Baseball Team Penalized for Player’s Fabrications : These Facts Are Nothing but Fiction

He arrived in San Bernardino with all the important qualities of “The Natural,” although he tried to confound the story line with some elements from “Major League.”

He had a mysterious background. Rather, he had no background at all. Said he was 22, just rolled in from Oregon, been out of ball for a couple of seasons because of serious jail time, but was now on the right track with family and purpose. Could hit the ball a mile.

Looking back, Don Johnson was indeed a strange bird. Didn’t get terribly excited after a strikeout like the other kids, is one hindsighted observation. A cool customer, kept to himself. But at the community college level, where the talent pool is drawn from all kinds of walk-ons, mystery is much tolerated.

Besides, San Bernardino Valley College, with this power-hitting first baseman--and no matter what his credentials--was on its way to the state tournament.

And then, somewhat shy of a happy ending, it all unraveled and it was like “The Natural” and “Major League” all in one sitting. That is, you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Don Johnson is in fact 32--not 22--did no jail time, has graduated from Sonoma State and is a veteran of two different professional baseball organizations.

There may indeed be comedy here. Don Johnson’s sting was brazen and elaborate enough to be entered as one of the comic cons of all time. It’s a classic goof. Mike Tyson registering for the Golden Gloves might be a comparable stunt.

Yet there is plenty that is not funny. As much as human nature loves to see institutions fooled--it is the anarchist in us all--human nature does not love to see innocence penalized. San Bernardino Valley College had to forfeit its games, give up the conference championship and finish its season on a note of betrayal that will sound for a long time in the ears of Johnson’s 18- and 19-year-old teammates.

But more tragic than that is Don Johnson himself, who has retired from the entire situation with some hostility and a lot of no-comments.

What was on his mind? Did Johnson, who failed in attempts with the Seattle and Oakland organizations, think he might get another shot at stardom with SBVC? Or was he just taking one more cut at a game that he couldn’t put down?

“It was almost like a guy who lives in a fantasy world,” said Spencer Watkins, the administrative representative in charge of athletics at the school. “Maybe you’d think of yourself doing this, playing ball again, but how could you not think of the effect this would have on your teammates? A 32-year-old man, a college graduate, and he never thought about that.”

Looking back, it appears that Johnson thought about this stunt only as it became necessary, modifying his story on a daily basis. He originally was going to play at Redlands, a four-year college, but backed off when the school demanded a transcript as part of the enrollment process. He disappeared and showed up at SBVC, where transcripts are not necessary.

All he needed there, it turned out, was a story, which he developed as required. He said he was 22, had been in trouble early in life, never played high school baseball. He would be glad to play community college ball if nobody minded that he couldn’t play or practice on Saturdays, when he had to work to support his wife and family.

As the season progressed, he found that he had only to fine-tune. He had actually done two seasons in jail--the Oregon penal league you might say--was what he came up with to fend off further questions. But there wasn’t all that much curiousity. He was popular, fit in with the others.

“He was an older-looking 22,” Coach Stan Sanchez admitted. “But he acted like a kid. He just fit. Like the other 19-, 20-year-olds, lots of energy for the game.”

Sanchez said there was no reason to inquire further.

“He was a great individual,” he said.

Watkins agreed.

“One of the nicest young men you could talk to,” he said.

Also, he was hitting .364 with six home runs as the team rolled toward its conference championship and the automatic berth in the state tournament.

But the sting began to fray. Dennis Rogers, an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton, came to SBVC to scout the team’s catcher, Marc Loeb. Johnson, who managed the minor league team at Medford, Ore., for three seasons in the early 1980s, was watching infield practice when Johnson ran by.

“I said to myself, ‘That guy looks familiar,’ ” he remembered. “Then I don’t give it a second thought. Two weeks later, they’re playing COD (College of the Desert) and I’m there to see this player I’m interested in. I still don’t know (Johnson’s) name.

“But when he hits, they mention Don Johnson of Medford, Ore. I started laughing. It sure looks like the guy who played for me. Left-handed, old, good. He’s tearing the cover off the ball, a man amongst kids.

“At that point I go to the coach, I tell him, ‘This may be a total coincidence, but . . . ‘ “The thing that triggered it in my mind was not hearing the name Don Johnson but Medford. There are no blacks in Medford but ballplayers and two police officers.”

This Don Johnson, who is black, might just as easily have tried to pass himself off as Don Johnson of “Miami Vice.”

Rogers told the coach, went home, thought no more about it.

But Sanchez got to thinking. Also, rumors began to arise independently of Rogers’ sighting, and Sanchez got an accusing call from a conference coach. There are lots of people who see lots of baseball, so this collapse of story was inevitable.

But at SBVC, nobody wanted to believe it. It was an outrageous idea and besides, it would mean a virtual forfeiture of the season. At first, Johnson gave all the right answers.

“I brought the kid in and his response was so smooth,” Sanchez said. “He really covered it, overreacted, said this was (his) first experience with organized baseball. Of course, we had bought it from day one.”

Still, an investigation developed.

“We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Watkins said, but the school could hardly ignore the rumors.

Finally, Watkins sent some forms to the National Baseball Assn. in Ft. Meyers, Fla., and the folks there reported that a Don Johnson with the same social security number had a signed contract to play professional ball on record.

Watkins confronted Johnson, who said he would need to go home to get some documentation to prove his story.

“When he left, I said to the AD, ‘We’ll never see him again,’ ” Watkins said.

They haven’t, either, although Watkins said that in a testy phone conversation, Johnson admitted that he signed a contract in 1980, thus ending the investigation as far as SBVC was concerned. Though still officially a student there, Johnson has not returned to the campus. The San Bernardino Sun followed up with an investigation of its own and fleshed out the unsettling truth. The Sun obtained documents showing that Johnson listed his birth year as 1957 when he was with the A’s organization, and as 1958 when he was with the Mariners. In any event, he was not born in 1967, as he told the school, but in 1956.

The paper also found that he was a graduate of Oakland Tech High School, that he played ball there and later at Sonoma State, where he got a degree in management in 1980. He played with two semipro teams in the Bay Area and then signed a contract with the Seattle organization.

The Sun further learned that he played in the California and Northwest Leagues, including Bellingham and San Jose, where Seattle finally released him. Then he signed with the Oakland organization and was sent to Medford.

It is Rogers’ entire recollection that “he was left-handed, had pretty good size, was real verbal but was no prospect. I think I only had him a month.”

In fact, Oakland released him for good.

The Sun could confirm no story of his ever being in prison, making this a strange reverse lie. His wife, Denise, told the Sun he worked at a paper mill in White City, Ore., in 1986 and 1987, before they were married, and moved to Loma Linda in 1987.

As for why he couldn’t play Saturdays? That was another lie apparently. It seems his wife worked to support them, not he. He couldn’t play Saturdays because he is a Seventh-Day Adventist.

Johnson has disappeared, leaving his teammates and coaches to survey the rubble of their season. The team went 30-13 and possibly--Sanchez said certainly--could have won the conference title without Johnson. But that’s down the tubes. The players, by everybody’s account, are stunned and disappointed.

“He had this well-planned out,” Sanchez said. “He knew what he wanted to do. No question about his motives. I guess he wanted one more baseball experience. I guess baseball was such a big part of his life and this was a last hurrah.”

Sanchez has been racking his brain, trying to recall if there had been any clues he should have picked up on, something that could have exposed this desperate lie sooner. But he can’t think of anything.

“He was just another kid, like all of them, so hungry for the game.”