Minors Are Major to Sandt : Baseball: Fifteen years playing and managing in the minor leagues help Pacifica grad land Pirates’ coaching job.

As rap music pumps from the speakers at Jack Murphy Stadium, Tom Sandt begins hitting ground balls to Pittsburgh second baseman Jose Lind, who’s inventing a creative new way of taking infield practice.

Sandt, the Pirates’ first-base coach, knocks a bouncer between first and second. Lind fields it cleanly . . . between his legs.

Then Lind starts dancing to the rap. Sandt shakes his head.

He hits three more ground balls, each harder and further from Lind, but the second baseman chases down each with ease.

Each play is followed by a grin and, of course, more dancing.

Finally, Sandt blasts a line drive past the diving Lind.

“I practically have to put it in right field for that guy not to get it,” said Sandt, whose team begins a four-game series against the Dodgers tonight. “Defensively, he’s one of the best in the league.

“I mean, I worked with him a little in spring training when he first came up. He’s so, so talented.”

Twenty years ago, it was Sandt who was playing the infield with the same vigor as Lind.

After graduating from Pacifica High School in 1969, he was drafted in the second round by the Oakland Athletics and had hopes of making the major leagues.

He made it, but not for long.

Except for 42 games he played with the A’s in the mid-1970s, Sandt made a career in the minors. He has 15 years worth of statistics--a .209 batting average, a 368-337 managerial record and even a 0-0 pitching record and 4.50 earned-run average.

Sandt, 39, played and managed in such exotic ports of call as Hawaii, New Orleans and Portland, Ore. But he also has taken a few all-night bus rides to Burlington, Iowa, Buffalo, N.Y., and Tucson, Ariz. And he coached three seasons in the winter leagues in Venezuela, where “guys with machine guns sat with us in the dugouts.”

“I’ve been everywhere,” said Sandt, a Pirate coach since 1987. “But it’s not like it was a hard thing for me to do. All that time in the minors makes me appreciate the big leagues.

“I think some of the guys who come in (to the majors) quickly miss out on what it’s like. Like getting the envelope with meal money in it, the fun and the travel.”

The travel and the fun started for Sandt when he reported to Oakland’s Class-A team in Tri-Cities, Wash. An all-Southern Section pick at shortstop as a senior, Sandt turned down an offer to play baseball at Chapman College and football at the University of Arizona and Redlands.

But he was shocked when he arrived at Tri-Cities. Players were smoking and playing cards in the clubhouse, two things he never did in high school. Nor had pitchers thrown exploding sliders.

“For the first time I got to see a good slider,” he said.

Still, he hit .317 and led the Northwest League in runs with 63. His statistics dipped the next five seasons, as he bounced around double- and triple-A teams in Burlington, Birmingham and Tucson.

But Sandt finally got his shot at the majors in 1975 when he joined the defending world champion A’s at mid-season. He played in only one game, but it was in front of his family and friends in Anaheim Stadium. His mother and father, Mary Jane and Nelson, still live in Garden Grove.

“Before the game, Reggie Jackson came up to me and said, ‘Hey, let’s play catch,’ ” Sandt said. “He knew I was playing in front of everyone in my hometown and they would see me playing catch with him before the game. He was real good to me.”

The glory ended when the game started. Reggie went to the outfield; Sandt to the bench.

Finally, Manager Alvin Dark called him over.

“We were winning like 10-1 or something and he asked me what my best position was,” Sandt said. “I told him shortstop. He asked me if I would play third and I told him I could.

“The next inning, he sent me to second base and I played an inning there. Two balls were hit to the shortstop, so I guess Alvin knew what he was doing.”

Sandt spent the entire 1976 season with the Athletics. A utility player, he appeared in 41 games, batted .209 and had only one extra-base hit.

His major league playing career ended there.

The Athletics’ lineup began breaking up before the 1977 season, as several starters became free agents or were traded. Sandt negotiated a new contract and made what he calls the biggest mistake of his career. He hired an agent.

