U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : A HIT WITH BATTERS : Whittleton, Maldonado to Stump for Slow-Pitch Softball as Exhibition Sport

The game had been forfeited but Ron Whittleton, who was supposed to umpire, just couldn’t bring himself to walk away from an empty ball field.

So with an hour to kill, the umpire went to his car, pulled a bag of balls and a couple of gloves out of the trunk, returned to the vacant diamond and did what he has done countless times in 26 seasons as an amateur athlete.

He practiced pitching.

Were his name Clemens, Gooden or Ryan the sight of Whittleton’s pitches arcing invitingly toward home plate might have been fairly stimulating.

However, there was about an 85 mile-per-hour difference.

Whittleton is a slow-pitch softball player, meaning his tosses are of the underhand variety and cross home plate with an arc of somewhere between six and 12 feet.

All of which put his workouts right there with “Lassie” reruns on the thrill-o-meter.

“I just try and go out there and hit spots,” Whittleton says.

Time after time. And knowing all the while that if, by chance, his work should pay off and he hits the corners and changes the speed of his offerings just right, that he might--just might--hold the opposition to, say, only 15 or 20 runs next time out.

“Hey, it’s a hitter’s game,” Whittleton says with a shrug. “You will get hit.”

And rather hard at that. Weather conditions permitting, more than two dozen dingers might be swatted during a well-pitched game.

“You try to pitch to a batter’s weakness, if he has one,” says Whittleton, a 6-foot-4 right-hander. “Of course, the ball comes in about three miles an hour, so as far as weaknesses go it’s not like they swing and miss.”

Instead, they might hit a double instead of a homer, particularly during the upcoming week when pitchers will have little margin for error.

Whittleton, a Sepulveda resident, and infielder Manny Maldonado, another Valley-area player, will be taking part as slow-pitch softball makes its debut as an exhibition sport in the U. S. Olympic Festival, beginning today at Hall of Fame Stadium.

They will be playing for the South team, which opens against the East at noon.

Whittleton and Maldonado were among the 60 competitors chosen by virtue of their performance in last year’s American Softball Assn. Super National Championships. Both played for Broken Drum Insulation of Northridge, which was eliminated from the 16-team tournament after one round. The team disbanded shortly thereafter.

The four, 15-man squads participating this week represent the best players drafted from the ASA nationals.

Whittleton, 41, is the senior member of the South squad. He took up softball at age 15 and has played on championship-caliber teams since 1974.

Before this year, the ASA nationals were the highlight of his season. Now he’s not so sure.

He expects the competition to be fierce despite its “exhibition” tag.

“Intensity is something that’s hard to gauge until you get right out there, but I do know this,” Whittleton says during a pause at practice. “I know there are people on this team and the other teams, too, who aren’t much on losing. It’s nice to have a good time and all, but it’s even better when you win.”

Maldonado, a North Hollywood resident, learned he had been selected in May. And at first he wasn’t too excited about it, figuring it was “just another tournament.”

“Then I started getting brochures saying who would be here and what was going on,” he says. “Then I realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

Unlike Whittleton, who played basketball, football and baseball as a youth in Medina, N.Y., Maldonado’s formative years were spent racing Go-Karts and motorcycles.

He first played softball in a “beer league” with his father at the age of 16. He started at the C division and gradually moved up.

By the time he was 20 he was playing five nights a week. But he wasn’t getting any better.

“Then I found out that working out was more important than playing in so many leagues,” Maldonado says, “so I worked out twice a week.”

Like, with weights?

“No, just hitting,” said Maldonado, 5-10, 230 pounds. “I hate lifting weights. I hate exercising. I can come here and run 40 laps around the bases without getting tired, but if you ask me to run a half-mile I’d be dead.”

Maldonado is relatively inexperienced when compared to Whittleton, who has traveled to 39 states to take part in various tournaments.

Whittleton already is a member of the U. S. Slow-Pitch Softball Assn. Hall of Fame. Conversely, six years ago Maldonado was still playing at the B level.

At the age of 33, Maldonado, an All World selection last year, is entering his prime as a slow-pitch player. He batted .638 and was flawless defensively in the playoffs last season.

Whittleton and Maldonado were teammates for three seasons before Broken Drum, the only major division team in California, disbanded.

Both still play locally. Whittleton, who was on the road for six consecutive weekends taking part in various slow-pitch tournaments, plays in a Wednesday night fast-pitch league. He umpires A division slow-pitch on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Maldonado plays on an A team in Newhall, and also is a member of a co-ed team.

Both shy away from popular unlimited arc slow-pitch leagues.

“I don’t do that anymore. I can’t handle that high stuff,” Maldonado says. “People would ask me out and tell their friends, ‘Hey, I got Manny out. Watch him.’ Then I’d go out and swing as hard as I can and embarrass myself.

“From now on I’m sticking to what I’m good at.”