Swerdling Returns to West Dugout : Olympic Festival: Longtime Sepulveda baseball official to coach team for the second time.

For the second time in three years, Mel Swerdling of Sepulveda has been selected coach of the West baseball team in the U. S. Olympic Festival, to be held July 7-11 in Minneapolis.

Swerdling, a longtime member of the U. S. Baseball Federation, which organizes the baseball portion of the Festival, coached the West to a gold medal in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 1988.

Swerdling, 55, currently is evaluating players aged 17-18 from 14 Western states. But for Swerdling, the commissioner of American Legion District 20 since 1974 and who has been involved in youth baseball for more than a quarter-century, wearing a different hat is old hat.

“After organizing all of the leagues around here, it’s kind of routine,” Swerdling said. “You evaluate the players, select them and go from there. I’m used to it.”

A former minor-league pitcher, Swerdling once was briefly called up to the majors while pitching in the Philadelphia organization. It might have marked the turning point in his career.

“I got called up for three days, sat on the bench, and went back down,” he said. “Baseball started to get boring, so I went back to school and got my degree.”

Swerdling’s engineering background--he is a space nuclear systems project manager at TRW--has come in handy when evaluating players. Since prospective talent is spread out all over the West, Swerdling relies on the input of coaches, scouts and perhaps most important, statistics.

Swerdling said he considers a player’s statistics and size as important as any verbal testimonial when sending out invitations to join the team.

It seemed to work two years ago when Swerdling put together a team that included Steve Solomon and Troy Tallman, both now at Stanford; Dave Robson (Arizona State); Brett Jenkins (USC); Tyler Green (Wichita State); Joe Furukawa (Cal); and Dan Melendez (Pepperdine).

“We had a great team,” he said. “I hope we can get kids as good this time around.”

Player selections for all four Festival teams will be announced June 10, Swerdling said. The baseball competition, which uses a round-robin format, will be held at the University of Minnesota.

Next summer, the Festival is scheduled to be held in Los Angeles, with the baseball competition at USC’s Rod Dedeaux Field.