Baseball / Gary Klein : Woodfin Looking to Trim Weight While Fattening Up His Record

Olonzo Woodfin isn’t exactly eating up the competition in the Appalachian Rookie League this season, but the Cleveland Indians don’t seem too concerned with his 0-3 won-loss record.

The organization, however, is watching closely the numbers on Woodfin’s weight-loss chart, which became a key statistical category for the former Sylmar High left-hander when he reported to spring training in Arizona at a Rick Reuschelesque 245 pounds.

“We said, ‘Olonzo, we hope you brought your running shoes,’ ” said Dan O’Dowd, the Indians’ director of player development. “I think he just enjoyed his mother’s cooking during the off-season.”

Woodfin, who was 6-foot-4 and weighed about 200 pounds when Cleveland selected him in the eighth round of the 1988 draft, said the combined length of his high school, Rookie League and Instructional League seasons contributed to his girth.

“I didn’t work out as much I needed to,” Woodfin said. “I thought I was in better shape, but once we got to spring training it was a big awakening.”

Woodfin was down to 237 pounds by the end of spring training. When he left extended spring training for Burlington (N.C) in June, he weighed 231.

“We’d love to have him down around 215 to 220,” O’Dowd said. “That’s what he needs to do to take the pressure off his legs.

“I’m sure when I go down and see him (this) week, he’ll be lean and mean.”

Woodfin says he currently weighs 225. By the end of the season he also hopes to trim some of the fat from his 5.40 earned-run average.

“Olonzo’s got a good arm and the aptitude to learn,” O’Dowd said. “He’s just going through a maturing process.”

Happy Trapper: The players who don uniforms of unaffiliated minor league teams most often do so to catch the eye of major league organizations that looked the other way during the draft.

But Mike Bible is having so much fun playing for the Salt Lake Trappers of the Pioneer Rookie League, he is not so sure that being sold to one of the 26 major league franchises would be a step up.

“I couldn’t ask for a better place to play,” said Bible, a catcher from Saugus High and College of the Canyons.

Bible, 6-1, 195 pounds, signed with the Trappers after missing the 1989 college season--what would have been his junior year--because of financial and transcript problems at Sonoma State.

“I was up there (Sonoma) for about three weeks going to class, practicing with the team and working as a waiter until 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Bible, who had been selected by the Houston Astros in the 27th round of the 1987 draft. “I couldn’t keep doing it.”

“I came home to Saugus, went to a couple of tryouts and didn’t get any answers. They said, ‘We’ll call you if something turns up.’

“A lot of people kept telling me I should probably think of doing something else. To their faces I’d say, ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ But inside, I knew I wanted to play.”

In April, Trapper Manager Barry Moss was scouting a game at Loyola Marymount when he learned from a parent of one of the players that Bible was available.

After a private tryout at College of the Canyons--he had batted .500 as a freshman and .255 as a sophomore for the school--Bible signed to become a Trapper. He was batting .270 before suffering a sprained ankle Wednesday night that will sideline him for two weeks.

“Mike’s doing a great job and I expect him to hit even better than he has so far,” Moss said. “Usually, we have to take the college senior. So it’s good for Mike and also good for us. It’s an ideal situation for a Trapper.”

Riscen rehab: While Bible has only recently joined the Trappers’ disabled, former Canyons battery-mate Fred Riscen is hoping to finally become activated.

Riscen, a left-handed pitcher, was 6-1 with 3.53 ERA for the Trappers last season before missing his last few starts because of arm problems that have plagued him since his junior season at Texas A&M.;

On April 20, Riscen had arthroscopic surgery that revealed an anterior instability in his shoulder.

“There are no tears or anything, but the muscles in front of the shoulder are weak,” said Riscen, who attended Granada Hills High. “It’s just the result of too much throwing. It just caught up to me. When I was younger, I could throw everyday and I never iced or anything.”

Although he has not pitched an inning this season, Riscen has been throwing in the bullpen and working with light weights to strengthen the arm.

“I had a workout last Thursday in Salt Lake and threw harder than I did all last year,” Riscen said. “But I can’t get too excited because it’s day to day.

“If I don’t get it going pretty soon it could be it for me. I appreciate everything they’ve done, but I don’t like to just be sitting around. I’m getting paid and I haven’t done nothing yet.”

Travelogue: Doug Simons, normally a pitcher who has few problems with location, has run into trouble since being promoted from Visalia of the California League to Orlando (Fla.) of the double-A Southern League.

Simons has found the strike zone--he has a 2-1 record and had compiled a 1.47 ERA after four starts--he just can’t find his luggage, which was shipped via United Parcel Service more than two weeks ago.

“I took plenty of clothes when I flew out,” said Simons, who played at Calabasas High and Pepperdine. “But my wife drove out and there wasn’t a lot of room for her clothes in our little Honda. She’s been living off three pairs of shorts and my shirts until our things get here.

“The other problem is we have to eat out every night because we don’t have any cooking utensils. We keep thinking, ‘This is the day our stuff is going to come.’ We finally went out and bought a pan.”