FUN, FUN, FUN : Hamelin, Who Gave Up a UCLA Scholarship, Enjoys Baseball Again at Rancho Santiago

Almost every time Bobby Hamelin steps to the plate, the question starts to ripple through the stands.

Why did this guy walk away from a full scholarship at UCLA after one season and switch to Rancho Santiago, a community college?

It wasn’t a matter of playing time, or success, for that matter. Hamelin became a starter a few weeks into the 1987 season. He hit .364 with 14 home runs and was voted a second-team freshman All-American.

But he still left.

“I just wasn’t having too much fun,” Hamelin, a first baseman, said. “I needed to make a change. There are certain things about the way a team is run that makes it fun or not fun, and I just wasn’t having as much as I thought I could.

“But I left on good terms. I won’t go around bad-mouthing the program.”

That’s as specific as Hamelin, a 6-foot 2-inch, 220-pound left-hander, will be.

Hamelin left UCLA at the end of the first quarter last fall.

“It was a decision that really ate at me before I made it,” he said.

Gary Adams, UCLA baseball coach, was more surprised to see Hamelin back at the start of the fall than when he left.

“We had talked with him about him leaving over the summer. So when he came back in the fall, I thought he would stay,” Adams said.

“We were still very disappointed, though. He is the best hitter I have seen in all my years of coaching at this time in his career. You hate to lose someone of that quality.”

Not having fun was the same reason Hamelin gave Adams.

“That’s what I got out of it also,” Adams said. “You want everyone who plays for you to have fun. This game should be fun.

“He is very conscientious about his baseball. . . . He wants to achieve as much as possible. With his talent, major league baseball is not out of his reach.”

Hamelin has been successful no matter where he has been. He was a three-year starter in baseball and two-year starter in football at Irvine High School.

As a senior in 1986, he was an all-state baseball player. He hit .514 with 9 home runs and 31 RBIs.

He was the South Coast League’s football defensive player of the year in 1985 as an inside linebacker. He turned down a football scholarship to Notre Dame because he preferred baseball.

Last summer, he played in the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts, one of the premier summer leagues for college players. He led the league in hitting at .330 and in home runs with 11, using wood bats.

In the Cape Cod League, his team was coached by Bill Springman, who was a Rancho Santiago assistant last spring and is an assistant at Loyola Marymount this season.

But Hamelin was thinking of Rancho Santiago long before he played for Springman. He said he had heard about the program when he was in high school.

Hamelin decided to play at a community college so he wouldn’t have to sit out a season, as he would have if he had transferred to a four-year college.

“I had heard that it was a good program and that the coaching was good also; it was close to home, and I decided to go there,” Hamelin said.

Don Sneddon, Rancho Santiago coach, was fishing in Mexico last December when he got the news that Hamelin had called and was coming to Rancho Santiago.

“It was the best Christmas present I could get,” Sneddon said. “That week I got a 130-pound marlin and 220-pound Hamelin.”

Hamelin came to Rancho Santiago just after the end of the winter season and had no trouble fitting in.

“I knew the team would accept him just on his baseball abilities alone,” Sneddon said. “But he fit right in with the chemistry of the team. He was voted team captain after two weeks. He brings a lot of experience to the team, having been through a season in the Pac-10.”

Hamelin is hitting .559 (38 for 68) with 12 home runs and 51 RBIs in 19 games. He hit home runs in six consecutive games earlier this season. He has walked 19 times and has struck out only 8 times thanks to a quick, short hitting stroke.

Ruben Gonzalez holds the Rancho Santiago single-season records for home runs with 15 and RBIs with 67, but that was in 44 games. Rancho Santiago (16-3, 1-0 in the Orange Empire Conference) has at least 21 games left this season, depending on how well it does in tournament play.

Hamelin has a chance at the Orange County single-season records of home runs (19) and RBIs (80) set by Joey James of Orange Coast in 1986. James is now the designated hitter at UCLA.

“You don’t run into the pitchers throwing 90 m.p.h.-plus on this level too often,” Hamelin said. “But the breaking stuff is about the same, and everyone is trying to hit spots. It’s really competitive.

“I’ve been having a good year so far, but my teammates have made it a lot easier. There always seems to be someone on base when I’m up, and it’s always easier to hit with someone on base.”

The logical thing for most teams might be to try to pitch around Hamelin, who hits third, but that has its own problem: Rich Gonzales, who hits fourth. Gonzales, the designated hitter, is hitting .532 (41 for 77) with 30 RBIs.

“My main concern was to find someone to protect Bobby in the lineup,” Sneddon said. “Rich is having a great season and is getting overlooked because of what Bobby has done. But he is making a lot of it possible.”

At the end of this season, Hamelin will be faced with another decision--where to go next.

To transfer to a four-year college, he has to earn an associate of arts degree, which means he will have to continue a heavy course load this semester and through the summer.

Sneddon is pushing for Hamelin to be considered for the Olympic team, and there is always the possibility of being drafted in June. Several major league scouts have said he’ll be considered for the draft.

“That’s all stuff to worry about later,” Hamelin said. “I’m looking out of state at schools and really just all over. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for sure yet, but it will be fun deciding.”