COLLEGE BASEBALL : Garrido Brings Illini to Southland

Augie Garrido and the University of Illinois baseball team are on the road again.

The Fighting Illini have already completed swings through Florida, Nevada and Texas, and they’ll be in Louisiana this weekend before arriving at UCLA March 17 for the first of seven games in the Southland. It’s Garrido’s first competitive trip to California since leaving Cal State Fullerton, where he won two national championships and 12 conference titles, compiling a 667-292-6 record in 15 seasons.

“It’s one of the stops we need to make to complete our player development program,” Garrido said of the trip. “It’s not necessarily a recruiting tool, just another important place to play, so our players get a good feel for the quality of teams and players throughout the country.”

Last season, with a team made up predominantly of freshmen and sophomores, the Illini were 42-16, winning the Big Ten Conference tournament and advancing to the NCAA Northeast Regional.

This season, they are 7-5 and ranked eighth by Baseball America magazine. The Illini, whose roster includes 10 players from Southern California, finished second to Cal State Long Beach at a tournament in Florida, won a tournament two weeks ago in Las Vegas and took two of three games from Texas last weekend--only the second time the Longhorns have lost a series at Austin, Tex.

Illinois is led by Bubba Smith, a sophomore pitcher/infielder from Riverside who was the Big Ten player of the year last season. Other key players include sophomore catcher Sean Mulligan from Diamond Bar, sophomore pitcher/infielder Jason Moler from Anaheim and senior shortstop Wil Parsons from El Segundo.

The Illini will play UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, Utah, UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton during the weeklong stay.

“I’m sure there will be some impact and some emotions involved when we play at Fullerton,” Garrido said.

Card sharks: College baseball fans who missed the USC-Stanford series at Dedeaux Field two weeks ago lost out not only on the opportunity to watch what were then the No. 1 teams in separate polls, but also on a possible investment.

Three thousand of those in attendance received a set of 12 USC baseball cards featuring former Trojan stars such as Tom Seaver, Dave Kingman, Fred Lynn and Mark McGwire.

“That’s a $5 to $10 set right out of the chute,” said Kit Kiefer, editor of Baseball Cards magazine. “In the long term, and I’m talking about two years, it should become a $20 to $25 item, possibly more.”

Kiefer said the value of most of the cards will be limited because of their regional distribution. However, as Seaver nears induction into the Hall of Fame and McGwire’s career progresses, the value of their cards will rise.

“People are starting to turn to college cards,” Kiefer said. “Right now, they’re like minor league cards five or seven years ago. It’s a burgeoning area.”

We meet again: USC and UCLA, both ranked among the nation’s top 15 teams, resume their cross-town rivalry this weekend with a three-game Pacific 10 Southern Division series.

USC leads the all-time series, 186-79, but the Trojans hold just a 33-27 advantage over the past 10 seasons.

USC, ranked seventh, is 12-7 overall and 4-4 in the Pac-10. The Trojans were swept last weekend at Arizona. UCLA, ranked 14th, is 16-6 overall and 3-5 in the Pac-10. The Bruins are coming off a split with California.

In the Southern Division standings, Arizona (5-1) is in first place, followed by Stanford (5-3), USC, Cal (2-3), UCLA and Arizona State (2-5).

The Trojan-Bruin series opens Friday night at UCLA, continues Saturday afternoon at USC and ends Sunday afternoon at UCLA.

Flight protection: Arizona State players, in a hurry to make a flight out of San Jose Monday, didn’t bother to change out of their uniforms.

Freshman left-hander Michael Fenton didn’t make it through the metal detector, and couldn’t figure out why until a teammate jokingly suggested the problem must be his protective cup. That was it.

“I’ve worn a steel cup all of my life, and I’m so used to it, I didn’t even consider it might be the problem,” Fenton said.

What price, glory?: Jon Peters, a freshman right-hander at Texas A&M; who set a national high school record with 53 consecutive victories, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his pitching elbow and will be a redshirt this season.

Peters, 19, hurt the elbow during a high school all-star game in the Houston Astrodome last summer.

Peters had a 54-1 overall record at Brenham High School, including 22 shutouts and five no-hitters, and struck out 612 batters in 370 innings. He broke the national record of 51 straight victories on April 29, 1989, beating A&M; Consolidated.

“I think I’ll be able to contribute next year,” Peters said. “This might be the best thing for me in the long run. There was some pressure on me to be able to step right in.”

College Baseball Notes

Don Barbara and Michael Lujan are batting .412 for Cal State Long Beach, which is ranked 13th by Baseball America. . . . Pepperdine pitcher Steve Duda is 4-0 with a 2.50 earned-run average. Britt Craven is 3-0 with a 3.49 ERA. . . . Cal State Fullerton left-hander Huck Flener is 4-0 with a 2.84 ERA.

UCLA Coach Gary Adams won his 700th college game last week when the Bruins defeated Loyola. . . . UCLA catcher Paul Ellis leads the nation with 14 home runs and 40 runs batted in. First baseman Chris Pritchett is batting .408.