Denise Granger Is Playing Baseball as Favor to Fiance : Turning Two

Denise Granger is a 22-year-old woman who plays for the Mets of the Orange County Baseball Assn. The OCBA is a league that, up until Granger’s appearance six months ago, was full of former and current high school, college and pro players from various backgrounds and ages who had but one thing in common:

They were all men.

Granger was the first, and is still the only, woman in the OCBA.

Her decision to try out for the team was neither an attempt to further the cause of women, nor did it have anything to do with her being an exceptional softball player in high school.

She tried out for the sake of--get your handkerchiefs out--love.

OK. It’s a bit sentimental, but the fact is Granger would not be playing with the Mets had it not been for the persuading of her fiance--a nice guy known around the league as Rambo.

When he’s not using the stage name, her fiance goes by John Culver. It was about six months ago that Culver and the Mets were running into a lot of troubles with injuries.

He suggested to Granger that she try out for the team. Her response was a little less than enthusiastic.

“I told him no,” she said. “I was afraid the other guys on the team would resent me and think I was taking advantage of my relationship with John to get on the team.”

As she teetered with the idea, a delegation of team members approached her and asked her to come out. That convinced her.

Though Granger had played softball since she was 8, she had never played baseball. She did have some experience playing against the opposite sex, but that experience involved sustaining a broken wrist in a coed softball game in the eighth grade.

“When she told me she was going to play, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,’ ” said Mary Granger, Denise’s mother.

Though her mother worried, her father, Bob, reveled at the idea.

Bob Granger is a recreation supervisor for Newport Beach and has always encouraged his three children to play sports.

“I was very proud when I heard about it,” he said. “I wasn’t worried about her a bit.”

Said Mary Granger: “Bob always had the kids doing something. Some kind of sport. They’re all still active today.” She laughed a second, then added: “I guess we kind of brought this on ourselves.”

After watching Denise in her first game, Mary Granger lost any fear for her daughter’s safety.

“I could see right away that she could handle herself,” she said.

However, Denise Granger had waited until after her first game, one in which she vaguely remembers playing left field, before telling her parents about her decision.

“I wanted to see how I liked it and if I would fit in,” she said. “After the first game, I felt a lot better. I was a nervous wreck before.”

Granger is now playing second base and has committed just one error in 10 games. The Mets are 3-7.

“She’s solid at second base,” Culver said. “She also makes contact at the plate. She’s better at putting the ball in play than some other people on this team who are always swinging for the fences and end up striking out.”

Culver admitted that he, too, was a little nervous about the effect his fiancee’s presence on the team would have on their relationship.

“We’ve been pretty much together constantly for the past four years,” he said. “Playing baseball had always been like my time off. I was a little worried that we might spend too much time together. I kind of hesitated before asking. I wanted to have time to myself.”

Culver takes baseball seriously, very seriously. Ask him how seriously and he displays his forearms, which have been scarred by head-first slides.

He says they have hurdled the obstacle of too much time together with a little process called “she’s just another guy.”

“When she’s out there, she’s not better or worse than any other guy,” he said.

To which Granger retorted: “Oh yeah? He picks on me a lot more than any of the other guys. And he picks on me for things he wouldn’t say anything to anyone else about.”

To which Culver responded, “I do not,” to which Granger answered, “You do, too.”

Modern romance.