PCAA Doesn’t Have to Be Defensive About Baseball Season : Titans Favored, Irvine to Depend on Experience

The football and basketball coaches of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. have made a yearly ritual of whining about the conference’s lack of respect, but the league’s baseball coaches don’t have to worry about being overlooked.

After eight years in limbo, the new and improved PCAA baseball conference has re-emerged, and it certainly won’t be a fledgling. The conference is divided into South (Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine, Cal State Long Beach and Nevada Las Vegas) and North (Fresno State, UC Santa Barbara, Pacific and San Jose State) divisions. Four of those teams were ranked in the top 20 nationally last year and also made NCAA playoff appearances. UCSB is currently rated No. 9.

Defending national champion Fullerton (don’t expect to see many familiar faces) meets cross-county rival UCI (don’t expect to see many new faces) at 2:30 p.m. Friday on the Anteaters’ diamond in one of four opening-day matchups.

The Titans (8-8-1 in nonconference) are almost completely different from the team that won the College World Series last summer, and they have struggled thus far. Fullerton was ranked No. 3 in the country in the Collegiate Baseball magazine preseason poll after a good recruiting year, but has plummeted to 22nd in the most recent ratings.

“As soon as conference (play) starts, Fullerton will come out like a son of a gun,” UC Irvine Coach Mike Gerakos said. “I don’t see any real weaknesses in this conference this year and you can bet your house the Titans will be a power.”

Right now, the Titans are hurting. Shortstop Shane Turner, one of four key returnees, is out four to six weeks with a sprained ankle.

“The first thing you think about is his defense,” Titan Coach Augie Garrido said, “but we’ll miss him offensively, too.”

No doubt. Turner is hitting .418 this season.

Fullerton has won or shared 11 consecutive conference titles, and the Titans are favored to win the PCAA South, but Garrido’s group won’t be doing it with experience this time.

UCI returns 15 of the 25 players on last year’s roster, but the Anteaters have not exactly ripped through their nonleague schedule, either. UCI is 8-7-1 this season.

Coaching college baseball can be a lot like managing a Little League team: You really don’t know what kind of talent you have until the first few practices. Sometimes, even the coach can’t tell the players without a program.

In a sport where the professionals take the best crop of preps and then go after anyone else over 21, the player turnover from year to year can be depressing--especially if your team is successful.

So, as last year’s best pitcher rides a bus through the Texas backroads on a rookie-league trip, the college baseball coach is often frantically recruiting anybody in a baseball cap and hoping for the best.

Often even a great recruiter can’t compete with the pros. Garrido, for instance, has managed to make 10 consecutive appearances in the NCAA playoffs, but he sometimes wonders how he does it.

Last year, he had lined up three highly regarded pitchers, all of whom were pegged to step into the starting rotation. All three signed pro contracts a week before school started. It wasn’t anything new to Garrido. Dan Petry, now a starter for the Detroit Tigers, and Mike Witt, now an Angel starter, signed national letters of intent to attend Fullerton, but both changed their minds when the pros upped the ante.

So Garrido pieced together the 1984 Titans--featuring a mixture of doubles hitters and “finesse” pitchers--and they won the national championship. Ten players off that team signed professional contracts--even the 5-foot 7-inch, 140-pound Eddie Delzer, whose slow curves helped him play the role of David to the Goliath, top-ranked Texas, in the final game of the College World Series. Four others graduated.

“It’s difficult to project or build on continuity,” Garrido said, “so it’s very hard to dominate in college baseball. The turnover is a problem for everyone in the industry, but the successful teams are actually hit harder.”

Garrido has three-fourths of his ’84 infield back, but he has just two returning pitchers, with a combined 66 innings of major-college experience, and two returning outfielders, who combined for 71 at-bats in 86 games last season.

So much for dynasties.

“Winning the national championship did have a great impact on this team, though,” Garrido said. “A lot of these guys had to choose between lucrative pro contracts and coming here. The national championship, the exposure on ESPN . . . they wanted to be part of that experience.

