THE COLLEGES : Baseball Players Warm to the Idea of Wild and Wacky Summer League

It’s summertime, and the baseball is easy.

Easy, that is, for those junior college players competing in a new Valley-area summer league. The five-team league includes squads made up primarily of players from Pierce, Canyons, Mission and Valley colleges.

League play is scheduled to conclude Sunday after each team has played about 15 to 20 games, and the junior college teams will take about a month off before gearing up again for their regular fall and winter schedules.

“We like to keep it as low-key as possible,” Valley Coach Chris Johnson said, “because of the notch of intensity we take it up in the winter and three notches we take it up in the spring.”

That said, it’s time for the top 10 reasons why this league, which shall remain nameless because it is nameless, is so low-key.

1. Pierce’s Pat Huston captured the mood of the league when he said, “I could play Palomino (League ball), but I just wanted to take the summer off.”

2. There are no lines on the field or on coaches’ brows.

3. Players call their own balls and strikes.

4. Dugouts, chatterboxes during the regular season, are quieter than Centre Court at Wimbledon or the 18th green at the U. S. Open.

5. Coaches fill in when their teams are short of players. For example, Mission Coach John Klitsner recently hit a home run against Pierce. “The highlight of the summer,” said Klitsner.

6. There are no uniforms. One Mission player was spotted in a Bart Simpson T-shirt.

7. Everyone who shows up is put in the batting order--Bart Simpson could play if he wanted to.

8. Coaches don’t need to bring a ball bag full of antacid to the game. “Where are the coaches?” one fan asked. “How come they’re not walking around yelling?”

9. Players get up and leave during the middle of the game.

10. The weather is nice for the early-evening games.

It might be low-key, but the league nonetheless serves a purpose. It has given a bunch of guys who otherwise would not be playing this summer an excuse to get back on the field.

Teams include incoming freshmen, sophomores-to-be and alums. The league is valuable for those who have grown too old for the youth baseball system and lack the desire or talent to play elsewhere, say for the Valley Rangers or in the Cape Cod League.

“If you’re going to be a player at this level, you better think of competing year-round or you’re going to fall behind,” Johnson said. “It’s mostly an opportunity to play.”

Players can work on switch-hitting, pitchers can work on new pitches and players can experiment with new positions. A first baseman can pitch and not worry about having an earned-run average higher than his batting average because some teams don’t even keep scorebooks.

“In a league like this, where you’re not worrying about wins and losses, you let them work on stuff,” Pierce co-Coach Bob Lofrano said.

Coaches have agreed not to tamper with one another’s teams to avoid a recruiting melee, but some players have switched teams.

Anyway, no one is taking things very seriously until players show up in school and begin practicing with their future teams.

Lofrano says he sees some signs being flashed, but generally the coaches are just letting the kids play.

“I sit there on the bench and tell war stories,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said.

The weather may be hot now, but for these junior college players, baseball won’t heat up until the winter and spring.