A Typical Night for Fernando : Baseball: He brings out a crowd, survives wildness in four-inning stint at Palm Springs.

With a big uniform to fill--Reggie Jackson’s--and big shoes to fill--his own--Fernando Valenzuela stood on a minor league pitching mound Wednesday night and stared back at the one thing he still knows he can fill.

The stands.

If you’re looking for a bottom line to Valenzuela’s first performance as a property of the Angels, this was it:

Several dozen fans jumped the fences at Angels Stadium, trying to get in.

No baseballs jumped the fences, trying to get out.

Fernandomania marches on.

Wednesday marked the first of three minor league trial runs for Valenzuela, and he looked every bit the pitcher who had not faced live hitting in nearly two months. In fact, he looked very much the part of the pitcher who parted ways with the Dodgers in late March.

He threw a lot of pitches, 84 in four innings.

He fell behind the hitters, issuing three walks and needing more than 90 minutes to complete his stint.

He left with a 5-1 lead over a team called the High Desert Mavericks, his exit coinciding roughly with a phone report from Anaheim Stadium: Scott Lewis had just surrendered a three-run home run to Chicago’s Sammy Sosa, knocking him out of the game in the fourth.

Valenzuela has two more starts scheduled. The first is Monday night for double-A Midland (Tex.) at Jackson, Miss., in his second minor league assignment.

For the record, Valenzuela began his comeback by issuing four hits and three walks in four innings, striking out two and allowing one unearned run. Palm Springs eventually won, 10-4. One more number: He brought a crowd of 5,188 with him.

Tuesday night, the Palm Springs Angels played in front of 604.

The mania part, Fernando still has down. Stadium officials opened the gates at 5 p.m., two hours before game time, an hour early, hoping to accommodate the crowd. The stadium filled to its 4,800-seat capacity quickly.

The first inning was complete and several hundred fans milled outside, some holding reserved tickets, many losing their cool.

Eventually, the people took the matter into their own hands. With them, they grabbed the top of the chain-link fence that surrounds the park and pulled themselves over.

Police, doing what they could to remedy the situation, opened the gates near the foul poles and ushered fans onto the field, seating hundreds behind orange traffic cones and yellow rope.

They stayed as long as Valenzuela did, filing out after 3 1/2 innings.

“I was surprised,” Valenzuela said, speaking to the 135 credentialed media types. “The first couple of innings, I kept the ball close to the plate. I walked only two (actually three). I threw 50 strikes and 34 balls. That’s pretty good for the first time in two months.”

Relying on screwballs and other breaking pitches, Valenzuela allowed at least one baserunner in every inning, but would have left with a shutout had he fielded a sharp grounder hit by High Desert’s Steve Bethea. Valenzuela allowed the ball to skip through the infield for an RBI single.

“I was disappointed in that,” he said. “I’m supposed to catch that ball. It was a ground ball right back to me.”

An inning later, Valenzuela walked Matt Mieske on a full count. Valenzuela disagreed and promptly gestured to the first base umpire for an appeal.

Valenzuela quickly discovered something about the California League--there is no first base umpire.

Valenzuela wore No. 44, the number Jackson made famous, and he claims he wore it for no particular reason. “The number is nothing special,” he said. “All I want is to use a major league uniform again.”