Big Bopper : Torrance CHP Officer Trades Fast Lane for Slow-Pitch

He is tall and strapping, but by no means was Erik Liband the largest player last weekend at Blair Field in Long Beach.

Liband, 29, is a rookie left-handed first baseman in the United States Slow-Pitch Softball Assn. Major Division, which played its 16-team World Series last weekend in Long Beach. He is said to possess all the skills to be the next great power hitter in this division, which basically consists of overgrown men pounding a 12-inch softball over a fence that is closer than it should be.

“He has the world in front of him,” said Coach Ron Whittleton of Broken Drum Insulation of Northridge.

Liband hopes that is true, because there is big money to be made in this game if a player can attract the eyes of the fans and the ears of sponsors. On height alone, he stands out, although the 6-7 frame of the six-year Torrance veteran of the California Highway Patrol does not have the table muscle that is common around the midsections of professional slow-pitch softball players. He weighs “only” 255 pounds.

“I’m one of the tallest, but by no means am I one of the largest players,” he said.

Singles hitters strike out with the fans. Major Division rules make home runs easy. Pitchers are required to keep the arc of their pitches eight feet high or less. (Most recreation leagues allow a 12-foot ceiling.) Flat pitches are tailor-made for the big boppers.

Scoring more than 50 runs a game is not uncommon in Major Division tournaments. In 1987, Steele’s Silver Bullets of Ohio, which won this year’s World Series, pounded out 15 home runs and scored 27 runs in a single inning, a tournament record.

Still, says Liband, the game is “very competitive.”

Team sponsors sign the best hitters. The sport’s rapid growth has generated specialized publications that have made household names of Bruce Meade of Steele’s and Rich Plante, formerly of Marlton Trucking and now with Apollo-Lower East Side.

This is big business, a fact that Liband has learned. Team budgets can be as much as a million dollars a year, although an average is more like $300,000. Still, only a handful of players receive more than weekly travel and lodging expenses. Most, like Liband, hold outside jobs. For a few elite players, there are rewards.

Manufacturers, hoping to tap into the public’s growing appetite for the sport, have developed specialized equipment that is revolutionizing the game. There are balls that travel longer distances faster. A new metal alloy, originally developed for the space shuttle, is lighter than aluminum, yet tougher than steal. Batters using bats constructed from the CU31 alloy have gotten more distance out of their hits.

A product endorsement could mean big bucks for the player and a good return on investment for the manufacturer. Well-known players can make good money through endorsements. There are Bruce Meade autographed bats. He is also a spokesman for a shoe company. Steele’s has its own line of bats.

The growth in endorsements has helped some of the players become folk heroes in one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States. The muscular Meade, for example, who sports a handlebar mustache, is probably the best known of the Major Division players.

There are trade-offs, however, for growing player popularity and the tools they represent. Liband has spent about four days each week for the last five months on the road. He has not landed an endorsement yet, but the travel has altered his work schedule. He is accustomed to working the graveyard shift in the unincorporated areas of southeast Los Angeles County. But because of softball, he asked to be switched to days.

“I have a supervisor that is willing to work with me,” he said. “Softball keeps you very occupied. I’m single, but for the married guys with kids, this is tough.”

It was so tough for former Broken Drum first baseman Dean Olson that it allowed Liband a chance at the major circuit. Olson, a veteran player, was “an all-world performer,” according to Whittleton. But life on the road took a toll on his family life.

“He had a wife and two kids,” said Whittleton. “He finally decided he’d had enough. I’m sure he would have been here if he wanted to be.”

Liband was playing in a USSSA-sanctioned A league when he passed word to Whittleton that he would like to try his hand in the majors.

“He is an impressive big man,” said Whittleton. “He has lots of raw ability. He just needs to be molded.”

To fit the Whittleton mold, Liband spends an additional three nights a week at batting practice.

“There’s always room for improvement,” Liband said. “I just have to keep practicing.”

In A league, Liband thought he knew it all, but he was surprised to learn how much he didn’t know.

“One of the first things they told me was to put all of my weight on my back foot when I swing,” he said. “Before, I would shift my weight to my front foot.”

To get more lift out of his swing, he switched to a grip that is universally accepted among big boppers. With both hands on the bat, the batter curls the little finger of his bottom hand below the knob. The theory goes that this grip gives the batter more lift and slightly more extension to the swing.

Liband learned a few things on the field, too, in his first tournament.

Explained Whittleton: “In his first game he got a single. The next batter flied out. Erik tagged and tried to get to second, and he was thrown out. In this division, you don’t need to do that. If you are on first base, we’re going to score you somehow. Let the guys behind you hit it out.”

It was home runs that drew the curious to Blair Field for the World Series. In an opening-game win, Broken Drum hammered out six home runs in one inning. But later that weekend the team, the only entry from California, was eliminated.

This was the first time the tournament has been held in Southern California and only the third time it has come west of the Rockies in 18 years. Major Division softball has not yet reached the crazy stage among fans here that it has in the East and Southeast. The USSSA Hall of Fame Museum is located in Virginia.

“They’re fanatics back there,” said Liband, who clobbered 90 home runs in about 80 games during the summer season. Still, he batted eighth.

In a tournament in Alabama, Liband says, he experienced the strangest event of his career. Rain washed out the first two days of a four-day event. When the skies lightened, tournament officials decided to play around the clock.

“We played our first game at 8:30 at night and never left the park,” he said. “We played five games in a row. It was 8 a.m. the next morning before we were done.”

A native of Palo Alto, Liband played football, basketball and baseball in high school. He joined the Army and saw a tour of duty in Korea. He still wears his hair in military fashion. As a patrolman, he routinely works in one of the toughest areas of the county.

For now at least, he has taken on a new challenge, Major Division slow-pitch softball.