Pierce’s Birdt Lowering the Boom on Opposing Batters as a Sidearmer : College baseball: Relief pitcher changes his delivery and the new motion has changed his luck.

His baseball career was in the pits but Louis Birdt salvaged it by going lower.

Cut from his Calabasas High baseball team as a junior, relegated to the bench as a senior and cut from the Pierce College team as a freshman, Birdt became a sidearm pitcher and helped Pierce to its first Western State Conference title and a berth in the Southern California regional of the state tournament.

“I knew once I started pitching I had the ability to be successful, but I didn’t expect anything like this,” said Birdt, an infielder in high school. “This is unbelievable.”

Throughout Birdt’s high school years and early attempts at college baseball, his career floundered. Birdt turned himself into a sidearm pitcher, however, and he has become more effective in relief than aspirin.

“If Coach (Bob) Lyons had never walked out on that particular day, and said, ‘Lou, can you throw sidearm?’, I’d be working right now,” said Birdt, a 21-year-old sophomore.

Instead, the right-handed Birdt has played a major role in Pierce’s success. With 10 saves and a 4-0 record, Birdt has figured in two-thirds of Pierce’s 21 victories. Pierce (21-12), seeded fifth, will play host to 12th-seeded College of the Desert (30-13) in the first game of the regional today at 2 p.m.

“The year he had correlates very strongly to the year we had,” Pierce co-Coach Bob Lofrano said. “All year we talked about how you can’t always expect him to be successful. That’s too much. . . . But he was. That’s kind of scary.”

Birdt (6-foot, 180 pounds) has not lost a lead this season and he was one of five unanimous All-Western State Conference selections. His conference earned-run average of 0.92 was the best in the WSC by nearly a run, and he had twice as many saves in conference play as the runners-up. At one point, he retired 27 consecutive batters--the equivalent of a perfect game--and he has not allowed a home run.

“The confidence the team has in him is incredible to watch,” Lyons said. “When he comes in, everyone says, ‘Hey, we’re going to get a ground ball. We’re going to get out of the jam. It will be OK.’ ”

Birdt relishes the role of closer, and his best performance of the season might have been 5 2/3 scoreless innings against Cuesta in Pierce’s 10-5 victory in extra innings. Pierce tied Cuesta for the WSC championship.

The secret of Birdt’s success is about as complex as the recipe for toast--he throws strikes and keeps the ball down. Simple in concept, it is difficult in execution, particularly in controlling a slippery slider.

Pierce catcher Jim Wolf said Birdt throws in the low- to mid-80-m.p.h. range and that his velocity depends on his release point. Birdt gets more velocity out of a sidearm sling and more movement when he occasionally throws with a submarine motion.

“For every slider I throw, I throw about eight fastballs, I just keep the ball down and let them hit the ball at the guys I have behind me.” Birdt said. “My confidence isn’t from my abilities only, my confidence is from the guys that are behind me.”

Low balls lead to ground balls, and Wolf estimated that Birdt’s pitches sometimes drop nine inches.

“They don’t read the ball as well,” Birdt said of hitters adjusting to his style. “Every once in a while, they give me a look like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ ”

Most batters see Birdt only once a game, which gives them little time to adjust to his style. Opposing hitters batted only .158 against Birdt, and, if he could, Birdt probably would find it nearly impossible to hit against himself. At Calabasas High, Birdt said he was a good-field, occasional-hit second baseman who did not pitch.

Voted most improved player on the junior varsity as a sophomore, he promptly was cut from the varsity as a junior. Birdt remembers going a forgettable three for 10 his senior season.

A love of baseball--”I’m not too complicated; that’s pretty much the No. 1 priority in my life”--kept him from hanging up his mitt. Birdt, then a 5-8, 135-pound second baseman, tried out at Pierce in the fall of 1987. After being cut, he headed to Mission College. There a coach suggested that Birdt try pitching after noticing that his throws to first base tailed. Birdt returned to Pierce and began working on becoming a pitcher and then a sidearmer during the 1987-88 school year.

“When I was younger, my idol was Davey Lopes, and he threw everything sidearm and that’s how I threw when I was little,” Birdt said. “It was real easy for me to throw that way, and I picked up the mechanics rather quickly.”

After a non-participation season in 1988, Birdt was scheduled to be Pierce’s closer in the spring of 1989 but was moved to the starting rotation because of lack of pitching.

Last season would have been Birdt’s final one at Pierce, but he quit the team before uniforms were handed out in the winter of 1990. Birdt was supporting himself, and he was running out of money. He thought he was saying goodby to baseball forever when he quit.

“That was the toughest decision I’ve ever made,” said Birdt, who also was dealing with family problems. “Everything was so disorganized in my life. . . . I couldn’t do it anymore. My grades were zero.”

After working for an insurance company, Birdt had no difficulty seeing he would rather work from the stretch than behind a desk.

“I was really sick of working,” said Birdt, who rejoined the Pierce team late last fall and is no longer employed. “I like being outside. I will be in baseball for the rest of my life, either coaching or whatever.”

His baseball perambulations have left Birdt the second-oldest player on the Pierce team. It is probably no coincidence that two of the top pitchers in the WSC, Birdt and 22-year-old conference player of the year Paul Mayo from Cuesta, also are two of the oldest.

Greater emotional maturity also has helped Birdt deal with the pressures of being a closer and with off-the-field life. Former major leaguer Lee Lacy, with whom Birdt said he has developed a friendship, also has helped Birdt improve his frame of mind.

Now the guy who was more likely to get a 3-0 count than a 3.0 grade-point average says he has a solid B average and is planning to go to a four-year school if he is not drafted. He hopes to graduate this spring, and Cal Lutheran is recruiting Birdt. “I think I’ve found myself. . . . I feel more at peace just with myself,” Birdt said. “I’m getting grades in school. I’m more relaxed. I have a goal in my life. I want to get my bachelor’s degree in physical education, and I want to become a coach. . . . This has been the best year of my life baseball-wise, and it wasn’t just because we won. It was such a learning experience.”

Like the phoenix, the mythological firebird, he has risen from the ashes. Unlike the phoenix, though, Birdt does not start fires.

He puts them out.