Higgins Swings Back Into Favor : Valley Dodgers’ Elder Statesman Finds Opportunity to Prove Yankees Wrong

Ted Higgins’ eyes are as blue as the cap that sits atop his sun-bleached blond hair. His eyes, like the smile that creases his deeply tanned face, beam an even brighter hue when he is asked about his youthful appearance.

But with the San Fernando Valley Dodgers, a team composed almost entirely of college players who are as much as six years his junior, the 25-year-old Higgins realizes some of his teammates see him as an old man playing a younger man’s game.

“The other guys tease me about having a receding hairline,” said Higgins, who played three seasons of professional baseball in the New York Yankees’ organization. “They say, ‘Grandpa, you’re too old to swing the bat.’ It makes me feel good to show them I can still swing it.”

Through the first 15 games of the summer, Higgins didn’t show much of anything at the plate as he produced a meager .200 batting average.

But last month, in the Southern California regional tournament at San Bernardino, Higgins took center stage and spread the news that ol’ blue eyes was back. In six games, he was 15 for 25 with 3 home runs and 15 runs batted in. He was named the tournament’s co-most valuable player as the Dodgers finished second to the San Diego Stars.

Higgins has been hot ever since, raising his average to .388 with 8 home runs and 34 RBIs. He is expected to be one of the key performers for the Dodgers in the 54th annual National Baseball Congress World Series that begins Friday in Wichita, Kan.

“He’s my only true leader on the squad,” Dodger Manager Mark Morton said. “He excites a lot of players by the way he goes about his business.”

Before he was released by the Yankees last spring, Higgins’ business was professional baseball. The former Saugus High and College of the Canyons standout was selected by the Yankees in the 21st round of the 1985 draft out of Nevada Reno, where he batted .396 and was an All-West Coast Athletic Conference first baseman.

The Yankees, however, moved the left-handed Higgins to the outfield and he batted .306 with a home run and 36 RBIs in 55 games in the Gulf Coast Rookie League. The next season, he was promoted to Fort Lauderdale, the Yankees’ affiliate in the Class-A Florida State League, where he batted .265 with 5 home runs and 52 RBIs.

In 1987, Higgins began the season in Albany, N. Y., in the Double-A Eastern League. The Yankees, notorious for the plethora of moves they make each season at the major league level, are even more active in the minor leagues. Albany experienced more than 50 roster changes last season.

Higgins, who batted .244 in 61 games, was demoted to Prince William, Va., in the Carolina League, where he batted .255 before separating his left shoulder in a collision at home plate, ending his season 2 1/2 weeks early.

Last April, Higgins was released by the Yankees on the final day of spring training.

“I was pretty disappointed,” he said. “There were some players they kept that I had played with and I was as good or better than they were.”

Higgins has spent this season working as a landscaper for a nursery, fitting pipe and waiting for his opportunity to show the herd of major league scouts that will converge on Wichita that he can still fit into professional baseball.

“I’m sure there will be some pressure,” said Higgins, who plays left field for the Dodgers. “But if I do well and something happens with a professional team, I’ll go. I’ll go in a heartbeat just to get back into it.”

Getting back into the swing of things with the Dodgers was a slow process for the 5-foot, 10-inch, 170-pound Higgins, who had a rough time adjusting to the less-than-speedy stuff thrown by most pitchers in the Golden State League. At the state tournament, however, opposing teams turned loose their hardest throwers. Higgins unshackled his swing and had opposing pitchers singing the blues.

“In our league, guys were just throwing slow and it’s hard to get up for that,” Higgins said. “The pitching in the tournament was a lot better, like the minor leagues. There was also something to play for. A lot of my turnaround had to do with the atmosphere of that tournament.”

In Wichita, where crowds of 9,000 are not uncommon at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium, the Dodgers will try to improve on last season’s 11th-place finish in the 32-team, double-elimination tournament.

“It should be a lot of fun because there will be a lot of people there,” he said. “I’m trying to get our guys motivated.

“I love playing under the lights. They’ll be on in Wichita and the fans and scouts will be watching. You just have to do your best and swing the stick.”