Titans’ Nevin to Play Baseball for Team U.S.A.

Cal State Fullerton third baseman Phil Nevin, Arizona State outfielder Jim Austin and Loyola Marymount outfielder Joe Ciccarella have been selected to play for Team U.S.A. and will participate in this summer’s Goodwill Games and World Games, national team manager Jim Morris said Thursday.

Morris, the baseball coach at Georgia Tech, will be assisted by former Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido, who is now at Illinois, John Anderson of Minnesota and Rick Jones, the pitching coach at Georgia Tech.

Nevin, a freshman from El Dorado High School, is batting .353 with a Big West Conference-leading 14 home runs. He also has 40 RBIs, 11 doubles, five triples and 11 stolen bases. Austin, a sophomore from Mater Dei, is batting .352 with 14 home runs, 13 doubles, 46 RBIs and 19 stolen bases. Ciccarella, a sophomore from Mater Dei who was the West Coast Conference rookie of the year last season, is batting .368.

The three are among 20-25 college freshmen and sophomores who will be invited to participate in a tryout camp in Millington, Tenn. June 10-17.

The team will travel to Japan for two weeks for a seven-game Japan-U.S.A. series, to Cuba for a July 21 game that will be televised nationally by NBC, to the Goodwill Games in Seattle July 26-Aug. 1 and to the World Games in Edmonton, Canada Aug. 3-19.

The Cal State Fullerton baseball team, which holds a 1 1/2-game lead over Fresno State and UC Santa Barbara in the Big West Conference, will not go to University of the Pacific today to make up a three-game series that was rained out in March.

Conference commissioner Jim Haney on Thursday waived a bylaw stating that a team has to play rained-out games if they affect a conference title and the Titans were declared outright conference champions.

Fullerton will receive an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament, for which pairings will be announced Monday.