A CLEAN MACHINE : After Weeding Out the Loudmouths and Attitude Problems, Jill Helms Finds Herself Managing an Unbeaten Softball Team

The top men’s slow-pitch softball division in Burbank contains the usual assortment of beer bellies, tattoos and Fu Manchus. Players come in all sizes--average, large and mountain man--and they take the game seriously, playing it with a high degree of skill.

But many of them also have short tempers, sweat a lot, swear a lot. Sparks can fly between longtime rivals as was the case the other night at George Izay Park.

Unbeaten Classic Properties, top gun in the league for the second year in a row, was playing Reb’s in the the season finale. Working on a 26-game winning streak, Classic had won all 18 games this year and the last eight the year before. Its success was the culmination of a 10-year effort to put a championship team together. And in its rise from the worst division in the league to the best, Classic turned Reb’s--king of the hill for years--into an also-ran.

In short, the teams don’t get along.

“Reb’s used to spit on us before we got good,” Classic second baseman Mike (Cheese) Lindberg said.

Yes, the players spit, too, but it’s also true that the manager of Classic Properties wears perfume. Jill Helms, a petite 34-year-old letter carrier with the postal service, is the only woman manager in the 11 men’s slow-pitch divisions run by the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. A physical education degree from Cal State Northridge and 24 years of softball-playing experience have sharpened her managerial skills. She runs a tight ship, winning the players’ respect with a sharp eye for talent, an obsession with organization and no tolerance for bad attitudes.

“I got rid of the mouths,” said Helms, who started the team in 1979. “Each year I weeded out the bad and brought in the good.”

Although “there’s not a problem in the world with this team,” she said, her earlier teams had players who didn’t pattern their personalities after Orel Hershiser. “It was very difficult to control some of the guys,” she said. “Sometimes they’d come drunk to practice or not show up at all and I’d have to sit them out.”

Only one player has openly resented her for being a woman, she said. After she kicked him off the team, he verbally abused her in a bar until another player said to him, “Call her that name again and you’re dead,” Helms recalled.

Helms’ team was named the Maniacs until she got Burbank realtor Brad Howard to sponsor the squad two years ago. Another friend, Butch Tobey (who later played for the team), had asked her to start a men’s team. But wasn’t she just the slightest bit reluctant to become Jill and the Manics?

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure about it,” she said. “I’m very shy, and you’re talking 14 guys, but I said ‘what the heck.’ ”

The last of the original Maniacs left the team after the 1987 season. Helms recruited the core of the current team in ‘85: outfielders Perry Reppen and Guy McGinnis, shortstop Wade Jeppson and first baseman John Denos. Four of her players--Reppen, Jeppson, McGinnis and Dave Danowski--played on the Valley-based Bumper Shop team that won the Class C world championship last year in Kansas; in one of the playoff games, Danowski hit three grand slams and drove in 13 runs.

Before the game with Reb’s, Helms was figuring out her lineup and counted only eight players, meaning that she would have to fill in as catcher, something she had done twice before this season. But just as she started to get her equipment, a ninth player arrived and she finished penciling in the lineup.

“It’s going to be a grudge match,” she said, scribbling in a dog-earred score book. “Last year we were lucky, but this year we’re definitely stronger than they are.”

Classic Properties has a following, a handful of regulars who sit in the bleachers and needle opposing players. Robert Black, who works at a packing plant with two of the players, had been looking forward to the Reb’s game for weeks and wore a T-shirt that said: “Sorry Reb’s. Better luck next year.”

The game was tight for a couple of innings. Then Patty Merina arrived. Childhood friends, Helms and Merina played together on the Playgirls, a youth team in the Park and Rec Ponytail League. “Our manager called Jill ‘Turtle’ for the way she runs,” Merina said, sitting barefoot on a cinder-block wall.

Helms regards Merina as a good-luck charm and had asked her to come to the game. “Every time I come, they win,” Merina said. “I don’t come to every game. Just the important ones. Earlier in the season I came in the last 10 minutes of a game and they were behind by one and one of the guys hit a home run to win.”

Merina’s magic worked again. Classic scored 10 runs in the third inning, aided by four Reb’s errors and home runs by Lindberg, Danowski and Ted Porter. From her perch on the wall, Merina provided trivia on beefy left-handed slugger Ron Tocynski when he came to bat. “If he grunts, he hits a home run,” she said. The big guy grunted but merely skied out to center.

Merina watched Helms during the game. Standing behind the backstop, Helms furrowed her brow and concentrated on the action. Even with the Classic lead in double figures, she paced and scribbled into her ubiquitous score book. Aside from keeping comprehensive statistics on every player, she charted where each batter hit the ball and reminded her defense the next time that batter was up.

“Jill’s very focused in the game,” Merina said.

Helms’ mother Doris joined Merina at the wall. “She’s a sports nut like Jill,” Merina said. The elder Helms, who only comes to games against Reb’s, pointed out that “it’s pretty unusual to see a woman manager.” Added Merina: “Especially a tiny feminine woman.”

How do the players like playing for a woman? “She treats everybody good,” Reppen said just before stroking a single to boost his season average to .639.

Classic Properties, which averaged 17 runs a game this season, had little trouble winning its 27th in a row, drubbing Reb’s, 20-9. But just before the game ended, Reb’s got into an argument with the lone umpire, screaming at him for not calling runner’s interference. The Classic players couldn’t help smirking as their rivals vented their frustrations on the ump.

“I had a gut feeling we were going to beat them,” Helms said after accepting high-fives from her players, “but it still gave me a lot of satisfaction to do it. Reb’s is still a tournament-caliber team.”

Reb’s player-manager Reb Sawitz, still angry after the game, says he wasn’t that impressed with Classic, even though it had beaten his team six times in a row and had dominated the league.

“It’s something I’ve been doing for 15 years,” said the bearded Sawitz. “Jill’s a competitor, a sweetheart, and she has a decent team, but it would help if I had all my players here and the umpire wasn’t inept.”

Helms laughed at Sawitz’s remarks. “He’s had his players and we beat him the last six games,” she said.

Does Helms foresee a dynasty for her team? “As long as we have the same players,” she said, “I don’t see why not.”