THE COMMUNITY COLLEGES : OCC’s Dehdashtian Is a Force Around the Plate

Derek Dehdashtian is one of those guys who just looks like a catcher.

Dehdashtian, a sophomore at Orange Coast College, packs 215 pounds into a 6-foot frame.

His coach and college and professional scouts talk about his future in terms of catching.

But so far, his career behind the plate has consisted of about 15 games. He has remained at third base, his position since Little League, otherwise.

“He’s a bowling ball out there,” Mike Mayne, OCC coach, joked about Dehdashtian in the infield. “His range is a controlled dive in either direction. . . . But he really does a pretty good job. His strong point is his quick hands.”

Mayne had switched Dehdashtian to catcher for the first time last winter. He played catcher for the last week of the winter season and the first 15 games of the regular season.

“You just look at his body type and he looks like a catcher,” Mayne said. “At first, it was a favor to him for his baseball future. But having him behind the plate was also part of putting the best team we could put on the field at the time.”

Mayne said Dehdashtian was “better than average” behind the plate, but he moved him back to third after 15 games as part of a reshuffling to cover some other defensive weaknesses.

“I remember in the winter meeting he told me I needed to become a a catcher to have a real chance to make it professionally,” Dehdashtian said. “I really appreciated that. He was the first coach I’ve had that was honest about it.

“He told me I was going to have to get used to pain, and he was right. I suffered the usual stuff, foul ball off the hand . . . I was sore all the time.

“I liked catching, but there is so much to learn that it will take some time to get used to it. If it’s what I have to do to go on, then I will.”

One thing he won’t have to get used to is hitting.

Dehdashtian has become one of the best power hitters in the state. He has 15 home runs, one fewer than state-leading Bobby Hamelin of Rancho Santiago.

Dehdashtian also leads Orange Coast in batting average at .425, in RBIs with 57 and in doubles with 12.

Golden West has suffered the most at the bat of Dehdashtian. Earlier this season, he hit three home runs in one game, then came back and hit another two days later against the Rustlers.

This is the first season in which Dehdashtian has really made full use of his power.

“I always used to choke up with two strikes and punch the ball,” Dehdashtian said. “The first day I was here, Coach Mayne said, ‘Look how big you are. Don’t choke up; swing the bat.’ I’ve even hit two two-strike home runs. I’m just more aggressive all around.

“Before the season, I told some of my teammates that my goal was to hit 10 home runs, and if I did that I would go nuts. But this is amazing. I really didn’t expect this at all.”

He has walked 11 times, been hit 8 times and struck out only 14 times in 160 plate appearences.

Dehdashtian hit four home runs in 1985 as a senior at Gahr High School, where he was first-team All-Southern Section as a junior and a senior. He was recruited by Texas El Paso and Loyola Marymount out of high school but didn’t have the grades to get into either school.

“I was just lazy in the classroom in high school,” he said. “I just didn’t understand that grades were important. I figured if you were good in baseball, it would get you where you wanted. But that’s just not true, and I know that now.”

He has improved academically and is now being recruited as a catcher by the University of Miami, one of the top baseball programs in the country.

Dehdashtian went to Cerritos College as a freshman in 1986. He played part time as a freshman, and after he failed to get a starting spot in the fall of ‘86, left the school. “I went there expecting to play,” he said. “And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t a starter. It really killed my confidence to the point where I didn’t want to play anymore.”

He went to work in a pizza parlor and told friends he was done with school.

But two of Dehdashtian’s former teammates on the Norwalk Connie Mack team that won the national championship in the summer of 1986 helped him change his mind. Mike Misuraca, now a sophomore infielder at OCC, and David Dawson, a pitcher last season at OCC, put Dehdashtian in contact with Mayne, who offered him the chance to play at Orange Coast.

“I told my high school coach that I was done playing after my first season at Cerritos, and he just laughed,” Dehdashtian said. “I guess he knew I would always come back and play.”