Summer Special : OVER THE LINE : Rooted in Baseball, This Beach Sport Is a Big-Hitter’s Paradise

If you want to play over-the-line, a sandy mutation of the grand old game, there are a few things you must learn. You must learn them because you must then forget them.

First, over-the-line is born from baseball. Games are played in innings, with three outs to a side. But forget about your glove (illegal) or your cleats (ridiculous), because you won’t be using them. Also, forget about chalk lines and freshly mowed infield grass. The huge majority of over-the-line tournaments are played on the beach.

Next, over-the-line is a hitters’ game. Combined scores for a standard, five-inning game hover around the 30s. A good over-the-line player will hit .800. But forget about heading down to the local batting cage to brush up on your stroke. Good over-the-line swingers owe more to Jack Nicklaus than Ted Williams. And forget about towering drives, because the best hitters in this game usually hit the ball the shortest distance.

Finally, the public’s perception of over-the-line is beer, bad names and more beer. This comes from the annual world championship tournament at Fiesta Island in San Diego, which features raunchy team names and alcohol by the metric ton.

But forget about finding drunks at the weekly tournaments in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Though alcohol, and lots of it, is a tradition at Fiesta Island’s tournament (called the world’s largest beach party), the week-by-week player says it’s the sportsmanship and etiquette of the game that they enjoy most. Well, that and the beer, in moderation.

Got it? Forgot it? Then let’s get to it.

Over-the-line, the beach game, got its start in the early 1950s. Like other games, it came about when some guys, these hanging around San Diego’s Mission Beach, got bored. Well short of enough players to field two softball teams, they split into two teams of three. They laid out a field 60-feet wide, with a line 55-feet from the where the batter stood. Gloves were not allowed, you caught the ball barehanded, “the way God intended a ball to be caught,” according to one player.

The rules were relatively simple:

* The ball, a softball, had to be hit over the line or it was an automatic out. No seeing-eye grounders.

* The batter was allowed two pitches each at-bat, two fouls or a swinging strike being automatic outs.

* To get a hit, the ball had to land inside the 60-foot corridor. If it was caught on the fly by one of the defenders, it was an out.

* Three hits led to one run, and any hit after that scored another run. A ball hit past all three defenders, on the fly, was a home run.

Those rules remain the same today, as does the very essence of the game--beach.

“What matters most in this game is getting out to the beach, having a beer or two and having some fun,” said Russ Johnson, who organizes over-the-line tournaments for men and women in Southern California from March to October. “Who can whine about losing a game or not getting a hit when they’re standing in the middle of this.”

A combination of Johnson’s tournaments and the call of the waves attracts some of the more eccentric participants. Among the regulars are Mike Mellinger of Newport Harbor, who sports a major league beer belly and a right shoulder blade that, because of a childhood motorcycle accident, he can pop up at will to appear like a dorsal fin.

“Scares the hell out of kids and people from Iowa,” he said.

Fittingly, Mellinger sometimes plays for the Sand Sharks. One of his teammates on the Sand Sharks is Bernie Plent of Irvine, who pitched at the Cincinnati Reds’ Class-A club in Tampa in 1975 and 1976.

Bernie is never without a Reds cap, his Pete Rose batting stance or the biggest pair of mitts this side of Andre the Giant.

“A legacy of pain and neglect,” Plent said, displaying his hands like some sort of museum piece. Most agree he’s one of the best defensive players in the game.

Johnson, who lives in Bellflower, sees them come and go every week. He usually arrives at the site of a tournament--the majority of which take place at Huntington State Beach or Belmont Shore in Long Beach--at 6 a.m. to set up the fields, the draw sheets and the beer. Tournaments usually start at 9 a.m., and are divided into novice, intermediate and expert classes.

The experts usually have 5 to 10 years of experience, according to Johnson, and it’s by watching them that one can learn the most about the game and how it should be played. The first thing you’ll learn is that it is by no means necessary to waste your time with exercise to excel.

Jim Bundy of El Segundo is considered one of the game’s top hitters, with a .900 average and a waistline just as expansive. Bundy’s body form is a norm at the tournaments. The experts tend to be in their 30s and see little connection between this game and exercise. Whoever got a hit while doing a sit-up? Most of them drink beer during the tournaments, though, they insist, never enough to get drunk.

