All Field, No Hit, at Least Until Now : Pettis and Schofield Caught the Ball a Lot Better Than They Hit It for Angels Last Season, but Mauch Has Called for Better Connections : If Outfielder Improves at Plate, It’s Hats Off

The Angels believe Gary Pettis covers as much ground as any center fielder.

They believe he has the potential to steal as many bases as the New York Yankees’ Rickey Henderson.

They believe that he must ignite the offense as the probable leadoff hitter, and he must be in center field regularly if they are to cotend in the American League West.

The hope is that Gary Pettis believes, that he accepts lessons preached to him over the winter by Harry (The Hat) Walker and puts them to use as the Angels’ key.

“I think that for us to win, Gary Pettis has to play center field,” Manager Gene Mauch said. “And for Gary Pettis to play center field, he has to get on base 200 to 225 times.”

Pettis had 90 hits and 60 walks as a rookie last season. He went to bat 397 times and hit .227.

He struck out 115 times, an average of once in every 3.5 at-bats.

The brilliance of his fielding and the electricity in his legs--he stole 48 bases in 65 attempts--was ultimately diluted by his failure as a hitter.

Pettis made few starts during the second half. He was used primarily on defense in the late innings of games the Angels were leading.

Now he is trying a new concept designed to cut his strikeouts in half and take advantage of his greatest asset, his speed.

Mauch calls it the “high hop and the hard run,” although it is more than that.

The Angels want Pettis to make contact, to put the ball in play. They want him to bunt, slash, chop, hit to the opposite field.

Walker, who won the 1947 National League batting title at .363 and averaged .296 for 11 seasons espouses the “high hop, hard run” philosophy.

He is also, at 66, baseball coach at Alabama Birmingham.

The Angels, at Mauch’s urging, sent Pettis and Moose Stubing, their new hitting instructor, to Walker for 10 days in November and another five in February.

Walker has worked with Matty Alou, Omar Moreno, Terry Puhl, Phil Garner, Mookie Wilson and Miguel Dilone, among others.

Reached by phone, Walker said:

“Pettis is as good as I’ve had to work with.

“He can be a super player hitting .260, but I think he’s capable of hitting .280 to .300.”

Said Mauch: “The idea is to get Gary to first base. There’s not too many as good as he is once he’s there. He’s in the Henderson-Dave Collins class. And nobody can play center field with him. Nobody anywhere.

“If he were to hit .270, that would probably mean 175 hits and 50 walks. Force plays would get him to first another 25 times.

“He might steal 75 to 80 bases and score more than 100 runs. The way he plays center field, he’d be one of the best players around.”

Said Reggie Jackson: “I really think he can raise our level of confidence and believability.

“Look at the track record of teams with outstanding leadoff hitters.

“Kansas City with Willie Wilson. The Yankees when we had Mickey Rivers. The A’s when we had Bert Campaneris.

“If Gary Pettis hits .270 or .280, then we’ll have three guys (Brian Downing, Doug DeCinces and himself) who’ll drive in more than 90 runs, and one or two of us may drive in more than 100.

“He’ll also be out there every day, helping make better outfielders of guys like Downing and myself.

“I really think he’s the key to the team.

“I really think that if he hits .270, we can overcome our other concerns. I think we can win if he hits .270.”

The Angels signed the right-handed hitting Pettis, a star at Oakland’s Castlemont High, in 1979 and promptly made him a switch-hitter.

He averaged 45 stolen bases in five minor league seasons, and stole 52 at Edmonton in 1983, when he hit .285 and struck out 120 times in 529 at-bats.

Recalled in September, Pettis batted .294 in 22 games with the Angels.

His eight steals that month were more than any other Angel stole that season.

The Angels responded in 1984 by moving Fred Lynn to right and turning center over to Pettis, who seemed to race between Anaheim and Cooperstown while making a series of early season catches that had people comparing him to Willie Mays.

Ex-Dodger Davey Lopes watched Pettis cover half the East Bay before depriving Lopes of extra bases with a game-saving catch at Oakland that Lopes described as the best he had ever seen.

Told that Pettis and Rickey Henderson had once played on the same Oakland semipro team, Lopes said: “They obviously didn’t need a third outfielder.”

Pettis’ speed also enhanced an adequate arm. He got to hits so fast that he was able to throw out five runners at home, three at third and two at second. He doubled another off first.

His 48 stolen bases were more than any Angel had stolen since Rivers had a club-record 70 in 1975. Pettis had 40 steals by Aug. 7. He seldom started after that.

Bothered by Pettis’ unexpected inconsistency on offense, then-Manager John McNamara decided he couldn’t afford the luxury of Pettis’ glove.

