one facility or sport for help. We’re working on a lot of things.”

Added Dietz: “We have such brutal facilities, and the state isn’t going to do anything about it. And we probably have the poorest Division 1 program in terms of paying assistant coaches what they’re worth.”

Kondratek said that he knows full-time assistant coaches at ASU and USC who make between $25,000 and $28,000, which he claims is twice as much as he earns. Kondratek works as many hours as a full-time assistant, but Dietz said the SDSU athletic department does not have the resources to hire full-time baseball assistant coaches.

“It’s not easy around here,” Kondratek said. “You take two steps forward and one step backward administration wise.”

The disappointment is not confined to the baseball coaches.

“We’re all frustrated by the baseball facility,” SDSU Athletic Director Mary Alice Hill said. “Our facilities are designed for a school of 18,000 students, and we have 34,000 now.

“The state doesn’t appropriate money for baseball facilities.”

In the meantime, Dietz has served as coach, team manager, secretary, groundskeeper. . . .

The afternoon before the team was scheduled to leave for the University of Arizona, Dietz spent hours arranging for the vans that would take the players on an eight-hour trip to Tucson.

No airplanes for this high-flying team.

For the moment, Dietz had to put aside thinking about his pitching rotation and batting order. He could figure out those things on his 6 a.m. flight to Tucson the next day. Dietz flies ahead of his players, so he can scout the opponent.

“I jump on the merry-go-round in the morning,” Dietz said, “and don’t get off till I get home.”

The blueprints for a new stadium are gathering dust in his office, but Dietz says he will again try to raise funds this summer.

“Sometimes I feel as if we’re crawling ahead,” Dietz said, “but I won’t give up.

“I worked on it all last summer. Now that the season is under way, I have to back off. It’s a dream right now.”

Dietz did not just dream of a new scoreboard to replace the one that, since 1973, has been at Smith Field. Last summer, Dietz got enough support from advertisers to have four scoreboards built. Two of the scoreboards would be at Smith Field, one at Peterson Gym and one would serve as an electric timer at the track.

Dietz said that Miller Brewing Co., Anheuser Busch Inc. and Coca-Cola agreed to split the cost of about $400,000 for a new scoreboard.

“Then it was shot down,” Dietz said.

Day explained that he “would prefer not to give explicit advertising on campus in a campus-supported way to alcohol or tobacco.” But he said there was no statewide school policy on advertising.

Steve Cushman, executive director of the Aztec Athletic Foundation, now is negotiating with another company to help sponsor the scoreboards.

“It’s a tough sell because it’s not a good advertising buy,” Cushman said. “I feel confident we’ll do it, but Jim won’t have it this season.”

Wait till next year already is the slogan for SDSU baseball when it comes to facilities.