Surico Is Trying to Kick Highly Hazardous Habit : Tustin’s Ace Concentrates on Baseball

Basketball is not a recreational sport that Steve Surico, Tustin High School pitcher, plays to stay in shape for baseball.

It’s more like a bad habit--one that he can’t kick, and one that has been hazardous to his health.

Of his seven ankle sprains, three in the past four years were sustained on a basketball court.

Surico knows he shouldn’t play basketball, especially during the baseball season. An injury to the Tillers’ ace and top hitter would be devastating to Tustin’s hopes for a successful season.

But he loves the sport too much to give it up--so much so that when the Tillers’ game against Corona del Mar was rained out Wednesday, Surico went to Santa Ana to shoot some hoops with friends.

“You can’t keep me away from basketball--I love it,” Surico said. “I try not to play during the season, but we were off (because of the rain) all week and I hadn’t been running. I know the coaches will get real mad, but I had to do something to keep my legs in shape.”

Surico’s addiction to basketball is odd when, by his own admission, he’s not a very good player.

“I’m too slow,” he said. “I guard someone and they just run around me.”

So what’s his attraction to the game?

“I love to shoot the 30-footers,” he said.

Eventually, he will give up basketball. In fact, he’s already started.

Wednesday was the first time since baseball season began (in early February) that Surico has played basketball, and, he was happy to report, there were no ankle injuries.

But these days, Surico is playing basketball less and less, because his stock as a baseball player is going up and up.

“I wonder sometimes whether Steve realizes how good he is,” Vince Brown, Tustin coach, said.

Reality is beginning to set in. When college coaches visit your house and when professional scouts begin to outnumber the fans at your games, it’s a good indication that you have a future as a baseball player.

Surico is being recruited by schools such as USC, Arizona, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount and California. If drafted in June, he’ll have the option of playing professionally.

A 6-foot 3-inch, 185-pound left-hander, Surico has been on the varsity since the middle of his freshman year.

He was 7-5 as a sophomore, 8-3 as a junior, and so far this year is 2-0 with an 0.50 earned-run average. He has 27 strikeouts in 14 innings, which include a one-hit victory over Rancho Alamitos and a two-hit win over Lakewood for the Tustin Tournament championship.

At the plate, Surico, who bats right-handed, has 7 hits in 10 at-bats for Tustin (3-0).

He bats third in the lineup and plays first base when he doesn’t pitch, but Surico’s future, thanks to his improvement over the past year, seems to be on the mound.

Surico has always thrown hard. His fastball has been clocked at 92 m.p.h. and he complements it with a good curve and a split-fingered fastball.

But it is only in the past year that Surico said he has learned to pitch .

“As a sophomore and junior, I used to pump the fastball by them without changing speeds,” Surico said. “Now, I use different pitches at different speeds. I’ve learned to use location to set up hitters with my pitches.”

Surico also has a better attitude this year, one that he attributes to playing on a Cincinnati Red scout team in Orange County.

There, he competed against professionals and college players, an experience that he said boosted his confidence and exposed him to the pressures of pro scouts, stopwatches and speed guns.

“I can’t say I’m used to the attention, but it’s not affecting my pitching,” Surico said. “I don’t try to show off, like I did last summer when there was a guy with a speed gun at a game.

“I tried to show off some times and burned a few in there, but it seems like when you try to throw it too hard, the pitch goes slower. You just don’t have the same mechanics and you’re rushing yourself. With good mechanics, you’ll throw hard, but if you just rear back and fire, it’s gonna be a slow one.”

Playing on the scout team also made Surico tougher mentally.

“When I got in trouble, I’d sometimes fall apart,” he said. “The things people would say from the bench or the crowd would rattle me, but I’m trying not to let people bother me this year.”

He has had one test already. Against Lakewood, Surico had a perfect game after 4 innings but fell behind a batter, 2-0. He tried to guide a fastball over for a strike, but the hitter slammed it for a home run that cut Tustin’s lead to 2-1.

“The Lakewood players were all over me, saying they had my number,” Surico said. “Last year, I would have fallen apart, but this year, I concentrated more and got the next two batters, went on to pitch a two-hitter, and we won, 4-2.”