Prep Wednesday : Pitching Might Be the Name of the Game in Softball, but When It Comes to Lending a Hand by Blocking the Plate and Pitches, Then . . . : IT’S CATCHING

Catchers--they are the grunts of softball. Like offensive linemen who do the dirty work while quarterbacks and running backs chase the glory, softball catchers are often completely overlooked.

It is the pitcher who is the center of attention. As the saying goes in softball: “It’s a pitcher’s game.” But most coaches and pitchers know that good pitching and catching go hand-in-glove.

It is the catcher who squats through games that can last more than two hours while a pitcher, who stands only 40 feet away, throws wickedly curving, spinning, dipping not-so-soft balls at them at the average speed of a car on the freeway.

It is mandatory that they catch these balls while looking through a grill, wearing a cumbersome chest protector, while an opponent swings a bat in front of their eyes.

And then there is the ritual of blocking the plate--a prerequisite for any good catcher. It requires standing in the path of a charging baserunner while keeping an eye out for a line-drive throw to home plate that must be caught and held on to through the ensuing collision.

A good catcher has to know what will strike out opposing power hitters. It is the catcher who is responsible for pitch selection and location. And a good catcher sets the defense.

If a team holds an opponent scoreless, the pitcher is most often seen as the hero.

But if a team scores a winning run off a drop pitch that skitters past the catcher in the dirt, the catcher is the goat.

“Catching is a very dirty job,” said Western High School junior catcher Lisa Sciarrino, a pickoff artist who has arguably the top arm in the county. She has started for the Pioneers, the second-ranked team in the Southern Section 4-A, since her freshman season and was an all-Orange League selection last season. She is known for her ability to throw bullets from a seated position.

“You take a lot of flak from pitchers and coaches because they expect you to be perfect,” she said. “There is all that gravel and dust too. You sweat a lot (in the gear). You always feel all yucky and dirty and slimy.”

The gear is necessary to minimize injury. But even with it, the county’s top catchers list a myriad of injuries, including split nails, blackened toes, sprained and jammed thumbs and fingers, chronic knee pain and cleat gouges.

And then there are injuries suffered from those nasty collisions. Catchers have a phrase for getting steamrollered at the plate. It is called “giving up your body.”

So why would anybody want to be a softball catcher?

“I love the action,” said Marina junior Christa Yorke, who made the all-Southern Section 4-A team her freshman year. “You just get so much action. If you’re out in the field, you maybe get one or two balls a game, but when you’re catching, you’re in on every pitch.”

“I think it is kind of a guts-and-glory position,” said Sheri Lazzarini, coach of Sunny Hills, the 4-A’s fifth-ranked team. “You’re going to have to take a beating but then again, you are always in the game.”

Lazzarini has one of the county’s top catcher-outfielders in senior Erin McKenney, who will attend Northwestern on scholarship this fall.

McKenney is fearless behind the plate. “If you block the plate correctly . . . get your knee right at the side of the plate, it doesn’t hurt if they run into you.”

Sure.

She and Canyon’s exuberant Chanele Chambrone typify the catcher’s mentality. Chambrone, a senior who is headed for Cal State Long Beach this fall, sounds almost as if she is looking forward to a good collision when she talks about catching.

“I like to get physical about it,” she said. “If a girl is sliding in at home, I’ll take her out. I’m going to be the one still standing.”

Sciarrino agrees: “Those plays at home are the best. It keeps you real intense. It could be the winning run you just got out. It makes you feel really good.

“If you are afraid, you shouldn’t even be back there.”

Carey Baker, coach of the top-ranked Orange County school in the 5-A, Fountain Valley, has one of the county’s top young catchers in sophomore Shannon Dolan, an all-Southern Section 4-A selection as a freshman.

He echoes the sentiments of a lot of coaches when he says the catcher is often overshadowed by the high-profile positions like pitcher and shortstop.

“When kids are growing up, nobody wants to be a catcher. The catcher gets beat up back there for an hour and a half,” he said.

“Spectators walk by and say look how hard (the pitcher) throws the ball. They don’t look at the catcher and say she’s got to catch that stinking thing. They wouldn’t even recognize her out of her gear.”

Pitchers most often get the glory, but coaches agree you can’t have an effective pitcher without a good catcher.

“If you have a pitcher who can throw a rise or drop but you don’t have a catcher who can catch a rise or drop, you have nothing,” said Debbie Harless, who coaches Sciarrino at Western.

