Myers Leads Gulls With Hot Batting, Soft Voice

Catcher Greg Myers is known among his teammates on the Ventura County Gulls for being a quiet leader. But it’s not his bat they’re talking about.

“Right now it seems everything I’m hitting is dropping in,” said Myers, who has hit .583 with a pair of home runs in his last six games to raise his season average to .322. “I’ve been seeing the ball real well. You try to go up there and be confident, but you also have to stay within yourself.”

Quiet confidence has helped pushed Myers into a leadership role with the Gulls.

“They look up to him and they ought to,” Gull Manager Glenn Ezell said. “He’s out there every day busting his butt.”

Myers has been a workhorse, catching 56 of the Gulls’ first 59 games. The heavy work load has given him a chance to get to know his pitchers, a fact left-hander Jeff Musselman appreciates.

“He calls a great game,” Musselman said. “He does things behind the plate that you can’t learn. He knows how to set up the hitters.

“You may not realize sitting in the stands all the things he does because he’s not a rah-rah type of guy. But I know I feel confident with him behind the plate, and it’s important that you have a catcher you feel comfortable throwing to.”

Myers was signed out of Riverside High in 1984 and hit .320 with the Blue Jays’ rookie league team in Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada.

Myers slumped to .223 with the Florence Blue Jays in Class-A ball last year, but after two months of work in the Instructional League, Myers joined the Gulls in spring training with renewed confidence.

“When he first caught me in spring training, I thought he was older because he was so mature,” Musselman said.

Ezell was also impressed with Myers’ maturity and decided to let him develop at his own pace.

“I had a manager who let me develop on my own when I was a rookie, and I think that’s really important,” he said.

Myers was 3-for-5 with two walks Friday at Ventura College against the Bakersfield Dodgers in a 4-4 tie that was suspended after 12 innings because of darkness. The game will be resumed today at 1 p.m., before the regularly scheduled 4 p.m. game.

The Gulls left 21 men on base, including the bases loaded three times.

The team rallied to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. With the Gulls down to their last out and trailing, 4-3, Eric Yelding blooped a double into right field, scoring Mike Jones from first base.

The Gulls batted around in the fifth inning, scoring three runs.

Bakersfield had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the fifth when Ted Holcomb tripled to right-center, driving in Dan Smith.

The Dodgers tied it with two runs in the seventh inning and went ahead 4-3 in the eighth.