“A high number of the people on last year’s team were rewarded with professional contracts and that opened the doors for new people to come in. It keeps things fresh. It has sort of a cleansing effect.”

So Garrido signed 17 players, 13 of whom were junior college transfers. The list of new recruits also includes nine highly sought pitchers, three of whom are second-round pro draft picks.

It’s a double-edged sword. You hate to lose all your best players, but then again, who wants a bunch of players on which the pros won’t even take a chance?

This season Gerakos doesn’t face the same kinds of problems Garrido does, but then maybe he wouldn’t have minded--especially if he had a national championship ring to soothe the pain.

The UCI coach would never say it, but he certainly could: “The good news is we’ve got eight players who had more than 165 at-bats last year returning. The bad news is we were 23-34-1 last year.”

Said Gerakos: “We struggled last year . . . hell, let’s face it, we took our lumps. But I’m confident that we’ve improved our offense, our defense and our pitching. The question now is how much we had to improve to be competitive in this conference. I think it’s the toughest in the country.”

UCI is definitely in for a long season. But Gerakos is convinced Irvine will win its share of games, if not take the conference title.

“We wanted to build some confidence during the preseason and we’ve done that,” he said. “We’re on the verge of being a very good ballclub. We’ve been in every one of these 16 games--a ground ball here, a key hit there--all we need to do is get things going our way and get over the hump.”

Considering the strength of the PCAA, that hump may look like Mt. Everest before long.

FULLERTON/ Position by Position

PITCHERS--Right-hander Damon Allen, who led the Titan football team to an 11-1 record last season, had a 3-2 pitching record last year with four saves in just 50 innings. But the Detroit Tigers were impressed enough to send a scout to football practice and offer him $40,000 to sign. The only other returning pitcher is Paul Hartwig, who had a 1-1 record in 16 innings. Allen is 0-1 with a 7.62 ERA in 3 starts this season, soGarrido is relying on his nine recruits, including junior Mark Winner (second-round pick by Boston in ‘84), junior Mike Belanger (second-round pick by Oakland in ‘84), junior Dion Beck (12th-round pick by San Francisco in ‘84), junior Bobby Nettles (second-round pick by Seattle in ‘83), freshman Mark Harkey (14th-round pick by Atlanta in ‘84), sophomore Larry Casian (a transfer from Oral Roberts) and relief pitcher Mike Schooler (Golden West). So far, Belanger is 3-0 and Beck is 2-3 (each has five starts). “Right now, Belanger and Beck are definite starters and Schooler (two saves, 2.84 ERA) looks like the short relief guy,” Garrido said.

CATCHERS--All-American Bob Caffrey (a first-round draft choice of the Montreal Expos) will be missed. He hit .313 with 28 homers and drove in 90 runs. John Eccles, a junior transfer from Santa Ana College, heads the list of five catchers on the Fullerton roster. His play in the fall season earned him the starting spot, but he is off to a slow start, hitting .211. Senior Roger Zottneck (.300) and junior Rich Slominski (.189) will fill in.

INFIELDERS--This is by far the Titans’ strength when they’re healthy. Second baseman Jose Mota, son of Dodger coach Manny, has missed two games with a foot bruise but he’s hitting .426 with 4 homers and 15 RBI. Shane Turner, out four to six weeks with an ankle sprain, wasn’t playing shortstop early last year, but the Titans went 32-5 after Garrido settled on him. Third baseman Blaine Larker was a walk-on last year and made the All-College World Series team. Larker, who is hitting .173, will be sharing time at third with John Fishel, who led the team in almost every offensive category and hit .520 with 10 RBIs in the CWS to earn MVP honors. Fishel, a three-year starter in the outfield, will play third base to improve his professional prospects. After a slow start, he’s hitting .344 with 4 homers and 14 RBIs. Kevin Reimer, a power-hitting left-hander who played on the Canadian Olympic team, is starting at first base or designated hitter. Slominski also will see action at first.

