Garrido II Might Play in Fullerton

Potentially, the Great Fred Roggin/Augie Garrido Hoax represents an important breakthrough in electronic journalism: Next month’s news today.

Roggin, KNBC’s local sports anchor, erred when he aired a report Thursday evening that Garrido had signed a two-year contract to return and coach baseball at Cal State Fullerton. Erred badly. Roggin went with the story, facts unchecked, after talking to someone identifying himself as Fullerton sports information director Mel Franks and claiming Garrido had just signed for an annual salary of $90,000.

Two things immediately should have tipped Roggin that this phone call was bogus.

One, the story was not on the wires.

Two, when’s the last time any school hired a coach and volunteered the terms of the contract? Especially at Fullerton. Especially at $90,000 per.

Fred Roggin at 6 came away looking like Chili Davis in right, but there’s a chance history will exonerate him. Garrido II is not on the marquee yet, but the sequel, as they say up the freeway, is in pre-production.

Saturday afternoon at the Goodwill Games, where he is serving as an assistant baseball coach for Team USA, Garrido said a recent conversation with Fullerton associate athletic director Steve DiTolla convinced him that a return to the Titans was “realistic” and that he would formally apply and interview for the job.

“I did talk to Steve (Friday) about what they’re looking for, what kind of commitment they’re willing to make, and I was surprised,” Garrido said. “Within the resources they have, and I know they’re limited, they’re doing the best they can do. They’re making a hell of an effort.

” . . . At this point, it’s safe to say I will apply. They seem genuinely interested in turning the Fullerton baseball job from a stepping-stone position into a permanent position, which is what I needed to hear. Now I can take the next step--and that’s to formally interview with them.”

Clearly, Fullerton baseball is at a crossroads. For more than a decade, it has been the university’s prestige sport--two NCAA championships at Fullerton; it still boggles--but now the man who built the program, Garrido, and the man who sustained it, Larry Cochell, are both gone. With Cochell taking Vern Ruhle, the prized pitching coach, and several Titan recruits to Oklahoma with him, the program has nowhere to go but down--unless the program can revitalize itself with one dynamic stroke, a hire that could galvanize interest on campus and in the community.

If that’s the goal, Fullerton’s top three candidates for baseball coach ought to be, in order:

1. Augie Garrido.

2. Augie Garrido.

3. Augie Garrido.

Already, it has been established that Fullerton is keenly interested. It wasn’t until Friday, however, that Fullerton and Garrido got together on the same page.

Having served there once, Garrido admittedly had his doubts.

“I needed to know if the program now was going to be any different from the one I left,” he said. “Why would I want to return to the same problems I left three years ago?”

Garrido always wanted to host an NCAA regional at Fullerton. He never could because hosting an NCAA regional at rickety Titan Field, Ol’ Scaffold-N-Splinters, would be like hosting an Olympics in Blythe.

Now, with a new on-campus, multi-sports facility due at Fullerton by 1992, Garrido might have a chance.

Garrido always wanted to schedule home series against the best teams in the country--Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Miami, Texas. One year, he got a verbal commitment from Texas, then the defending national champion. But Fullerton officials nixed the plan because of the financial guarantee it would have taken to bring Texas to Orange County.

Now, with a more baseball-friendly administration, Garrido believes he would have a chance. Garrido always wanted some help when it came to raising money for such frills as uniforms, scholarships and stadium lights. In his first go-round, Garrido says, “it was a one-man mom-and-pop store. . . . For me, the fund-raising aspect was so time consuming, by the time I got to the field to coach, it was like taking a break.”

Now, Garrido says DiTolla assured him “the administration is willing to assume some of the responsibility for developing a baseball budget.”

Talk, of course, is cheap, much cheaper than the cost of operating and maintaining a top 10 baseball program. Initially, Garrido thought talk was all Fullerton could offer. “They’re dipping into pretty small pockets,” he said. Initially, it seemed to be little more than a face-saving gesture--Fullerton would make Garrido an offer he could refuse, announce that it tried to get the best man for the job and then begin interviewing candidates it could afford. But then DiTolla talked to Garrido Friday and the outline presented to the coach was, in Garrido’s words, “surprising.”

“There have been some changes,” Garrido said. “They’re building a stadium. They’ve got a new president. Fullerton . . . wants to maintain the high level that baseball has had.

“I have to be realistic. I know they can’t get into a situation where they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, giving things to me when other coaches and programs are fighting for their lives. “I’m not a martyr. But if my family is able to function, money isn’t everything. I really care about the Fullerton program. There are a lot of opportunities there. It sounds like they’re trying to get something done.”

More than mouths to feed, Garrido also has an ego to feed. That’s why the possibility of returning to Fullerton with the title of associate athletic director interests him. That’s why all the commotion about his potential return, Roggin prank included, excites him.

“I went to the Angel-Mariner game last night and some of the Angel coaches said they wanted to see me back,” Garrido said. “I talked to (Seattle pitcher) Mike Schooler, one of my old players, and he thought I should go back. Today, I heard guys in the stands yelling, ‘Augie, let’s get these guys fired up, like the old Fullerton days.”

The irony isn’t lost on Garrido.

Three years since he left for Illinois, his popularity around Fullerton has never been higher.

Fullerton has set next Friday as the deadline for baseball applications, with interviews to begin the following week. Garrido is committed to Team USA through Aug. 19, through the end of the world championships in Edmonton, but said he would request permission to leave for a day once a formal interview at Fullerton is scheduled.

“It’s a real interesting challenge,” Garrido said. “You know, I’ve got a lot invested in the new stadium already. I’d like to see it happen.

“It’s one thing to start a ranch. It’s another when you were there at the very beginning, clearing out the trees and the rocks.”