THE SONS ALSO RISE : Daron Isn’t Worried About Being a Hit : What Position Does Younger Sutton Play? ‘He’s a Pitcher, of Course’

Jeff Zippi, Capistrano Valley Christian High School baseball coach, claims he can’t say enough about Daron Sutton, but he certainly tries.

Leaning against the dugout fence during an Eagle practice, Zippi commends Sutton’s character, his maturity, his natural baseball talent. He talks about his amazing adjustment to the varsity at the age of 15.

“He’s 15 going on 25,” Zippi says.

As he continues, the man, uh boy, is settling in at the plate for some batting practice. Tall and lean--about 150 pounds--he’s awkward beside the plate. The batting helmet envelopes his thin face.

The first two pitches whiz by. Sutton doesn’t budge. Just waiting for his pitch, one supposes.

His pitch comes the third time. Sutton clobbers it . . . right into the instep of his left shoe.

The next pitch is also a beaut, belt high and straight. Sutton slashes at it and sends it fluttering maybe 20 feet foul down the first-base line.

Zippi, his spikes rearranging the dirt, mumbles, “Well, I never said he could hit.”

Just then, Sutton stiff-arms a pitch back up the middle.

“That’s all,” he announces, retreating quickly from the batter’s box.

Sutton doesn’t claim to be a great hitter--though last year he hit more than .400 on the junior varsity--but that inadequacy doesn’t bother him.

Daron Sutton is a born pitcher.

Turn back the pages of Daron’s life--in this case a 1972 Dodger program--on page 19 you’ll find him cuddled in the arms of his famous father Don and mother Patti. Along with the starting pitcher, two other then Dodgers--Willie Crawford and Jim Lefebvre--are on the page with their children, shown in preparation for the annual father-and-son game.

Daron, of course, was the starting pitcher.

It seems obvious to just about everyone that Daron was meant to pitch. Even the Capistrano Valley Christian receptionist scoffs at any question of Daron’s position on the field.

“Where does he play? He’s a pitcher, of course.”

But when people suppose a father can give a genetic gift of his athletic skills to his son, things can become rather strained. They can become downright intolerable if the father believes the same. No one knows this better than Don.

“In my profession, I’ve seen a lot of guys who have tried to force their sons into playing baseball,” Sutton said. “I would love Daron if he was a traffic cop or a lumberjack. It isn’t conditional on the fact that he plays baseball.”

His father’s attitude is important since Daron is not having the kind of year people normally associate with the name of Sutton.

Used mainly in relief, he is 1-2. But Daron says the record doesn’t bother him this season.

“I think of this as a building year for me,” he said. “I’m lucky, because I don’t have to come in and carry the team. There are other guys who can do that. I can really work on some things in my pitching, so that by next year I’ll be in the starting rotation.”

Talk to Sutton about baseball and watch a face light up. In his career, he hopes to take the route his father traveled. Up through junior college eventually to the pros. If he can’t play, he’d like to work in baseball. The front office is a possibility.

It’s not just balls and strikes that draw Sutton to baseball. He talks about the crowd and the rumble of a stadium when the home team is rallying. Oh, and the stadiums themselves. Sutton talks about baseball parks the way others talk about religious experiences.

“It’s funny, because I have probably done the least to encourage this love of the game and the parks. He’s picked it up himself,” Don says.

One might think that after 15 years of having baseball govern his life, Daron might be at least a little tired of the game.

For 10 years, it wasn’t too bad. Dad played at Dodger Stadium, and the family lived in the San Fernando Valley. Sure, the road games were a little hard on everyone, but Dad was coming home to L.A.

However, for the past five years, Sutton has been coming home to Houston, Milwaukee and now Oakland. The family lives in Laguna Hills and doesn’t see Don for long stretches at a time. Does Daron resent his father being taken away by a game?

“I miss him a lot, but the summers are great,” he said. “Whatever city he’s playing for, we spend the summer there. It’s like going to camp every year. It’s great.”

The Sutton family is close. Don seriously considered retiring from baseball this season when he could not work out a deal with a Southern Californian club.

During his holdout from the A’s, Sutton worked out with the Eagle baseball team. Part player, part coach, the situation could have been a ticklish one for Zippi, who knows about dealing with parents.

“You get parents who want to tell you who should play or how,” he said. “But here’s Don, a professional, and he was bending over backward not to disrupt anything. He would always ask me first if it was OK to work with a kid.”

While Don was preparing for his season, Daron was getting the kinks out of a little pitch Rollie Fingers taught him. It’s called the forkball.

“My dad was playing for the Brewers,” Sutton said. “He first showed me how to throw the pitch. Then one day when I was at the ballpark I went up to Rollie and asked him if he could show me how to throw the pitch.

“We worked on it together. At first, I didn’t think mine would work that well since I have short fingers, and you need long ones to throw it. But it worked out.

“I’m really lucky, because I can learn things from pitchers of that caliber on what to do in a situation. It’s an advantage. I realize I don’t have a lot of natural talent, but I really want to learn. I think that’s one of my strengths.”

His forkball may grow into a strength.

“When Daron’s throwing the ball right, the pitch is practically unhittable,” said Butch Ward, Eagle pitching coach.

Ward, in fact, has a way of psyching up Sutton for a game. He takes a common kitchen utensil, bends back the middle prongs and sticks it in front of the dugout everytime Sutton pitches.

“Then I tell him, ‘May the fork be with you.’ ”

Well, these are baseball players, not comedy writers.

Daron Sutton admits his love for baseball is more or less a new-found fancy.

“I played Little League, but I felt out of place,” he said. “I would be at Dodger Stadium and then I would be at these little fields. It was strange.

“Plus, they stuck me out in right field where they stick all the crummy players. Where the ball is never hit. I said this is not what I’m going to do.”

Oh, and about Daron’s hitting. Refer to a 1972 Dodger yearbook. Under a picture of 2-year-old Daron, who has a toy bat in his hand, is the caption: “During the season Don coaches his son, Daron, how to be a hitter.”

False advertising? Not at all.

Said Sutton: “I did teach him how to hit. When you saw him foul the ball off his foot, that was my coaching.”