Pettis said: “It was frustrating because I would have loved to play. But at this level you do the job or they put in someone who can.”

With Rick Burleson sidelined by injury, the Angels didn’t have that option at shortstop.

While rookie Schofield played, rookie Pettis sat.

Their 1984 experience was otherwise similar.

Successful in the minors, they responded to their new problems by relying on old habits, displaying confusion as they heard different things from different people trying to help them and ultimately beginning to press as their confidence waned.

Said Angel broadcaster Ron Fairly, who last year also served as the team’s hitting instructor:

“Gary, especially, carried the attitude that he had always done it this way, and he had always been successful. We tried to point out that he had never been in the majors before, and it didn’t take a genius to know that if he was hitting .200 he was doing something wrong.”

What the 6-foot 1-inch, 160-pound Pettis was doing wrong most often was taking the wide swing of someone bigger and stronger. Pettis said he tried to reduce it but couldn’t find his comfort zone.

“It got a little frustrating and a little confusing,” he said. “I’d work on something for three or four days, then work on something else.

“By the end of the week I still knew what I wanted to do, but I had received so many suggestions that I didn’t know how to go about it.

“I began pressing so badly that I tried to hit the ball when it was at 55 feet rather than 60 feet. You’re going to swing at a lot of bad pitches doing that.”

Said Mauch:

“A hitter has to have something he can believe in, something he can trust.

“Pete Rose is 205 pounds and strong as an ox but still plays what is looked on as little ball.

“Pete Rose gets the hits nobody wants until they’ve rounded first base, turned back toward the dugout and realized they’ve gone 0 for 4.

“Gary Pettis has some of Rose’s same strength, but he wasn’t playing the same game.”

Mauch figured that Walker could teach it to him.

“He’s an indefatigable teacher, and I had seen what he had done for Matty Alou,” Mauch said.

“He took a .250 hitter and turned him into a guy who got 200 hits a year and had 27 ways to reach first base.”

Pettis said he had heard of Harry Walker but didn’t know a lot about him. He said it figured to be a way for him to help the team and himself.

Said Mauch, implying it was either a crash course or a crushed career: “Gary was not going to get any better the other way. There were too many ways to pitch him. I’m not expecting any miracle. I’ll take gradual improvement. But I have the feeling that he just might explode.”

Said Walker: “Attitude is the key, and Gary came here with a good one.

“Every hitter has to concentrate, has to go up there with an idea.

“Gary is also the type hitter who has to use the bat like a tool, becoming an artist with it.

“We worked on cutting down his swing, using his speed, getting on top of the ball, hitting line drives up the gaps, learning how to ground it to the opposite field.

“He has terrific aptitude, but he’s got to work at it. He’s got to get in the habit of coming off a trip and going out for 30 minutes of extra hitting, laying the bat on the ball like a golfer practices his swing on the driving range.

“This is something you don’t get overnight. It’s also something you can have, then get careless and lose after a couple years. It takes constant practice.”

Pettis has been giving it that this spring. He said he has a better concept of what is expected of him as a hitter, a better idea of how to hit to the opposite field, a better level of concentration and a better bunting technique.

In some ways, while his advancement has been accelerated by switch-hitting, his development as the kind of hitter he is now trying to become was retarded because of it. Pettis hit .254 as a natural right-hander last year and .227 as a left hander.

“When I started (switch-hitting), I just wanted to hit the ball and I didn’t care where it went,” Pettis said. “I now see the need to think about where I’m going to hit it, depending on how the pitcher is pitching me and how the defense is playing me.

“Also, when I first started to switch-hit, it was always hit, hit, hit. Then I was suddenly at the Triple-A level and people expected me to bunt.

“I’m not blaming anybody, but my bunting had suffered and now I’m trying to correct it. I’m going to try to get as many bunt hits as I can.”

Pettis refused to speculate on his 1985 numbers except to say that he is capable of stealing as many bases as any base stealer in the game.

He said he would have been more relaxed and confident in his second year even if he hadn’t made changes in his approach.

Now, however, he said he is that much more confident, informed, and prepared to accept his responsibility.

Friendly and more at ease with the media than Schofield, Pettis will be 27 April 3 and is aware, said Stubing, his hitting instructor and former minor league manager, that “he has to start making his $500,000 a year because he’s now in his prime.”

“I mean, as exciting as he is, he can make that and more,” Stubing said. “And I think he’s now mentally ready to accept the responsibility, the fact that he has to go about it differently as a hitter.

“He’s on no ego trip. He’s willing to accept what he has to do to help the club win.”

It has not been easy. Walker predicted it wouldn’t be. Pettis is batting .213 this spring. If it turns around, he and the Angels, of course, will have to take their hats off to The Hat.