“Guys drink, but they don’t get out of hand,” said Jim Ashton of Newport Beach. “You can’t play this game at our level drunk.”

But you also don’t play the game at this level and take it too seriously. Players pride themselves on the the laissez faire attitude by which games are played. No umpires, everything called by the players, any doubtful play always goes to the hitter.

Arguments, regular occurrences when guys get together for a game of pickup basketball, are frowned upon.

“It’s not too smart to get in a fight,” said Eric Swanson of El Segundo. “You’re probably going to see the guy next week (at another tournament), if not that night.”

Still, most players view over-the-line the same way as Paul Contreras of Irvine.

“A gentleman’s game.”

Of course, a gentleman can be pushed just so far.

Said Ashton: “If some of the newcomers to the game want to get drunk and cause problems for the rest, the fellas know how to handle them, you follow?”

Yeeeah, we follow.

Contreras is one of many former college and professional baseball players who play the sport regularly. Contreras, 33, played at the University of San Diego and in the Baltimore Orioles’ organization, reaching the club’s triple-A team at Rochester. Usually the first thing mentioned about him by fellow over-the-liners is that he once hit a home run off Goose Gossage in an exhibition game.

Still, Contreras had to relearn to hit when he took up over-the-line about eight years ago.

“It’s a much shorter swing,” he said. “In baseball, your top hand is really active. In this, you’re really dragging your top hand.”

A batter is pitched the ball by one of his own teammates. The teammate kneels in the sand to the side of the batter and tosses the ball, usually about knee-to-thigh level high. Since a ball hitting sand in front of the 55-foot line is an out, players try to ensure the ball staying in the air with an upper-cut swing straight off the golf links.

“If someone wants to learn how to hit, he’d probably do best to go to a driving range,” Johnson said.

In fact, on the weekends there are not over-the-line tournaments, Johnson organizes golf tournaments for the players. Of course, if someone wants to learn how to hit, they may be best served by watching Jim Bundy.

Wearing mirrored sunglasses, his eyes are constantly scanning the field looking for any adjustments by the defense. Most teams defend in a 1-1-1 formation, with the front man guessing where the batter is going to hit the ball.

The front man, with a hand signal, tells the second man where he’s going to run. As the ball is tossed, the front man makes his move. An exceptional hitter such as Bundy is waiting and watching, then he attempts to hit the ball the other way and just over the line.

“I’m not looking to hit the ball hard,” Bundy said. “In this game, it doesn’t matter how far it goes, just that it lands. So you look for the corners, and you look to place it as close to the line as you can. Every now and then, when defenders start sneaking in, you blast one over them. But that’s just to keep them honest. This game is won and lost on the shortest hits.”

Bat control is the key. The most successful players are able to place the ball where they want, usually low and as far away from defenders as possible.

By contrast, a novice game, many times with players who look in much better shape, usually features long drives and scores in the single digits.

“You hit the ball in the air and people just keep backing up,” Johnson said. “There ain’t no fences here. They can just keep backing up as far as you can hit it. The key is not to kill the ball, but more to chip and putt. You learn as you go along in this game.”

And just going along is about the only way to play it.

SUMMER OVER-THE-LINE TOURNAMENTS

Tournament fees are $30 per team, unless noted. July 3--America’s OTL Festival, Belmont Shore (Long Beach). July 10--Bayshore Open, Belmont Shore. July 9-10, 16-17--World Tournament, Fiesta Beach (San Diego). July 24--Fun in the Sun Classic, Huntington State Beach. Aug. 6--U.S. Open, Belmont Shore. Aug. 7--U.S. Open, Co-ed teams only, Belmont Shore. Aug. 20--Sea Festival, Belmont Shore. Aug. 21--World Co-ed Team Championships, Belmont Shore, $42. Aug. 28--Orange County Open, Huntington State Beach. Sept. 3--Los Angeles Open, Playa del Rey. Sept. 10--Southern California Championships, Belmont Shore. Sept. 11--Southern California Championships, co-ed teams only, Belmont Shore. Sept. 24--Life’s A Beach, Huntington State Beach. Sept. 25--Life’s A Beach, co-ed teams only, Huntington State Beach.

For information, call Southern California Over-The-Line, (213) 866-8685.