OUTFIELDERS--The starters are somewhat in question. When he is not playing third, Larker will play left. When Fishel is not at third, he will play center. That “keeps all four veterans in the lineup,” according to Garrido, and leaves two spots open. Transfer Alan Stankiewicz (Cerritos College) has had a .371 average with 12 RBIs to earn most of the playing time in right field. Also competing for starting spots are Bob Mellano (Oklahoma) and Jef Garcia (Orange Coast College) along with returnees Jeff Farber (a senior who hit .271 last year) and Keith Watkins (a sophomore who’s hitting .220). “Outfield is the place where we have the least experience, but I wouldn’t call it our weakest position,” Garrido said. “We have a lot of players with a lot of potential.”

UC IRVINE/ Position by Position

PITCHERS--Gerakos has two returning pitchers who will anchor the Anteaters’ starting rotation. Sophomore right-hander Doug Linton is off to a 2-0 start, but junior right-hander Bo Kent is 0-2 with a 7.08 earned run average so far. Gerakos says he had originally hoped to keep Kent in the bullpen, but “he was looking so good we decided to give him the ball and let him go.” He’s hoping that David Trussel, a junior transfer from Sacramento City College, and freshmen Craig Brink (Agoura), Kevin Kandalaft (Whittier) and Robbie Johnson (Santa Ana) can fill out the rotation. Johnson is 1-0 in two starts so far with a 3.21 ERA. Lanny DeRose, a senior transfer from Nevada Reno by way of Golden West, figures to be UCI’s No. 1 relief pitcher. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in 10 innings, and he has two saves. Returnees Damon Carr (1-1, 1.74 ERA) and Brett Martin (2-1, 3.38 ERA) also will see a lot of work out of the bullpen. “This is the best pitching depth I’ve had here,” said Gerakos, in his fifth season at UCI. “I feel really confident with all nine guys, where in the past I’ve had to stay with struggling pitchers longer than I’d like.”

CATCHERS--Senior Steve Morgan is again behind the plate this year, and he’s having another fine year defensively. He hasn’t allowed a past ball in 14 games. His batting average is only .214, but he has driven in 11 runs. Morgan, who played in all but four games last year, hit .276 last season. Backing up Morgan will be Brad Milner, a sophomore redshirt from UC Santa Barbara, and freshman Doug Kline (El Centro).

INFIELDERS--Gerakos has his entire infield back, but it will be familiar faces in unfamiliar positions. “We think we’ve realigned the infield to suit the abilities of the players,” Gerakos said. Senior Bob Perry, who started at third last year, is now at first. The switch hasn’t helped his hitting, though. Perry is batting .189 with 13 strikeouts. Last year’s second baseman, Mike Sugar, is now at third. Sugar, a sophomore, is hitting .275. Shortstop Adam Ging, the Anteaters’ mainstay both offensively and defensively, is back in form. He’s the only regular hitting over .400 (.404), and leads the team in RBIs with 16. Eddie Clark (.250) is the starting second baseman. Reserves are junior Mike Byrne at second base and senior Kent Vaughan at shortstop and third.

OUTFIELDERS--The Anteaters have one of the best outfields in the conference. Junior center fielder Brady Anderson is a “genuine pro prospect” in Gerakos’ estimation, and Anderson has lived up to expectations. Anderson, who led the team with a .345 average last season, is off to a .377 start with 3 homers and 13 RBIs. Senior right fielder Paul Hammond, who hit .380 in league play last year (.317 overall), is off to a .292 start. Senior Doug Irvine and freshman Mike Fay, a second-round pro pick who had knee surgery, each will have a lot of playing time in left. Irvine is hitting .286, and Fay has jumped out to a .412 start. Providing depth are Tom Baine, a junior transfer from UCLA who can play at first base or in the outfield, and senior Donny Davis, the designated hitter.