MINOR LEAGUE NOTEBOOK / STEVE KRESAL : His Effort’s the Same, but Not the Results : Baseball: Greg Hansell pitched Kennedy to the Southern Section 3-A championship in 1989, but now plays for a Class-A team that’s far from winning any titles.

Greg Hansell had about as a good a season as a high school pitcher can have a year ago, when he pitched Kennedy to the Southern Section 3-A title and was selected The Times’ Orange County player of the year.

But since Hansell has turned professional, he has found success much harder to come by.

The right-hander is 6-7 for Winter Haven, the Boston Red Sox’s Class-A team in the Florida State League. He has a 3.50 earned-run average in 92 2/3 innings.

But Hansell’s record, which is the best on the team, is worth an explanation. Winter Haven was 6-44 at one time and finished the first half of the season 16-54. In the second half, the team is 6-11 so far.

“You just have to keep believing in yourself,” Hansell, 19, said. “You learn something each time you go out there, no matter what happens, win or lose. It’s hard, but that’s what you have to do when things are going badly for the team.”

Hansell has spent most of this season working on two things: his changeup and his control. He also throws a fastball and a curve.

“In high school, I pretty much went with my fastball,” Hansell said. “When you get in trouble you go with your best stuff anyway, but here the hitters are better so you have to be, too. You have to have more than one pitch.”

His senior year in high school, Hansell dominated batters with ease. He pitched a perfect game against Garden Grove and finished with a 13-1 record and a 1.24 ERA. He had 123 strikeouts and 25 walks in 96 innings.

His final victory was 1-0 over Saugus and pitcher Roger Salkeld in the Southern Section 3-A title game at Dodger Stadium. Salkeld, who was a first-round pick by Seattle in the 1989 draft, pitches for San Bernardino in the California League.

Hansell was also a linebacker on the Kennedy football team and had signed to play football and baseball at Nevada Reno. But he passed up the scholarship after being picked by the Red Sox in the seventh round of the draft.

After signing last summer, he was sent to the Red Sox’s Class-A team at Gulf Coast (Florida). He was 3-2 with a 2.52 ERA in two months.

“It was a big change last season,” he said. “I went from being a hero to going back to being just another blue-collar worker. But that was the choice I made.”

Power pitcher. Alan Newman continues to have a strong season for Kenosha (Wisconsin), the Twins’ team in the Class-A Midwest League.

Newman, a left-handed starter from Fullerton College and La Habra High School, leads the league with a 1.35 earned-run average. He is fourth in victories (8-2) and third in strikeouts (110).

Trivia time. It’s a two-parter this time around. What former Orange County high school player was the starting pitcher for the National League in the 1974 All-Star Game?

And what former county high school pitcher was the loser in the 1973 game for the American League? It’s two different people.

Answers below.

Roommate lost. Hansell and Jason Friedman, a former Cypress College standout, were roommates this season at Winter Haven until three weeks ago, when Friedman was reassigned.

Friedman, a left-handed hitting first baseman, was sent to Elmira (New York), the Red Sox’s Class-A team in the New York-Penn League.

Friedman was pretty much a flop in Winter Haven, hitting just .163 with one home run and only 11 RBIs in 49 games.

But at Elmira things have gone much better. He is hitting .352 with 10 RBIs in 15 games.

O’Leary on fire. Troy O’Leary has been among the hottest hitters in the minors the past two weeks. O’Leary, an outfielder from Cypress High School, has gone 18 for 35 to raise his average from .267 to .301 for Class-A Beloit (Wisconsin) in the Midwest League.

O’Leary was better known as a football player at Cypress but gained the scouts’ attention in an Empire League baseball game against Esperanza High in 1987. The scouts had come to watch Esperanza’s Tom Redington, but O’Leary performed well enough to warrant some interest.

O’Leary was taken in the 13th round and signed with the Brewers in the summer of ’87. In three years and over a span of 180 games, he had a batting average of .311 in Class-A play before this season.

Trivia Answers. Andy Messersmith (Western High School) of the Dodgers was the starter in the 1974 game, won by the National League, 7-2, in Pittsburgh. Bert Blyleven (Santiago) took the loss in the 1973 game, also won by the National League, 7-1, in Kansas City.