CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Park’s Outer Limits Make for Cozy Feeling

The college baseball season is two weeks away, and Cal State Fullerton is putting the final touches on its new home field, Fenway Park West.

OK, Amerige Park is the actual name for the Titans’ temporary residence in downtown Fullerton, but one look at the place will have players and coaches comparing it to Boston’s famed park.

And, like those Green Monster-induced, wild-and-wacky, high-scoring Red Sox affairs, Amerige Park games should provide thrill-a-minute, never-over-until-it’s-over action.

Just get a load of these dimensions: The field will be about 300 feet down the right- and left-field lines and 305 feet--get those eyes back in your sockets, left-handed hitters--up the right-center field power alley.

Left field will quickly jut out to 390 in the gap, and the center-field fence will be a reasonable 380 feet away, but the presence of a parking garage beyond the right-field fence prohibits any enlarging of the field in that area.

In an effort to offset the easily reachable gap, a 40-foot-high net--call it the Mesh Monster--is being installed and will run from the right-field line to a point just right of center field.

That’s likely to swallow up some potential home runs, but many high fly balls that would be outs in other parks will be homers at Amerige.

“We’re going to have some long singles and doubles but not as many homers as we’d have with an eight-foot fence,” Fullerton assistant Coach George Horton said. “We didn’t want to play a Division I schedule in an embarrassingly small park. Looking at it positively, it could be a fun situation, something different--it’s not a symmetrical ballpark.”

Fullerton had to find a new field this season because the Titan Sports Complex is being constructed on campus. There’s an outside chance the baseball portion of the stadium could be ready for the 1992 season, but the Titans will likely play at Amerige Park for two years.

“It’s going to be strange,” Horton said. “We’re doing the best we can, but it’s not the ideal situation. The only alternative is to use someone else’s field, but that would be hard on our fans and we wouldn’t have a permanent place to practice.”

With only two left-handed hitters, outfielders Chris Powell and Craig Fairbrother, Fullerton’s baseball team won’t be tailored for Amerige Park.

More possible bad news: One player who seemed perfect for the Titans’ new home, power-hitting, left-handed first baseman Art Chute, has quit the team, Horton said.

Chute, a junior transfer from Glendale College, struggled during the fall season, hitting .150 (three for 20) with no RBIs and nine strikeouts in nine games. Horton said Chute quit for personal reasons.

However, the Titans have added three players since the fall season, infielders Richie Kimm (Sacramento City College) and Mike Van Blaricom (Orange Coast) and pitcher Brent Deremer (San Jose City College).

Fullerton, under the direction of Coach Augie Garrido, opens the season at home Jan. 29 against Cal Poly Pomona. Garrido, who guided the Titans to College World Series championships in 1979 and ‘84, is back after three seasons at Illinois.

The early schedule also includes a three-game series against Stanford at home (Feb. 1-3), a Feb. 5 game at USC and three home games against Arizona (Feb. 7-9).

With the exception of the 20-hour-per-week participation limit rule, which will affect all college athletes, none of the measures approved at last week’s NCAA convention will have a dramatic impact on Fullerton athletic programs, Athletic Director Ed Carroll said.

Tougher qualifications adopted for Division I membership won’t affect the school’s Division I status.

For instance, delegates voted to raise the number of required sports for Division I membership from six each for men and women to seven each. Fullerton offers nine men’s and eight women’s sports. The school also meets minimum levels for athletic scholarships.

Scholarships in all sports face a 10% reduction, but in football, the most expensive sport, Fullerton is already well below the NCAA limit of 95 scholarships. The Titans dole out the equivalent of 60 full scholarships.

However, several Fullerton teams at the NCAA scholarship limit, such as basketball and baseball, will lose some aid.

Coaching staffs in most sports must be reduced in coming years, but Carroll hopes this can be achieved through attrition rather than layoffs.

Few coaches are happy about required staff reductions, not only because many coaching positions will be eliminated, but because they feel smaller staffs will be overburdened.

Baseball staffs, for instance, will be limited to a head coach, one full-time assistant and one restricted-earnings coach. Fullerton’s present staff includes Garrido, Horton and three volunteer assistants.

“There won’t be enough hours in the day to get everything done,” Horton said. “They want us to graduate kids, keep them out of trouble, but when will you have time to deal with these things? How can you be thorough in all your endeavors? I understand why they’re doing it--it will save money--but kids will be short-changed in the long run.”

Many assistant coaches will lose their jobs when legislation goes into effect in August, 1992, but Carroll thinks high schools could benefit.

“There are high school coaching jobs that go begging,” Carroll said. “Before, people used to start at the high-school level to gain experience, but now everyone wants to start at the Division I level and go from there. I think these coaches can have more of an impact on a high-school program than they can being a hanger-on in college.”

Titan Notes

The March 2 basketball game against Nevada Las Vegas in Titan Gym is sold out with the exception of 70 tickets available for students only. Currently they are being sold on a first-come, first-served basis in the Fullerton ticket office. After a two-game trip at Pacific and San Jose State, the Titans return home this week to play Cal State Long Beach Thursday and New Mexico State Saturday.