THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Former Dodger Trades Bat for Ball in El Camino Real Batting Practice

Ron Cey approached Mike Maio and apologized. Sorry, Cey said, but he had a scheduling conflict that would prevent him from attending El Camino Real High baseball practices for a while.

Maio, the El Camino Real coach, shrugged, shook Cey’s hand and told the former major league All-Star third baseman to make practice when it was convenient.

Cey, of course, is one of Maio’s assistant coaches, right? If not, he has to be a part-time batting instructor, doesn’t he? A fielding coach?

None of the above. Cey, on occasion, pitches batting practice.

“He comes out when he can,” Maio said. “He’s been out maybe a half-dozen times or so.”

Can the former Dodger and Cub still bring it?

“It’s always a strike,” Maio said. “And he doesn’t waste any time.”

The Cey family lives in Woodland Hills and Daniel Cey is a freshman on the Conquistadore junior varsity.

Daniel, however, is no pitcher. He is--you guessed it--a third baseman.

Highlander high point: Granada Hills was winless in Northwest Valley Conference play until Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat of Canoga Park. The victory was posted by junior right-hander Bryan Martin, who was making his first pitching start of the season.

Martin, who is also the Highlanders’ quarterback, threw a four-hitter, struck out six and walked two.

Nice timing: It was no coincidence that Kennedy’s Garret Anderson orally committed to play baseball next season at Fresno State.

Last season, the Bulldogs succeeded in signing Anderson’s teammate, shortstop Gino Tagliaferri, to a letter of intent. Tagliaferri later was drafted and signed by the Detroit Tigers.

Anderson said that a Fresno State assistant, in town to scout Tagliaferri during a winter-league game last year, was impressed with what he saw from the outfielder.

“I think he saw a four-hit game I had against Chatsworth,” Anderson said.

Claim to fame: Jeff Bishop of Antelope Valley readily offers evidence of his worthiness as a hitter.

“You’ve heard of Roger Salkeld?” Bishop said. “I hit a triple off him.”

Salkeld, a pitcher who graduated from Saugus last season after a celebrated three-year Golden League career, was chosen third in the nation by the Seattle Mariners in last June’s amateur draft.

An apparent big-leaguer-to-be, Salkeld even appears this spring on a Topps baseball card--one of which Bishop has pinned to his bedroom wall. The back of Salkeld’s card states that the 6-foot-5 right-hander, who was 31-7 at Saugus, never yielded a home run or a triple in his high school career.

Balk, says Bishop.

“I was a freshman and he was a sophomore, and I hit our fence off him--dead right-center, the 395 (-foot) sign,” Bishop said. “It was the last game of the season.”

As proof, Bishop keeps a newspaper clipping of the game.

“It says right here,” Bishop said, clipping in hand, “ ‘Jeff Bishop tripled to right-center off Centurion reliever Roger Salkeld.’

“People say he’s unhittable. I don’t think so.”

Bombs away: Taft basketball Coach Jim Woodard stood on the blacktop and watched his sixth-period basketball class play as though the term structured was not in its vocabulary. Keep in mind that most of the Taft varsity is enrolled in the class.

Then again, Woodard thinks he knows why things are rather wild.

“Look at the court,” he said. “It slants to one side, it’s too short, the wind is blowing, the sun’s in their eyes and the rims and backboards neutralize any outside shooter.”

But that may be the least of the team’s worries. It seems that sea gulls also use the court for target practice.

At the recent team banquet, in fact, Woodard awarded one player a gag gift in honor of his being bombed by a gull: a helmet.

Briggs sent down: Ryan Briggs, the first freshman to start at Simi Valley, has been moved to the junior varsity after sustaining a knee injury. During Briggs’ recovery, Tyler Nelson returned from a shoulder injury and moved to third base. That pushed Joe Gordon back to second, where Briggs was playing. “Ryan needs to play a lot right now, so we felt it was better to have him at the junior varsity level,” Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers said.

Family matter: Camarillo junior David Harbour, the Valley area’s leading scorer last season at 27.7 points a game, is considering a transfer to a higher-profile basketball program. According to his father, John, David’s status will be somewhat determined by his performance with a Mid Valley American Roundball Corp. team that is competing in Virginia this weekend.

John Harbour, who resigned as Camarillo’s coach after the past season, said there is a 70% chance that David would remain at Camarillo for his senior year.

“But a lot of it depends on how well things go out in Virginia,” John Harbour said. “If he gets a lot of attention and it looks like he’ll get a scholarship, then he’ll stay at Camarillo. But if things don’t look so good, we feel he needs to do something else, like play for a good team that is going to be seen.”

John Harbour said he might attend UC Irvine himself and allow David to play at Mater Dei, last year’s Division I state champion. Harbour stresses that he is content with Camarillo’s program but is looking elsewhere for financial reasons.

“You’re talking about a $40- to $50,000 scholarship,” Harbour said.

Gray area: Thanks in no small part to the pitching of Danny Gray, Glendale is back in the Pacific League hunt. A senior right-hander, Gray hurled a two-hit shutout against Hoover a week ago, allowing just two runners to reach second base.

Earlier this season, Gray (3-1) limited Crescenta Valley to two hits but was charged with his lone loss.

“He’s been as good as any, if not the best, pitcher in the league so far,” said Coach Chris Axelgard, whose team is 5-2-1, 2-2-1 in league play. “He’s just starting to mature. He understands his role on the team and he’s taking it very seriously.”

Staff writers Steve Elling, Sam Farmer, Vince Kowalick and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.