“You know that saying, ‘Behind every good man there is a good woman’? Well behind every good pitcher there is a great catcher,” Lazzarini said.

Fountain Valley’s Dolan catches one of the county’s top pitchers, sophomore Rae Rice. Kris Vucurevic at Kennedy catches another county standout, Cheryl Longeway.

Rice said she is confident Dolan will catch or stop wild pitches and prevent runners from advancing. It is that confidence that allows Rice to throw her best stuff.

The pitches that are out of the strike zone which batters swing at account for most strikeouts, Baker said. And a catcher has to be able to handle those pitches.

“In batting practice, I turn my pitching machine up to 70 miles per hour,” he said. “Every kid in my dugout will just rip that (ball). It’s unbelievable. But you get (a pitcher) out there and get a little movement on the ball and the batters get all goosey. They lose a little bit of confidence.”

Pitchers have an array of pitches from rises and drops to fastballs and knuckleballs that can angle in different directions at top speed. And every pitcher is different.

The first time she caught a new pitcher last year, Fountain Valley’s Dolan was at a practice for the Bat Busters, an area traveling team. She wasn’t wearing her headgear. “I got nailed right in the nose and got a bloody nose,” she said.

“I’ve been hit by a lot of people. Once you get used to a pitcher it is easy, but at first, all the balls break differently, left and right, and you have to get used to them.”

Why would anybody volunteer for this abuse? They don’t. Usually kids don’t volunteer to catch in baseball or softball. Coaches tend to designate positions and kids just kind of fall into it. But the days of placing heavy, immobile kids behind the plate and the quick kids only at shortstop are fading away.

It is a myth that size is what makes a catcher. It’s quickness.

“I don’t think they have to be real big,” said Lazzarini, whose catcher, 5-foot-8, 140-pound McKenney, is of a “pretty average build.”

“If you are real big, it prevents you from being mobile,” Lazzarini said. “You have to be quick enough to cover third on a bunting play and if you’re too big, you’re not going to get there.”

Yorke at Marina is probably the smallest at 5-5, 120 pounds, and Vucurevic, a four-year varsity starter for Kennedy who will catch for Nebraska next season, is 5-7 and weighs only 125 pounds.

Both say most people think they are too small to play catcher.

“People say, ‘Let me guess your postion,’ ” Vucurevic said. “They never put me at catcher, and when I tell them, they are just shocked. They say, ‘You are so small for a catcher. Catchers are big and fat.”

The reality is that catchers are not only among the quickest but, of necessity, the most savvy players. They have to be team leaders who calm nervous pitchers and set the defense. They need a rocket arm, an accurate eye and the strength and endurance to sit through seven innings.

With all a catcher contributes to a game, it is difficult to squat by and watch the pitcher get most of the credit.

“It is sometimes hard,” McKenney said. “You get to the paper and they say a pitcher had this many strikeouts, and the catcher really doesn’t get the credit for the job they have done.

“If they want in the paper, they really have to hit.”

And hit they do.

McKenney is Sunny Hills’ second best hitter at .407. Her on-base percentage (.555) is the highest on the team with nobody else close. Sciarrino is hitting .419 for Western. Chambrone led the county in hitting (.520) last season at Tustin. This year at Canyon, she is hitting about .320.

Dolan (.380) leads Fountain Valley. Yorke is batting about .287, second-best on Marina’s team, but she gets on base close to 80% of the time, Marina Coach Susie Calderon said.

“She is an outstanding catcher, but she is also outstanding offensively,” Baker said of Yorke. “We just have a heck of a time getting her out.”

“Most of the catchers are pretty good hitters,” Calderon said. “I think it has to do with catching the ball all the time, seeing the ball break.”

If a player has the legs to squat for seven innings and the arm to throw from that seated position, you know she has to be strong, and that often translates to good hitting, said Harless, Western’s coach.

Catchers are used to reacting faster. They see the ball and where it is released. As a hitter, Chambrone said she can see a dropball coming because the pitcher takes a shorter step.

Though catchers often receive little recognition from spectators for their defense and take a beating at the plate, there is a group of people who recognize their value--coaches, especially college coaches.

Catching just may be the surest route to a college scholarship, said Baker.

Since most kids avoid the postion when they’re starting out, there is often a shortage of good catchers in the college ranks. Catchers are more likely to be injured so it is always good to have a couple.

“Everyone can catch a ground ball or a fly ball, but not everyone can catch a pitch,” Kennedy’s Vucurevic said.

“When I was younger, people kept on telling me, ‘If you want to go to college, be a catcher.’ ”