Following in Family Footsteps : Saugus Pitcher Inherits Talent--and Freak Injury --to Perpetuate the Salkeld Baseball Legacy

Just a few more cuts and the lanky youth would be finished. Instead, he almost finished his pitching career. The saw caught a knot in the wood and somehow dragged his hand into the blade.

Roger Salkeld was home alone and had trouble reaching his parents by telephone. By the time the three met in a hospital emergency room, Salkeld’s hand had been bleeding for nearly an hour.

Ray King, a St. Louis Cardinals baseball scout, was shocked by the phone call from Salkeld’s father, Bill.

“He said, ‘Ray, Roger damned near lost his hand, we don’t know yet,’ ” King said. “I just said, ‘Jesus, don’t tell me it’s the kid’s right hand.’ ”

It wasn’t. But King had almost lost his hottest pitching prospect. Salkeld, a 6-5, 195-pound right-hander for Saugus High, pitched last winter for the Cardinals’ West Coast Scouting League team, managed by King. The team included major league players Greg Mathews, Gary Ward and Bert Blyleven, who helped Salkeld sharpen his curve.

Salkeld, one of 17 high school players invited to join the team, became a personal favorite of the craggy-voiced King, 69, who affectionately refers to Salkeld as “The Kid.”

Aside from a pitching career, Salkeld almost lost three fingers on his left hand trying to complete a speaker box for his pickup truck. “I was lucky,” he said. “The doctor told me he’d never seen an accident with a band saw when the fingers were still there.”

Four months, 14 stitches and three scarred fingers later, Salkeld is fine. Salkeld, in fact, has been superb for the Centurions this season. He is 3-1 with a 2.07 earned-run average and three complete-game victories. He pitched a one-hitter with a school-record 17 strikeouts against Palmdale and struck out 14 in a 10-2 win over Golden League rival Canyon. Salkeld also has been delivering a fastball at nearly 90 miles per hour.

Saugus (7-2) enters the Colonial Baseball Classic this week in Orlando, Fla., with Salkeld scheduled to pitch Wednesday in the second round of the 16-team tournament. Salkeld’s name does not appear on a promotional list of 30 pre-tournament standouts. But King is sure that The Kid will attract attention on the East Coast the way he has in California. Salkeld’s fastball, King says, has made him one of the best--perhaps the best--high school pitching prospect in Southern California--scout’s honor.

“I’ve been a scout for 21 years,” King said. “Been with the Twins 12 years, the Phillies for four and the Cardinals ever since. And I’ve never seen a high school kid throw heat like this one does. When have you ever seen a kid who just turned 17 throw a fastball 88 m.p.h.?”

Bill Schmitt, who patrols the Valley area for Major League Baseball’s scouting bureau, compiles reports of prospects that are distributed to every major league club. He has seen Salkeld but is reluctant to talk specifically about a prospect. “I’ll say this,” Schmitt said. “God blessed him with some special skills.”

Those close to Salkeld say that other scouts have said more.

“If half the things I hear are true,” Saugus Coach Doug Worley said, “he’s going to be a high draft choice within the next two years.”

Salkeld is soft-spoken. He shrugs his shoulders when talk of scouts and professional contracts arises. And he balks at speculating about his future. “I’m too young,” he said. “I’m only a junior. I have a whole year to think about that.”

Salkeld is, after all, still a kid. His parents told him never to use the band saw while they were away. But it is easy to see how some people--particularly scouts--might see Salkeld as being much older. He may be only 17, King says, but he has the body and arm of a 22-year-old.

“He doesn’t see what other people see that he has,” Salkeld’s mother, Elaine, said. “He doesn’t know what to say. It’s not that he’s shy, he’s just humble. He just wants to play baseball.”

King, who has coached Kansas City pitcher Bret Saberhagen and St. Louis’ Todd Worrell, believes Salkeld could play for a living. “If he comes along like he should, he’s got a good chance of making the big leagues,” he said. But he emphatically qualifies the statement by adding “If he don’t get hurt. “

King speaks as though Salkeld need worry about nothing else. When Salkeld pitched for the Cardinals, King coddled him, never letting him throw more than 50 pitches a game. “I told his dad that I wouldn’t hurt The Kid,” he said.

It’s pure coincidence, but Salkeld did injure himself, as did his father and grandfather before him. Roger William Salkeld is not the first teen-age prospect in his family.

