METROPOLITAN LEAGUE ALL-STAR GAME : Norville’s Intensity Puts Him in Charge on Mound

Pat Norville is so excited about his chance to pitch Sunday in Anaheim Stadium that he already is planning his entrance into the Metropolitan League All-Star game.

Norville, a left-handed pitcher for the Saddleback Cowboys, is a member of the all-star team that will play the league-leading Cypress Dawgs after a 1:05 p.m. game between the Angels and Cleveland Indians.

“I saw (San Diego reliever) Craig Lefferts run onto the field the other night,” Norville said. “And that’s all I can think about, how I want to take the field like that. I’ll be so pumped being on that field.”

“He’s very intense,” Saddleback Coach Jack Hodges said of Norville. “He’s the kind of guy you like to have around. He always works hard and is a leader on the field and on the bench as well.”

Norville is 1-1 with two saves this summer for the Cowboys. He has allowed 27 hits and struck out 20 in 32 innings and has a 2.15 earned-run average as the team’s closer.

“I’m really hyper,” Norville said. “I love being on the mound late in the game. Everything is riding on your shoulders and that’s what I want. That’s how it should be.”

Norville is especially enthusiastic these days because it has been two years since he last played organized baseball.

Norville was a consistent pitcher at Estancia High School and threw a perfect game during his senior season (1987). He went to Golden West College in the fall of 1987 but left the team in the fall, partly because of family problems but also because he felt he didn’t fit in.

Norville, 21, went to Orange Coast in 1989, but things didn’t go much better. He redshirted the season and remained in the OCC program through last summer. He left in August because he said the OCC coaching staff told him he didn’t have enough talent to make it as a college pitcher.

“That gave me a spark to stay with it and prove I could play somewhere,” Norville said.

Still, he had no real plans for the fall and continued as a student at OCC. Tony Wren, who had left OCC in the fall to attend Saddleback, asked Norville to consider joining him. The program was being rebuilt by first-year coach Hodges, who had came to Saddleback from Laguna Hills High School.

Norville decided to transfer to Saddleback in the spring. He hadn’t been in a game for two years, but because of the weight-lifting program he was involved in since high school, he quickly worked himself into playing shape.

“I was surprised how well my arm felt at the start,” Norville said. “I was stronger than I was in high school.”

Norville played a part in half of Saddleback’s victories last spring. He was 4-2 with three saves, as the Gauchos went 14-21. He allowed 46 hits and had 40 strikeouts in 51 1/3 innings and had a 4.91 ERA mostly as a reliever.

Early in the season, when Saddleback’s starting pitchers were struggling, Norville was moved into the rotation and pitched a four-hitter for a 3-2 victory over Cypress.

“He was a great closer,” Hodges said. “But the way we were going, it didn’t matter because by the time we went to Pat, we were already too far behind. So, we decided to start him some.”

Norville made three more starts, but the stress of pitching nine innings was so taxing that he suffered from a sore arm for much of the remainder of the season. But still, Norville viewed the season as a success and couldn’t wait for summer ball.

“When I was looking at the summer schedule I saw that there was an all-star game at Anaheim Stadium,” Norville said. “I looked at that and said I was going to do whatever it takes to get in that game.”

Metropolitan League Notes

This is the third time in six seasons that Cypress and Coach Scott Pickler have played the All-Stars. Noe Najera, a right-hander, will get the start for Cypress, but Pickler expects to use most of his staff. Jason Moler, who will be a junior at Illinois this fall, led Cypress with a .541 average this summer. Moler played at Esperanza High School. . . . The All-Stars will be coached by Jim Kale, who coaches the Costa Mesa Guards . . . A scheduling conflict at Anaheim Stadium forced the all-star game, originally scheduled for Aug. 5, to be moved to this Sunday.