These Guys Are Ballplayers : Amateur football: They pay $100 to play for the fun of it as members of the California Wolves.

The BMWs are pulling away from the curb now and the shiny, four-wheel-drive, air-conditioned Jeeps that were built to climb rugged mountains but have never tackled anything more treacherous than Woodland Hills are being boarded by the softball players, their wives and their cute kids.

And, as a muggy darkness settles over Winnetka Park in Chatsworth, the wolves begin to gather.

Aw, relax. These are just the California Wolves and they really mean no harm.

Despite their appearance.

The Wolves of the High Desert Football League practice at the park once a week. Their arrival, coming at the close of a dozen little tykes’ soccer games and several yuppie-type softball games, can be a bit shocking.

For starters, they tend not to drive polished new foreign luxury sedans. They tend to drive trucks. Big, dusty, working pickup trucks that often have heavy, rusty things in the beds. Like shovels and wheelbarrows.

And out of them step football players. Real football players. Not guys who gather for an hour of flag football on Sunday mornings before heading home for a daylong face full of the business section.

If a guy is carrying the football in a High Desert League game and someone reaches for him and tries to tear something off, it is not going to be a brightly colored little flag. It is more likely going to be the ballcarrier’s tongue.

The football players’ appearance at the park draws more than a few stares from the departing young men and their families, for the Wolves don’t appear to be thrilled with the idea of spending the next few hours getting pounded around. This disposition that is etched on more than a few tough-looking faces--some of them adorned with those nasty-looking 6 1/2-pound Fu Manchu mustaches and capped by Copenhagen snuff caps--prompted one family headed back to the car to veer sharply from the Wolves’ path on a recent evening.

The Wolves are actually a decent group of fellows, but they are, without question, hardened football players. Even though they wouldn’t actually devour a child, it does seem possible that they would perhaps nip at one if disturbed during a practice session.

And if there is no real physical threat, there is the matter of language. A young son or daughter would, for example, have plenty of questions that a parent is probably not prepared to answer should they overhear some R-rated howling by the Wolves.

One unusually lively conversation at a recent practice session concerned the enjoyment the Wolves derived from dismantling a quarterback in their most recent game. Some of the Wolves volunteered that they were just a tad sorry that the gentleman hadn’t screamed a bit louder.

The boisterous conversations continue as the players tape their own ankles and slide their shoulder pads over very limited necks, if indeed those are necks at all.

Some of the players are--let’s see, how can this be phrased so as not to offend anyone?--fat and grossly out of shape. But many more are rock solid and very big and it should be clearly understood that these are not the fellows mentioned in the previous sentence.

One player in particular, James Mosby of Tarzana, is a mountain. He has those peculiar muscles that begin just a bit below his ears and then bulge downward into his shoulders. They are the kind of muscles that leave you wondering just how a person can get such things.

“I played football at Lynwood High and at Long Beach City College,” said Mosby, who works for TRW in Hawthorne. “When I got out of college, I really missed playing football. I heard about the High Desert League, found the Wolves and started playing again. And let me tell you, this is no old-man league. This is very competitive football.

“At first, I worried that it might just be junk, just guys walking off the street. But believe me, it isn’t. This is real solid football.”

The Wolves lost the first two games of the season, but the score in each game was close. The players are among the youngest in the league, since many of the veterans left the Wolves to begin a new team in Ventura this year.

It is not semipro football, because no one gets paid. In fact, the players pay to play in the league, a sum of about $100 a season to cover insurance and the use of a field.

But they pay without hesitation for this right to pound away on other people. They pay because, like Mosby, they miss the game that they played in high school or junior college.

“I haven’t played football in six years,” said Lamont Southern, 33, who lives in Hawthorne but works in Thousand Oaks. “I played in high school in Gardena and then for one season at L.A. City College. But all the time, I missed it. I played basketball and softball since school, but that just isn’t the same. Football is a real game.”

Southern offered another reason for returning to the football field after a six-year layoff.

“After I get off work, I need a way to release some tension,” he said. “This does it for me, at least one night a week. It’s better than going home and kicking the dog.”

Mike Villalobos, 21, played football at North Hollywood High and Valley College. When he got a chance to put on the cleats again, the defensive lineman didn’t waste any time.

“You’ve got to love football to play it at this level,” he said. “These games are tough. Everybody plays like they’re getting paid $100,000 a season and their contract is up for renegotiation. But I keep thinking, ‘We’re doing this for nothing. “

The Wolves play their home games at Birmingham High in Van Nuys. The games don’t attract much of a crowd. A few friends and relatives and a couple of dozen unattached spectators make up the average crowd.

But for some of the players who have played more than a few seasons with the Wolves and have some rather clear memories of games gone horribly wrong, small crowds are no problem at all.

It is the big crowds that can cause problems. Especially if the crowd is made up of prison inmates. Or young men who are on the threshold of becoming prison inmates.

Ed Lafferty of Thousand Oaks, a 10-year member of the Wolves, has a vivid memory of each.

“We played a game in L.A. several years ago that was stopped because of gunfire,” Lafferty said. “Our blue uniforms were apparently a gang color, and these gang members started firing all around the field. Everyone went crazy. We ran a lot.”

And just a few years later, the Wolves traveled to the men’s prison in Tehachapi for a game against a team of inmates. And all was going along just fine until one of the prisoners took off his helmet and began swinging it at the Wolves, touching off a wild--although brief--melee.”

“Everyone’s really going at it and all of a sudden we hear ‘Boom! Boom!’ ” Lafferty said. “It was the guards firing their shotguns. We didn’t know what to do. After a few more seconds and few more shots, we all hit the ground and covered our heads. It got crazy. I was wondering who shot who.

“And then I thought, ‘Is the first half over?’ But all the inmates just stood around during the shooting. They knew what was going on. They were laughing.”

Lafferty, 30, a receiver and defensive back, said he plans to stop playing football after this season. A shoulder separation, a broken wrist and dozens of lesser injuries have added up to a lot of pain, he said. But, he quickly pointed out, he had planned to quit the team after last season, too.

“But I thought they might need me again this year,” he said. “So here I am. And if the Wolves need me again next season, well, maybe I can get another year out of this body.”