“That was the worst year I ever spent in baseball,” Sandt said. “My agent really screwed things up for me.

“He kept telling (A’s owner Charlie) Finley that I wasn’t going to sign, and then he turned around and told me that things were coming together and I was ready to sign. The next thing I knew, I was going to be traded.”

He wasn’t traded, but he was demoted. He signed with St. Louis as a free agent early in the season and was sent to the minors, where he hit .259 with 10 homers for New Orleans.

“It wasn’t so hard that I had to go back to the minors,” Sandt said, “but that I had made a mistake with Oakland. I probably shouldn’t have hired an agent.

“I might have played another four years in the majors, but things might not have worked out like this either.”

Sandt was traded from St. Louis to Pittsburgh for pitcher John Stuper before the 1979 season. There was no contract dispute this time, but Sandt packed his bags after Cardinal management suggested he try managing.

“The Cardinals had Tom Herr and Ken Oberkfell coming up in the infield,” Sandt said. “They asked me if I would coach triple-A and I said no. So they (told me) they would trade me.”

The Pirates assigned Sandt to their triple-A affiliate in Portland, a move, Sandt says, that changed his life.

He and his wife, Diane, and son, Tom II, now a sophomore pitcher at Northwestern, settled in Lake Oswego, a suburb of Portland.

Sandt also settled down at the plate, batting .322 during the 1979 season. Portland Manager Johnny Lipon suggested to Sandt that he try managing. This time, Sandt listened.

He was a player-manager with Portland in 1980 and ‘81, then managed the Pirates’ double-A teams in Buffalo, N.Y., and Lynn, Mass., the next two years. His 1983 team at Lynn finished second in the Eastern League with a 77-62 record.

The winning continued the next two years. Sandt guided the Pirates’ triple-A team in Hawaii to division titles in 1984 and ’85.

During the offseason, Sandt managed in the winter leagues in Venezuela. He led Magallanes to the playoffs for three consecutive years.

“People down there love baseball,” Sandt said. “Those were the best crowds I ever saw. They’re emotional people and they show it. They go crazy, though.”

Sandt managed in Hawaii until 1987, when he was promoted to the Pirates as a coach.

He says his versatility as a player has helped him. When Pittsburgh Manager Jim Leyland put together his staff, he looked for coaches with a broad range of playing experience.

“All the coaches here have managed at least one other level,” said shortstop Jay Bell. “Jim has confidence in every one of them, and he knows how to delegate power. He can come to the ballpark and he knows Tommy has taken care of the infield.”

When Bell came to the Pirates from Cleveland in 1989, Sandt saw potential in him that he felt the Indians had missed.

“The biggest thing he taught me was how to bunt,” Bell said. “When I came over from the American League, I had no idea how to do it. I came in here and that was the first thing Tommy and I talked about.

“He helped me out a lot with my technique last year. This year, I lead the league in sacrifice bunts and I owe it all to Tommy.”

Sandt said players move faster through the minor leagues now than when he played, and they miss much of the instruction.

“When I played, I had to learn from the other players,” he said. “Finley always made sure we had some experienced guys in triple-A to teach the younger guys. It was much more fun to learn from each other like that.

“Kids move up so fast through the minors now, people have to tell them what to do.”

Sandt is comfortable with his job with the Pirates. He prefers teaching over managing.

“When I first started managing, I thought about becoming a major league manager,” he said. “If I do, fine, but it’s not a big deal. I want to get 10 years in and then look for a small college job.”

In the meantime, Sandt continues to coach the young Jay Bells and Jose Linds to heights he only flirted with as a player.

“The biggest thing I tell them is that you get to do this for only so many years,” Sandt said. “If they’re struggling, I’ll tell them to step out of the batter’s box and look up in the stands and realize where you are.”

And just hope it’s not in Burlington, Iowa.