Prep Baseball Playoffs : Southern Section 3-A : Klump’s Swinging Bunt Leads Western

It takes guts for a high school baseball player to intentionally ignore his coach’s orders.

It takes even more so for that to happen in the bottom of the last inning in a Southern Section 3-A playoff game.

And for it to happen with the bases loaded and the score tied, you’re talking major-league courage.

But Roger Klump of Western High School did just that in Friday’s first-round 3-A playoff victory over Upland in Brookhurst Park, and today he’s a hero because of it.

Klump, an unheralded senior who had spent most of the season on the bench, knocked in the winning run in Western’s 6-5, eight-inning victory Friday, advancing the Pioneers to the second round.

The scene was this: Klump came to bat with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, with the score tied at 5-5. Klump was playing only because starting shortstop Paul Boucher had been thrown out of the game earlier.

When Upland pitcher Bob Sheridan got two quick strikes on Klump, including a swing-and-miss on the second pitch that fooled Klump completely, Western Coach Dave Bowman had seen enough. He did the practical thing. He ordered a suicide-squeeze bunt.

Klump got the sign but thought better of it because he said later that he felt he could make contact with the ball by just choking up on the bat and swinging away.

But Klump didn’t choke up. He made contact but the ball was only a high two-hop dribbler between third base and pitcher’s mound that traveled all of 25 feet.

Sheridan fielded the ball cleanly and made a good throw to the plate, but it wasn’t in time to get Shaun Frattone, who scored the winning run.

“When the play works you look good and when it doesn’t work you look real bad,” Bowman said, “but that’s the second time this season a two-strike squeeze has worked for us.

“If he swings and misses, though, it’s a double-play (the strikeout and presumably the tag on the runner coming home from third) and we’re out of the inning.”

Bowman was not critical of Klump’s veto of his decision on the play probably because it was a day of mixed signals for the Pioneers.

Earlier, in the bottom of the seventh inning with the Pioneers (18-7) trailing, 5-4, and needing a run to tie, Bowman was smiling comfortably because he thought the scored was tied.

“I had no idea we were behind at that point,” Bowman admitted, with a laugh.