Winning Over a Friend : Lions’ Williams Regains Confidence

From the time he became a high school baseball standout, Tim Williams has tried to live up to the standards of his toughest critic--himself.

And for his first two years at Loyola Marymount, Williams found that a tough, even puzzling, task. For the first time, baseball wasn’t easy.

Now, a more mature Williams has emerged as the Lions’ starting right fielder and the team’s most potent left-handed hitter. And in learning to live with the ups and downs of baseball, he has regained his bubbly confidence.

These days, his main concerns are winning the West Coast Conference title in a season-ending, three-game series this weekend at Pepperdine, and helping the 11th-ranked Lions advance to the College World Series for the first time since 1986, when Williams was competing at nearby St. Bernard High.

“I really do” foresee a College World Series possibility, Williams said. “We really have a good hitting team. I thought we’d be behind last year’s (offense) and we’ve pretty much demolished them. Everybody’s had that dream year. There’s more chemistry than last year. It’s an experienced team that’s been through a couple regionals.”

After platooning and fighting injuries for two seasons, Williams has finally produced his big year--a .342 average, 13 home runs, 16 doubles and 61 runs batted in going into Friday’s game at Malibu. He has started all of Loyola’s 57 games.

Moreover, Williams has learned to leave his bad days at the park and take a don’t-worry-be-happy attitude, a change from his younger days that will probably be helpful in a hoped-for pro career.

“Coming out of high school he definitely put pressure on himself,” said St. Bernard Coach Bob Yarnall, who has coached several All-CIF stars. “(Before this year) he didn’t do what Timmy Williams was expected to do. He didn’t seem to be the happy guy he usually was. Now he’s the happy guy Timmy Williams always was.”

Williams said the approach of Loyola Coach Chris Smith and the example of team captain Miah Bradbury taught him to put less pressure on himself. “I think I pressed a little bit (when being platooned),” Williams said. “That kind of attitude is not right. I come out now and when (the game) is over, the day is over with.

“You look at the way Miah Bradbury goes about things and it’s gotta be an inspiration. Everybody knows he’s an All-American and all that but you never see him lollygag. He has bad days and still comes out smiling. He never treats baseball like it’s pressure.”

Smith’s approach is to play hard and not worry about the opponent. “Our team stresses the word ‘90’--play everything hard in between the lines,” Williams said. “It’s 90 feet between bases. You run a hard 90, not to the bag but through the bag. During our losing streak last year (the team lost seven of eight to open the season), coach said we’re still going about it right. He’ll get on you for a ‘bad’ win as much as he’ll praise you for a ‘good’ loss. When we play horrible and win he lets us know. If you go about it right you get your rewards.”

Smith is pleased to see Williams improve. “After having such a great high school career, I think he ended up in situation where there were some other people in the outfield,” Smith said. “I think his expectations were to come in and do what he did in high school. Not that he didn’t do well. He would--for streaks. This year I told him, ‘It’s your job. Go be who you want to be.’ ”

Recently, Williams got more timely advice. At a friend’s party, guests included major league players Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis. The outgoing Williams, a communications major, asked Davis about his approach.

“Davis said, ‘Confidence--you have to have it. You’re gonna fail a majority of the time anyway.’ If you hit .300 you’ve failed seven out of 10 times. So don’t worry about it,” Williams said.

That hasn’t been an easy lesson for Williams, who set CIF home run records as a hitter and strikeout marks as a pitcher while earning CIF 1-A player of the year honors. His teammates included infielder Royce Clayton, who was a first-round draft choice the next year, and Dan Melendez, now a standout freshman at Pepperdine. “And Tim was heads and tails above everyone else,” Yarnall said.

Williams expected the transition to college ball would be as easy as the mile-and-a-half drive from St. Bernard to Loyola. Instead, playing part-time, he hit .264 and gave only occasional glimpses of his talent, hitting one home run that nearly cleared the Loyola scoreboard in center field and another in an NCAA regional game against then top-ranked Oklahoma State.

Last year Williams again split time in right field and played with a variety of painful injuries, first bruising some ribs diving for a ball at Stanford, and later dislocating a shoulder against USC. He hit .270, but only two home runs, and was frustrated platooning with Robert Cannon, who now plays in the Angels’ farm system. “That was one thing I was never able to adjust to,” Williams said.

But Williams learned from the setbacks. “I’ve learned about platooning, and getting yourself ready to play every day,” he said. “Those may be things I’ll run into again down the road.”

This year--when he is eligible to be drafted again--Williams came out to prove something.

“This is the year I want to say something with the way I play,” he said. “I thank the Lord I’ve been able to come out and play good. The only thing I’ve had to concentrate on was just coming out and playing, not worrying about any setbacks and injuries. Smitty gave me the chance to play every day this year. I welcomed the challenge.”

The 5-foot-9, 165 pound Williams uses a compact swing to hit line drives to all fields. His quick bat has earned him the nickname “Buddywhip” from assistant coach Rick Ragazzo. With prevailing winds to left field at Loyola’s George C. Page Field, Williams has learned to go to the opposite field. “He’s got surprising power for a guy his size,” Smith said. “He can play line to line and hit with power both ways. His major skill is his bat.”

Williams said he sometimes laughs when he sees defenses playing him to pull. “They don’t know my strength is to left-center,” he said. “The last year and a half I’d say most of my homers have been to left-center. A lot of teams this year are trying to work the outside corner. I learned my lesson trying to pull that (pitch). You end up hitting a grounder to second base. The best way to become a better ballplayer was learning to go the other way with it.”

Williams is also a surprisingly good power pitcher who has thrown 17 innings this year, allowing seven runs run and striking out 13. But he has no plans to become the two-way player.

“It’s fun to come right out of the outfield and try and take it to somebody,” Williams said. “I kind of want to be an everyday outfielder. But I’m not gonna be selfish when the situation presents itself and they need me. It’s not like it’s a foreign situation.”

The immediate challenge is to win the WCC title and the conference’s automatic NCAA berth by winning at least a game at Malibu. Last year the Lions had a chance to win the title, but the Waves won three of four.

“We would love to win at Pepperdine and celebrate on their field,” Williams said. “It was just an awful feeling last year. We never want to bring that up again. Now we want to go to their yard, take it to them and let them have a taste of what we had last year.”

When the season ends, Williams will await the draft and decide whether to turn pro or return for his final year at Loyola.

Pals Off the Field, Foes on It

Tim Williams and Dan Melendez were teammates on the St. Bernard High baseball team. Williams was Southern Section CIF player of the year in 1987 and Melendez, Williams’ junior by two years, received the same honor last season.

Both spurned professional offers to attend Southland colleges, Williams at Loyola Marymount and Melendez at Pepperdine. Both are having fine seasons. Williams has emerged as Loyola’s left-handed power hitter and Melendez appears on his way to earning West Coast Conference freshman-of-the-year honors.

They are close friends, taking batting practice together in their leisure time and talking on the phone weekly.

But this weekend they are rivals fighting for the West Coast Conference title. Loyola and Pepperdine play a three-game, season-ending series in Malibu to decide the WCC title, starting with a 2 p.m. game Friday. They finish with an 11 a.m. doubleheader Saturday.

Loyola leads the conference by three games, so a Lion victory would clinch the title and the conference’s NCAA berth. Pepperdine needs a sweep to force a tie, in which case the Waves would be declared conference champions by virtue of winning the season series.