Oohs and O’s : 9th-Grader Christy Alves Is Armed and Dangerous as a Varsity Pitcher

A couple of years ago, Ron Alves set up a batting tee outside his Burbank house so his daughter, Christy, could practice hitting.

“I heard the ball bouncing off the garage,” Alves said, thinking nothing was out of the ordinary. “I thought she was hitting. So I took a peek out the window--and saw she was pitching.”

The idea of his daughter hurling a softball didn’t exactly appeal to Alves. He had seen several girls pitching in recreation leagues and thought they were put under too much pressure.

“I told her, ‘Christy, you’re a hitter, not a pitcher,’ ” Alves said.

He went back inside the house and, a few minutes later, again heard the ball caroming off the garage.

So Alves decided to take Christy to Dennis Ford, the softball coach at Hart High and a pitching instructor.

Ford remembered thinking that Alves had a lot of potential back then, during the summer of 1983.

“And she’s finally starting to realize some of that,” Ford said the other day.

And how.

On Tuesday, Alves, a ninth-grader at Burbank Junior High who pitches for the Burroughs High varsity, came within two outs of pitching her fourth consecutive no-hitter, defeating San Gabriel, 11-0.

Beatrice Fernandez was credited with a single when her grounder in the seventh inning hit the base runner standing at first. The single ended Alves’ streak at 27 straight hitless innings.

Alves’ no-hitters began on March 25 when she blanked L.A. Lutheran. She then pitched a perfect game against Alhambra on April 9, striking out 16 batters. Alves followed that with another no-hitter against Schurr last Thursday.

(The Southern Section record, five in a row, was set by Monica Messmer, of South Hills High in Covina, in 1983. She is now at UCLA. Lisa Baustista of Banning in Wilmington set the national mark, seven in a row, earlier this year. She has thrown a total of nine no-hitters this season.)

In the game before her streak began, Alves threw a one-hitter against St. Genevieve, giving up a line-drive single with one out in the seventh inning. The outing before that, an infield roller accounted for the only hit off the 15-year-old.

Alves uses five pitches: the rise, the drop, the curve, the straight and the changeup. She has 83 strikeouts in her last six games--42 innings. Alves has pitched in each of Burroughs’ 12 games, allowing 24 hits and 6 earned runs in 77 innings. She also has 132 strikeouts this year.

The numbers have surprised no one as much as Alves herself.

Before the seasons began, she had hoped to play on the junior varsity team at Burroughs. But Jerry Libman, the softball coach at Burroughs, thought differently.

Libman heard about Alves from one of his Burroughs players, who had faced Alves in a summer recreation league.

“She said she couldn’t even get a foul ball off her,” Libman said.

Libman was also told that he was getting a “good pitcher who throws hard, but is wild.”

“I told her, ‘Christy, you’re young and you’ve got five pitches. Why not take it real slow and work on your control,’ ” Libman said.

Alves has walked 44 batters, including eight in one game. But, Libman said, “She hasn’t even pitched a full season. She’s only going to get better.”

How much better?

“If she shows the normal progress as any good athlete, yes, she can be a Division I player,” Libman said.

Said Ford, whose daughter Samantha will attend UCLA on a softball scholarship next year: “As long as she doesn’t get content with herself, and continues to improve, I don’t see any reason why she won’t (earn a scholarship).”

But college is still a long ways off for someone who hasn’t even attended a high school class yet.

Alves gets out of school at 3 p.m, so she misses the first hour of Burroughs’ practices. On game days, she skips her Spanish class and leaves at 2 p.m.

A ninth-grader grabbing the headlines from upperclassmen could cause problems on some teams, but not at Burroughs.

“My teammates say to me, ‘Hey, stud ninth grader,’ or ‘Pretty good for a ninth grader,’ ” Alves said softly. “They never say anything bad. They’re supportive.”

That hasn’t always been the case at Alves’ junior high.

“Some people come up and make fun of me,” she said. “They say, ‘Oh, you’re sooo good.’ ”

Expect more of the same, Ford said.

“I think she will find that people are probably very envious and they have a tendency to show this envy in very immature ways,” he said. “People will say cruel things, that type of stuff.”

Ford should know what Alves and her family will go through. As a freshman, his daughter pitched nine no-hitters and 16 shutouts for Hart. She gained recognition, a spot on ABC’s “That’s Incredible,” and a great deal of razzing.

According to Dennis Ford, Alves has to “develop a tough shell really quick.”

For her part, Alves hasn’t let the early success faze her.

“She’s handled it like I’d hope she would,” Libman said. “She’s humble, uninhibited. She’s a beautiful kid.”

Said Alves, between giggles: “I don’t want to get overconfident. Every game I have to try my hardest.”

Ford gives Alves pitching lessons once a week and likes what he sees.

“In order to be a good pitcher, No. 1, you have to throw the ball hard overhand,” Ford said. “She has a rocket for an arm.

“No. 2, you have to be able to transmit that into an underhand, windmill motion. She’s developing good velocity. She also has pretty good-sized hands, which help a lot.”

Libman said Alves isn’t the fastest pitcher he has seen this year. “But Christy’s ball has movement on it. And that takes all the advantage away from the hitter.”

The Burroughs coach went on to say that Alves compares favorably at this stage of her career to Samantha Ford and Debby Day, a hard-throwing sophomore at Burbank.

“I know they didn’t have the variety of pitches that she does at this stage,” Libman said.

Dennis Ford said that his daughter and Alves can be compared as freshmen, but “it’s unfair to Christy.”

“She doesn’t have the background as a freshman that Samantha had,” Ford said. “Sam had pitched for a couple of years and had started at a much earlier age (10).”

Alves seems genuinely flattered being mentioned in the same sentence with Ford.

“It’s kind of weird,” Alves said. “She’s so much older and better. She’s so experienced.”

Alves joined the San Fernando-Valley based Tri-Valley Shilos Junior Team in the middle of 1983.

While Alves played for the junior squad, Ford pitched on the senior team. Alves has looked up to Ford ever since.

So imagine what went through Alves’ mind during the Simi Valley tournament in March when she went to the mound to face . . . Samantha Ford.

Ford pitched a one-hitter, Alves a two-hitter. The Hart Indians beat the Burroughs Indians, 3-0.

“In that game I was real nervous,” Alves said. “I was scared to death. I wanted to sort of impress her.”

Alves and Ford went 0-for-2 against each other, both striking out once. Alves was the losing pitcher, one of three losses she’s had this year. Because of a wrist injury, Ford has not pitched since that game.

Alves, who has won eight this year, is studying Ford’s technique on the mound. Not her pitching--her staring.

“I’d like to get a reputation like she has in scaring batters,” Alves said. She’d also like to attend UCLA some day.

But that is a few years away. Alves would like to play volleyball next year at Burroughs and continue to excel in softball.

She has a simple goal: “Just to pitch as many no-hitters as possible,” she said with a laugh.

For Ron Alves, watching his daughter pitch is like “a roller-coaster ride.”

“Sometimes I get real high, and think, ‘How could she not get a scholarship.’ Then I think, ‘Well, there are a lot of good pitchers out there.’

“She’s got four years to work on it.”

Christy Alves’ Last Four Games

Date Opponent H IP SO BB Score March 25 L.A. Lutheran 0 7 15 2 11-0 April 9 Alhambra 0 7 16 0 7-0 April 11 Schurr 0 7 14 5 11-0 April 16 San Gabriel 1 7 13 3 11-0