AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL NOTEBOOK / STEVE ELLING : Morning Stars of Fullmer, Farlow Dimmed as the Day Wore On

Brad Fullmer of Sepulveda and Brett Farlow of Encino-Crespi had more in common than their initials Saturday when each posted career numbers in American Legion District 20 play.

Fullmer, who will be a junior at Montclair Prep in the fall, was four for four and had six runs batted in during an 8-7 victory over Woodland Hills East in the morning.

Farlow was four for four in Encino-Crespi’s 21-0 morning win over Burbank South. Farlow, who will be a senior at Crespi, hit two grand slams and drove in 10 runs.

Later in the day, things leveled off considerably. Encino-Crespi and Sepulveda faced each other that afternoon, and while the weather was hot, the bats of Farlow and Fullmer were not.

Against Encino-Crespi right-hander Jeff Suppan, Fullmer, an outfielder, struck out four times in as many at-bats.

Farlow, a catcher, was one for five against Sepulveda’s Steve Cain and Russell Ortiz, and he stranded seven baserunners.

If, perchance, the word fluke springs to mind, forget it: Farlow is 25 for 59 (.424) and Fullmer is 26 for 53 (.491). Before facing Suppan, Fullmer had struck out just once all season.

Foul ball: Conejo A entered the Sierra Nevada Invitational in Reno last week as the eighth-seeded team in an eight-team tournament. Lo and behold, the lowest-seeded team looked, well, seedy.

Conejo A dropped its opener to Seattle-Tacoma, 9-5. The loss didn’t exactly please Coach Craig Sturges, who refused to let his players wash their uniforms afterward. All because his team, he said, exuded a most malodorous air.

“I figured that if we were gonna play like that, we might as well look like that,” Sturges said.

Thereafter, Conejo proved ready to play in grime time. The team rallied to win the tournament, setting numerous tournament records in the process and improving to 19-3 overall.

Even as Conejo was winning four consecutive games en route to the title, Sturges steadfastly refused to let the team wash its uniforms. In Conejo’s case, the smell of success was anything but sweet, although nobody but the opposition seemed to care.

“The funny thing was (that) everybody got into it,” Sturges said. “Even the pitchers wanted to get dirty.”

Conejo dusted tournament marks for total runs (52 in five games), extra-base hits (20) and stolen bases (38).

“Maybe it’s why we stole so many bases,” Sturges cracked. “Nobody wanted to go near us.”

Add Conejo A: Adam West long has been called “Batman” by teammates, after the actor of the same name who starred as the comic-book caped avenger in the popular television series.

They were only half right.

West had seven hits in 16 at-bats for Thousand Oaks High during the spring, yet was used almost exclusively as a pitcher. In the Sierra Nevada tournament alone , West was eight for 13 with three home runs, four doubles and a triple.

The bat man, indeed.

West also has a pretty good arm. The left-hander threw a two-hit shutout at Klamath Falls (30-5) and was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Where the stars come out: The annual District 20 all-star game will be held Sunday at 1 p.m. at Birmingham High.

Chatsworth is represented by five players, more than any other team in the district.

Down to the wire: With approximately two-thirds of the 23-game regular season completed in District 20 play, not much has been settled in the race for the playoffs.

The fight is particularly tight in the Eastern Division, in which Eagle Rock, Glendale, Sun Valley and Van Nuys-Notre Dame were separated by 1 1/2 games or fewer through Sunday.

Eight teams qualify for the District 20 playoffs, a double-elimination affair July 16-21 at Pierce College and Birmingham High.

Four divisional winners automatically qualify from the 27-team district. Four wild-card teams, selected on the basis of won-loss records, also advance. If two wild-card hopefuls have identical records, the team with the best mark in head-to-head play will receive the playoff berth. The secondary tiebreaker compares team records in divisional play.

Although several teams have make-up games remaining on their schedules, had the season ended Sunday, Chatsworth, Lancaster, Glendale and Sepulveda would have won divisional titles. Encino-Crespi, Woodland Hills West, Van Nuys-Notre Dame and Granada Hills West would have qualified as wild-card entries.

The battered still battling: Scott Muckey can be a little more philosophical about it now, but over the weekend his team’s rash of infield injuries left him feeling a little chaffed. Recent members on the Encino-Crespi disabled list include:

* Jim Horacek (1B): Sidelined indefinitely because of a broken wrist suffered two weeks ago during a District 20 game. Horacek was batting .478 at the time.

* Brodie VanWagenen (2B): Has just returned to the team after breaking an ankle in the first week of Legion play. VanWagenen is nine for 30 (.300).

* Vic Seper (3B): Still limping and bearing a bruise as a result of a pitch that him squarely on the knee. Seper is batting .460 and has 20 runs batted in.

* Casey Snow (SS): Still hobbled by a recent ankle sprain.

“It got to the point where I said, ‘OK, everybody run out for infield practice,’ and nobody ran anywhere,” Muckey quipped. Dinged up or not, Encino-Crespi is 13-5.

Name the big leaguer: This former District 20 player posted some mean numbers in the majors as a pitcher, but he was perhaps most noted for a particularly mean streak in 1968.

This Hall of Fame selection established quite a reputation as a player who forced batters to dodge the high, hard one whenever they dug in at the plate.

He is now the right-hand man of another Hall of Famer, one who never played in the majors. His wife, who starred locally, was athletically famous in her own right.

How time flies dept.: When Woodland Hills West faced Granada Hills West on Saturday, the shortstops had plenty in common.

Dan Cey of Woodland Hills is the son of former All-Star infielder Ron Cey and Gary Matthews of Granada Hills is the son of the former All-Star outfielder of the same name. In fact, the careers of Ron Cey and Gary Matthews intersected as members of the Chicago Cubs in 1984-86.

In the fall, Dan will be a junior at El Camino Real and Gary will be a senior at Granada Hills.

Staying put: Call it loyalty, or perhaps, reaping what one sows.

Chatsworth Legion Coach Pete Redfern, who coaches the pitchers at Chatsworth High in the spring, has turned down an offer to coach at Mission College next season.

“I’m just not ready to make that move yet,” said Redfern, a former big-league pitcher and a graduate of Sylmar High. “I have too much invested in the kids that are here at Chatsworth.”

In particular, Redfern said he wants to follow through on the careers of Chancellor right-handers Brandon Nickens and Eric Holliday, both of whom will be seniors in the fall.

Quiz answer: Don (Big D) Drysdale starred for Van Nuys High and the Van Nuys American Legion team before he embarked on his Hall of Fame pitching career with the Dodgers.

Drysdale, who earned a reputation as a player who was not afraid to pitch inside, played on Dodger World Series championship teams in 1959, 1963 and 1965. He threw 58 consecutive scoreless innings in 1968, a record that stood for two decades before it was broken by Orel Hershiser.

Drysdale is now a Dodger radio and television broadcaster alongside Hall of Famer Vin Scully. Drysdale is married to Ann Meyers, the former UCLA basketball All-American who broadcasts Bruin basketball games on the radio. Drysdale was selected to the All-Star Game on 10 occasions and won the Cy Young Award in 1962.