SEMIPRO IS SEMI-TOUGH : Sometimes, Getting a Base Can Be Harder Than Getting on Base for Valley Dodgers

When people think of baseball players, most of them immediately imagine major leaguers, the elite of the sport, men who are pampered beyond belief and are paid more money than an average Praise The Lord leader. But those aren’t real baseball players. Real players carry their own socks, get little or no money for playing and endure hardships that are just vague and distant memories for major leaguers.

Take Wednesday, for example. From a distance--OK, from quite a distance--it could have been the Los Angeles Dodgers out on the field. The unmistakable white uniforms with royal blue trim and word Dodgers across the front in classic script. But it didn’t take long to determine that these were not the Dodgers, but rather the semipro Valley Dodgers.

The first tip-off was that they were preparing for a game in Ventura. At a park with a sign that read, “Park Closes At Dusk.”

Dusk? Who makes that decision? When is dusk? “Hey, Denny, you lunkhead, it’s 10 minutes after dusk and that gate’s still open!”

Another hint was that at the moment the game was scheduled to start, there were no bases on the field. Now, the L.A. Dodgers don’t actually use the bases very much these days, what with a worse hitting attack than Gerry Cooney and all, but they always have bases. And their general manager has never had to flag down a guy riding a lawn mower and beg him to let the team borrow some bases, as Valley Dodger general manager Dave Desmond had to do.

“I’m sorry,” said the man mowing the grass at Camino Real Park. “I’m not authorized to let you use them.”

Desmond told the man that his team had just driven up from Los Angeles for the game and that the other team, the San Francisco Senators, had driven about 400 miles for the game. “Geez,” said the man, who appeared to be wondering which of those two cities was farther from Ventura. “Sorry, but I don’t have the authorization to let you have ‘em. I don’t know if you guys are trying to pull something on me. What if I don’t get ‘em back?”

So that was the problem. Here was a guy who grew up hearing about Maury Wills and Lou Brock stealing all those bases, and now that he was in charge of the bases, those days of people stealing them were over.

More pleading from Desmond followed, and then came another question from the park worker: “Are you guys scheduled to play a game here?”

Desmond fought off the urge to fire off one of those, “No, it’s just coincidence that a team from Los Angeles and another team from San Francisco happened to arrive at this balding patch of grass together at 9 o’clock on a Wednesday morning in full baseball uniforms” kind of answers, but he didn’t. Instead he just gave a polite “yes” and continued trying to talk the man into relinquishing three little white padded sacks so that his players and, in all likelihood, the players from San Francisco, wouldn’t attempt to kill him for wasting their entire day.

The man eventually drove away on his tractor at the speed of evaporation, promising to call someone. A half-hour later, other park employees arrived and intervened. One of them, apparently, was authorized to supply bases. They were put in place 25 minutes after the scheduled start of the game. Then Desmond had to ask whether someone would mind putting down some white lines along the basepaths. Those umpires, you know, are real sticklers for detail. A little thing like being able to tell whether a ball is fair or foul means the world to these guys.

At about 11 a.m., the lines were drawn and the game was ready to start.

“OK guys, let’s take a look at the batting order,” barked San Francisco Manager Bill Marquis, who then stepped out of the dugout and into a giant mud puddle.

“And watch out for the swamp.”

Marquis spent the next minute kicking mud out of his spikes. Hunters build duck blinds alongside smaller bodies of water than the one with which the San Francisco players were going to have to contend.

In the Valley Dodger dugout, however, there was no sympathy. If the San Francisco team had a swamp outside their dugout, the Dodgers had a reservoir inside theirs. It ran the length of the dugout, some 30 feet, and was two inches deep in some places. Salmon spawn in less water.

The game was finally ready to begin. But first, who are these guys from San Francisco? Well, just like the Dodgers, they are mostly college students packing away some experience and staying in shape during the summer. Unlike the Valley Dodgers, however, this team is filthy rich. It has a $300,000 operating budget for the summer, corporate sponsor money that has brought the team a sparkling silver and red touring bus with air conditioning. Oh, and a two-week trip to Japan at the end of the season.

The Dodgers have no shiny touring bus, just Desmond’s van and a bunch of players’ cars. Their air conditioning is the “4-60” model--roll down all four windows and drive 60 m.p.h.

“Yeah, we’ve got about $300,000 to spend this summer, too,” said Desmond. “Give or take $298,000.”

How about a trip to Japan for the Valley Dodgers?

“No,” Desmond said. “But I’m trying to schedule a game in L.A., down in Little Tokyo.”

Finally, 1 hour and 11 minutes late, the game begins. When Dodger starter Robert MacMurray unleashes a wicked curveball for a strike to open the game, a hush falls over the crowd. Well, to be honest, the crowd was fairly hushed even before the first pitch. Actually, there was no crowd, just 17 people, which would be a big crowd in your bathroom, but not at a ballpark.

You’ve heard of a baseball game turning into a chess match as the managers make strategic moves? Well, this game sounded like a chess match.

When it was over, the Valley Dodgers had thumped their well-to-do opponents, 12-2, with Mike Cruz, Rick Allen, Rob Scott, Steve Hosey, Lorenzo Lesky and Brian Ogle picking up two hits each. Allen and Scott hit solo home runs and Ogle finished with four runs batted in.

“San Francisco had a reputation of having money and being able to draw good players, so we were up for them,” Desmond said. “But we’re confident we can play with anybody in the country. We’re struggling financially, but we know we’ve got a good ballclub.”

The Dodgers, ranked seventh in the nation based on their finish in last year’s National Baseball Congress World Series, are 13-1. They play the San Diego Stars, who are ranked 11th in the nation, in a four-game series this weekend with doubleheaders Saturday in San Diego and Sunday at Cal State Northridge.