Bill Salkeld’s house is full of memorabilia of his dad, who died of cancer in 1967 when he was 50. In the living room is a framed charcoal sketch of William Franklin “Bill” Salkeld in his catcher’s gear. Bill Salkeld brings out two finely finished bats, one his father used during his eight-year big league career with the Pirates, Boston Braves and White Sox. The other is a commemorative bat signed by the 1948 National League champion Braves. Bill Salkeld’s signature is near the Louisville Slugger label, right beside Johnny Sain’s.

“Warren Spahn would not let anyone else catch him except my dad,” Bill Salkeld says, eagerly fumbling through a box of scrapbooks.

Other mementos include two baseball cards that were sold in cigarette cartons and the elder Bill Salkeld’s diamond World Series ring.

The final memento is on videocassette. It is a PBS program from the 1970s called “The Way it Was,” in which surviving members of the ’48 Series reminisce between film clips. Bill Salkeld advances the tape to the fifth game. Cleveland Hall of Famer Bob Feller is on the mound:

The Braves’ sixth inning, one out, nobody on. Billy Salkeld at bat and Feller’s first pitch. . . . Salkeld hits a drive to right field. . . . going back. . . . it’s over the wall for a home run. Home run, Salkeld.

Roger Salkeld watches the tape, slipping his grandfather’s ring on and off the pink and tender fingers of his left hand. He wears his grandfather’s No. 15 and his bedroom wall is covered with photographs of him.

“It’s something I can remember him by because I never knew him,” he says. “His accomplishments--that he did what he did--it means a lot for me and for the family.”

The elder Bill Salkeld signed with Sacramento of the Pacific Coast League in 1933 when he was 16. But a knee injury delayed him from reaching the major leagues until 1945. Salkeld was spiked in 1934 and his knee developed gangrene.

“Just before he got spiked, he had an offer from the New York Yankees,” Bill Salkeld says. “After that, they let the contract go and he wound up later with the Boston Braves.”

The younger Bill Salkeld, 40, also was a catching prospect when he was 16. But he also fell victim to a freakish accident and it ended his major league dreams.

“I broke my hand falling off a skateboard,” he says, laughing. “After that my hand couldn’t take the beating any more and I was only a .200 hitter, so . . .”

Roger Salkeld likes to tell about how his dad once received a big league try out. Bill Salkeld says that’s not exactly accurate.

“After he retired, my dad was considering taking a job as a hitting instructor for the Chicago White Sox,” he says. “He and Al Lopez, the manager, came down to San Pedro to look at six guys. That was the first time I ever really got looked at.

“I used to throw really hard. Al Lopez said I was able to change the ball from my glove to my hand faster than anybody he’d seen. I had everything going for me. But he said, ‘We can’t do anything with your damn hand. We can work on your hitting, but we can’t do anything with your hand.’ My dad knew it and they were right. I still have trouble catching Roger.”

Like father, like son. Like grandson?

“I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if it were my right hand,” Roger Salkeld said. “It wasn’t and that’s all there is to it. I won’t go near the band saw now.”

The word on Salkeld is that he has improved markedly since last season, when he was 9-4 with 86 strikeouts and a 2.10 ERA in 76 innings.

“He’s a different kid on the mound, more intense,” Worley said.

“You can see it,” catcher Jared Snyder said. “He’s more confident and he has better control. He can put a pitch on the black if I ask for it. And his fastball feels like 4-5 miles per hour faster.”

Salkeld, who also throws a curve, changeup and sinker, attributes his improvement to playing with the Cardinals and working briefly with Blyleven. “He showed me how to get different spin on the seams,” he said. “I could have learned more if I had more time.”

Salkeld does have time. He plans on playing with the Cardinals again this winter. Then he will prepare for a scouting blitz in his senior year.

Elaine Salkeld would like her son to go to college, at least before he signs a professional contract. Bill Salkeld would like to see his son play professionally, provided he goes to college if things don’t work out.

Roger Salkeld just wants to remain a kid for now. “I’m still too young,” he said. “I’m not going to make any decisions yet.”

Bill Salkeld, however, admits that he longs to see the family name back in baseball. And he hopes that his son’s performance in the Colonial tournament will attract the attention of more than just a few scouts.

“I’ve always wanted to call up Warren Spahn and just say ‘Hey,’ ” he said. “I’m just hoping that somewhere, after Roger plays in Florida, Warren Spahn will see the name in a paper and remember.”