FIELDER’S CHOICE : Cruel & Unusual : From Huntington Beach’s Monster to Fullerton’s Chicken Coop . . .

Some 290 feet from home plate at Huntington Beach High School, The Monster lurks. It looks down upon the left-field grass, practically daring hitters to send baseballs over its chain-linked mass. Pitchers and left fielders dread it. Umpires can be baffled by it. But there is rarely a baseball game played here in which The Monster doesn’t have some say in the outcome.

It is the 30-foot-tall, left-field fence, affectionately referred to as The Monster, that makes Huntington Beach one of Orange County’s more unusual prep baseball parks. But it’s not the only county field with a look all its own. A number of ballparks have unique characteristics that make them interesting places to play.

“When opposing teams show up and get off the bus, the first thing they see is The Monster,” said Mike Dodd, Huntington Beach’s coach.

“We just call it the Brown Monster. It’s gotten a little rusty over the years.”

But The Monster hasn’t exactly mellowed with age. The base of its chain-link fencing has been bent upward by frustrated left fielders who have crawled under it to retrieve balls. “The Monster’s starting to grow teeth,” Dodd said.

Like the storied Green Monster in Boston’s Fenway Park, The Monster of Huntington Beach has produced its share of horror stories. One of Dodd’s favorites involves a left fielder drifting back to make a play on a deep fly ball, closing in on the spot in left-center where The Monster meets with the four-foot fence that surrounds the rest of the outfield. The grass slopes gently upward at the base of the fence.

“He was going back on the ball,” Dodd recalled, “and I took a look at the runner on first base to see what he was doing. When I looked back, I saw the ball hit the screen and our left fielder was gone. He just disappeared.

“I thought, ‘My God, what happened to our left fielder?’ I thought maybe The Monster got him. Finally, I saw him climb back over the small fence. He had gone over the small fence and disappeared behind that slope. Our center fielder came over and fielded the ball.”

Combine The Monster with a stiff breeze that blows in from the ocean less than a mile away on Golden West Street, and the home of the Oilers can be the setting for baseball follies. The wind blows across from right field, pushing balls hit to left into the waiting jaws of The Monster.

“Opposing players will come in here and hit a fly ball to left-center, and they’ll immediately break into a trot, thinking it will clear the short fence,” Dodd said. “Well, the wind gets a hold of it and takes it right into the screen. A home run turns into a single.

“It’s also a tough field to umpire. On balls hit over The Monster, umpires have a really difficult time determining whether they left the park fair or foul, especially when the wind makes the ball hook like it does.”

Dodd recognizes the importance of learning to live with The Monster. He said he spends at least 10 minutes of each practice drilling his outfielders on the finer points of playing bounces off the screen and climbing the left-field slope without tripping. And he doesn’t exactly discourage his right-handed hitters from looking for a pitch to pull.

“If we’re facing a kid who doesn’t have great velocity, we’ll get right up on the plate,” Dodd said. “We want to see a fastball inside.”

The Monster takes care of the rest.

Huntington Beach is not the only county field with unusual quirks in dimension and design. A look at some of the others:

Fullerton--The county’s most notorious launching pad . . . delightful for hitters but frightful for pitchers. The center-field fence is approximately 35-feet high but is only 313 feet away from home plate. It’s 318 feet down the left-field line, 298 in right.

“It’s a good place to hit,” said Fullerton Coach Dave Torres, who will never be accused of hyperbole. It’s no coincidence that the Indians have been the county’s home run leaders in recent years, but this season has seen the not-so-long ball work against them. Fullerton lost to Sonora and La Habra in its last two outings. In both games, the Indians went into the sixth inning tied, only to have their opponents hit grand slams over the right-field fence.

The Fullerton High Agriculture Department is located behind the school’s baseball field. Sheeps and cows congregate to graze behind the center-field fence, and an aluminum chicken coop is stationed beyond the left-field fence.

“We hit that chicken coop constantly,” Torres said. “They say that every time we hit that thing, a chicken has a heart attack and dies. I guess the noise scares them.”

La Habra--Orange County’s answer to Wrigley Field. Ivy covers the fence in left field, shadowed by tall trees that line Idaho Street. The embankment in right field is covered with more trees and ivy, with well-traveled Whittier Boulevard serving as a backdrop. The greenery makes for an intimate setting and is a refreshing departure from some of the county’s more sterile, plain-wrapped parks.

Valencia--It’s 295 down the right-field line. No wonder left-hand hitting Andy Ruscitto is the county’s leading home run hitter with nine, right? Wrong, according to Valencia Coach Kevin McConnell. “Most of the balls he’s hit have been toward right-center,” McConnell said. “There hasn’t been a cheapy in the bunch.”

The short porch in right field doesn’t come into play as much as The Monster in Huntington Beach, McConnell said. “Most teams don’t have good, left-handed power hitters. We haven’t been beat by a cheap home run yet.”