UC Irvine Notebook / Ann Killion : Oberdank Adjusts His Game Down to Size, and the Fit Is a Hit

For a time last season, UC Irvine second baseman Jeff Oberdank was confused.

He thought he was Dave Winfield.

Well, he didn’t exactly think he was Winfield, but he thought he could play just like the Yankee slugger. A big, tall, power-hitting kind of game.

After all, Oberdank had beefed up his 5-foot 8-inch frame from 150 pounds to a mighty 170.

“I thought I could hit the ball a mile,” Oberdank said. “I was trying to hit home runs every time.”

But he didn’t. He hit five home runs and had a .298 batting average for the season.

So over the winter, Irvine Coach Mike Gerakos had a little heart-to-heart with Oberdank.

“He told me to start playing like a little guy,” Oberdank said.

So Oberdank did. And now he’s one of the biggest hitters on the team.

In Irvine’s first game of the season, against Arizona in late January, Oberdank had three RBIs, with two doubles and a home run.

He hasn’t stopped since. He is hitting .428 this season, helping Irvine to an 18-13-1 start, the team’s best since 1981.

“I told him to use his assets,” Gerakos said. “He has a small strike zone, and he needs to take advantage of it and stop helping pitchers by chasing pitches outside the strike zone.”

Oberdank’s 11-game multiple-hit streak ended last week, and his 13-game hitting streak ended Saturday, but his current streak stands at three games.

Oberdank--”Obie” to his teammates--is from Norco in Riverside County. He spent two years at Fullerton College, where he was an All-Southern California selection, before he came to Irvine last season.

Oberdank, a right-handed hitter, has hit in 29 of 31 games this season, is ranked 18th in the country in hitting by Collegiate Baseball in batting average. He has 25 RBIs and 62 hits--26 hits shy of the school’s single-season record--including 12 doubles and 4 triples. And three home runs.

“But I wasn’t trying to hit them, I swear,” he said.

Oberdank, 22, has come to terms with his size, something he has been given a hard time about all his life. During the summer of 1986, he was playing for a summer league in Kansas and heard the other team razzing him.

“They were saying, ‘He’s as small as a thimble,’ ” Oberdank said. “ ‘Get that thimble out of the infield.’ ”

Of course, it’s an exaggeration.

But such jokes don’t bother Oberdank, who is very certain what major league player he wants to emulate.

“Lenny Dykstra is my hero,” he said. “He’s the greatest.”

“He can hit and he can run,” Oberdank said. “He’s got a good nickname: Nails. And he gets all the girls.”

No one is skating around Anteater Field in a wedding dress with a sign that says “Marry Me, Obie,” such as the woman who used to frequent Shea Stadium with a sign that said “Marry Me, Lenny.”

But the season is still young.

Another Anteater’s hitting streak came to an end in the past week.

Third baseman John Seeburger, who led the team in hits and runs scored last year, had a 14-game hitting streak going into Irvine’s game against Loyola Marymount Tuesday.

But Seeburger walked in his last two trips to the plate in Irvine’s 15-0 loss. During the streak, Seeburger hit .525 with 25 RBIs, 19 runs, nine doubles, a triple and a home run.

“He’s by far the best hitter on the team,” said Oberdank, who played with Seeburger in a semi-professional league in Santa Maria this summer. “He’s so fluid and consistent.”

On Wednesday, in Irvine’s 10-8 win over Cal Lutheran, Seeburger made it 15 hits in 16 games, with a triple in the fifth inning.

Don’t invite them back next year. Loyola Marymount, ranked 12th in the country by Baseball America, scored 10 runs in the fifth inning against Irvine and finished with 15. Last season, at Anteater Field, the Lions beat the Anteaters, 19-4.

Senior center Wayne Engelstad was named the Anteaters’ most valuable player at the basketball team’s awards banquet Monday night.

Engelstad, who ended his Irvine career by scoring 88 points and getting 35 rebounds in Irvine’s three games in the PCAA tournament, was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Engelstad finishes third--behind Tod Murphy and Dave Baker--on Irvine’s career scoring list with 1,530 points. He’s also fourth in rebounding with 698.

Senior Frank Woods was named the team’s most inspirational player; junior guard Kevin Floyd, who averaged 13.3 points, was named most improved, and sophomore forward Mike Labat was named best defensive player.

Anteater Notes

The men’s tennis team, ranked seventh in the nation, won its sixth straight match Tuesday, beating Kansas, 7-2. . . . The women’s tennis team’s own streak ended at five Tuesday as it lost, 5-4, to Yale. . . . Eight members of Irvine’s women’s track team had personal bests at Saturday’s Cal State Los Angeles Relays, including sophomore Buffy Rabbitt, who won the 3,000 meters with a personal best time of 9:44.6.