Illness Forces Carl to the Sideline : Prep baseball: Former Mater Dei player has to sit out senior year after second bout of mononucleosis. He’s hoping to resume athletic career at Loyola Marymount.

Greg Carl, one of the top high school baseball players in Orange County, transferred from Mater Dei High School before this season, but he won’t be playing for his new school.

Carl, a third-team all-Southern Section and a first-team selection on The Times’ All-County list last year as a junior, left Mater Dei in January after doctors told him he needed rest to recover from his second bout of mononucleosis in 1989.

Carl is working in a home-study curriculum administered by Horizon High, a school run by the Orange County Department of Education that offers no athletic program. The curriculum does offer Carl the chance to get his high school diploma and maintain the hope that he will be able to attend Loyola Marymount on a baseball scholarship.

As the Monarchs’ leadoff batter last year, Carl stole a school-record 20 bases and batted nearly .500. But in the last few regular-season games and during the Monarchs’ three games in the Southern Section playoffs, Carl didn’t steal any bases. No one realized it at the time but his unusual lack of base-running aggressiveness was an indication that he was running out of steam.

The week after Mater Dei lost to eventual champion El Dorado in the quarterfinals of the Division 5-A playoffs, Carl was diagnosed as having mononucleosis.

“We’re going to miss the leadership he would have given,” Mater Dei Coach Bob Ickes said. “We’re going to miss the work ethic he had.”

Carl’s work ethic may have been just the thing that has put him in his current situation. He said he kept himself awake nights last season thinking about the game the next day. “With his hard work and everything, it just wore him down and his body couldn’t take it,” Ickes said. “It just pushed him too far past the point, and I think it just wore him down physically and mentally.”

In June, doctors told Carl he contracted the disease early in the season. But he said it only affected him during the last few regular-season games and the three playoff games. Until he started to really feel sick, Carl said he was too excited about the season to notice his illness. “When you start playing baseball your adrenaline goes so you don’t feel it during the game,” he said. “You don’t feel it before the game, you don’t feel it after the game, you feel it when you wake up in the morning, the first part of the day and really late at night (when) you wake up and you can’t sleep.”

Heeding his doctor’s advice, Carl didn’t play baseball in the summer. There were weeks when he was so weak he couldn’t get out of bed.

In the fall, he started training with the baseball team at Mater Dei.

“I got right into baseball after the summer,” Carl said. “I did everything else I was supposed to do, ran hard, worked hard and all this stuff, and it was just too early.”

“(Coach Ickes would) always tell me to take it easy but you know you can’t do that,” Carl said.

Despite Carl’s efforts, Ickes said, he wasn’t the athlete he used to be. Where he used to lead the Monarchs’ training runs, he now struggled to keep up.

“You could tell he didn’t have the strength he had in the past,” Ickes said.

The baseball games he played for a scout team affiliated with the San Francisco Giants also took their toll and eventually Carl ran himself down again. “We’d play at night and it would be wet,” he said. “I think the first time I got sick we didn’t think anything of it, but then I kept getting sick every week.”

In January, doctors told Carl he had mononucleosis again. The virus that causes the disease, they told him, can stay in a body for six or seven months and because he wore himself down, his resistance was low. The prescription was rest, away from the demands of athletics.

Despite Carl’s medical problems, Loyola Marymount Coach Chris Smith still wants to offer a scholarship to Carl if he can meet the school’s admission standards. Smith said he doesn’t care that Carl can’t play his senior season.

“It’s so disappointing (for Carl),” Smith said. “The only thing I’ve tried to make him understand is, ‘Hey, your life’s not over because you miss one high school season.’ The best thing he can do is get healthy. This doesn’t mean he’s not going to be a great baseball player.”

However, Smith said, he has some questions about the manner in which Carl became ill.

“Maybe he needs to rest some,” Smith said. “He’s got an awful lot of energy, maybe he needs to back off a bit.”

Carl, 17, is trying to relax. He says he will not repeat his mistakes, promising to get enough sleep and eat proper meals. Thursday, he will have his tonsils removed, which should relieve the sore throats that have plagued him.

Although he feels weak because he has been inactive since late December, Carl is ready to start getting in shape. After he was found to be free of the virus that causes mononucleosis last week, Carl was cleared to exercise.

He said he is not rushing to get in shape as he did in the fall. This time, he is leisurely hitting off a tee and throwing himself ground balls in his back yard.

“I’m taking it slow, real slow,” Carl said.

Until doctors give him clearance to play, Carl is keeping occupied by working on his truck and talking to the mechanics at a local automotive shop. He also helps his mother with the household chores and works two to three hours a day on his school work.

“When you have to sit home and do nothing, it’s no fun,” Carl said. “It’s hard because you know your buddies are out there practicing, hitting, fielding ground balls, laughing and having fun, and you’re not.

“But you learn to handle it, I guess. What else can you do?”