DeCinces Takes a Swing at Coaching : Baseball: Former Angel is passing along his knowledge to Orange County Connie Mack League team.

Doug DeCinces pulls his Mercedes into the parking lot adjacent to the UC Irvine baseball field and steps out wearing a . . . Cub uniform?

What in the world is DeCinces doing in the blue pinstripes? What’s with the clipboard? And the bag with helmets and bats?

The reason becomes clear when young men with similar attire begin to appear. They are the Orange Coast Cubs of the Orange County Connie Mack Baseball League. DeCinces, the former Angel third baseman, is their coach.

DeCinces--now president of DeCinces Properties, a properties management firm with offices in Irvine and Van Nuys--has been coaching the Cubs since June. They play in a six-team league for players 19 and younger. It’s a team DeCinces organized and that, because the league doesn’t have recruiting boundaries, includes players from throughout the Southland.

Among the players on the Cub roster are pitcher-first baseman Joe Aguirre, who finished his career at Garden Grove this year leading the county in batting with a .545 average; outfielder-first baseman David Gonzalez from Mater Dei, who batted .404; pitcher-first baseman Adam Anderson, who batted .330 for Servite; and DeCinces’ son, Tim, a catcher who batted .342 for Corona del Mar.

Other prominent county players in the league include Giant second baseman Aaron Boone, son of former Angel catcher Bob Boone, who batted .423 for Villa Park this season; Cardinal outfielder Walter Dawkins, who batted .453 with eight home runs for La Quinta and Giant infielder Ben Munoz, who hit .463 for Tustin.

The Cubs are 9-7 and in third place going into today’s game with the Giants, who at 10-6 are three games behind the front-running Cardinals. The Cubs need to finish no lower than third to qualify for the Connie Mack state tournament July 21-24 at UC Irvine and Glendale’s Casey Stengel Field. Their game against the Giants, and games against the Cardinals on Sunday and July 17--the season finale--are crucial.

Although he still has a competitive nature and wants his team to do well, DeCinces said his objective goes beyond winning.

“When I come out here, winning is not the most important thing,” DeCinces said before a recent 12-6 Cub victory. “Teaching is what’s extremely important to me. I don’t get enough time to really teach all the specific fundamentals, so when I really teach them is at the games.”

The instructions from the 40-year-old former American League all-star run the typical gamut--hitting, fielding, throwing, running. And they also focus on one of the aspects DeCinces considers essential in the development of a ballplayer: mental sharpness. If a player wants to test his patience, if he wants to feel the wrath of the otherwise even-keeled coach, all he has to do is repeat the same mental blunder.

“I want them mentally ready,” DeCinces said. “You make the same mental mistake twice, I’m going to let you know about it. I want to improve these kids’ mental approach to the game.”

Aguirre said he has benefited from DeCinces’ teaching, and he likes his coach’s style.

“I’ve never seen him get mad at all,” said Aguirre, who plans to play baseball at Cypress College next season. “If you do something wrong, he’ll tell you, but he won’t yell.”

Picking players with more than physical ability was one of the goals DeCinces and assistant coaches Ron Kiino and Charlie Shuckhart had in mind when they recruited players. They also recruited several juniors, because they wanted to help prepare the players for their senior seasons.

“We went looking for players who had desire to play,” DeCinces said. “I really researched the kids who, besides being good ballplayers, were good human beings. I wanted kids on the team who are well-rounded.”

And who, hopefully, could play ball like their coach did during his high school days in the San Fernando Valley.

Though born in Burbank, DeCinces grew up in Sepulveda and became a standout third baseman at Monroe High. He played there for Denny Holt, one of the most successful Los Angeles City Section baseball coaches, and one of the men DeCinces credits with molding his promising athletic career.

“I had two great coaches--Denny Holt and (basketball Coach) Bill Rankin,” DeCinces said. “I learned mental discipline from Holt and I learned how to play within a team concept from Rankin. They never allowed people to be individualists.”

After graduating from Monroe in 1968, DeCinces played at Pierce College in Woodland Hills and was taken in the secondary phase of the January, 1970 draft by the Baltimore Orioles. He reached the major leagues for short stints from 1973-75 and began to play more steadily in 1976 as the highly publicized heir-apparent at third to Brooks Robinson. He took over the position permanently in 1977.

DeCinces, who had back problems stemming from an injury in a high school basketball game, remained with the Orioles through the 1981 season. He was traded in January, 1982, to the Angels with minor-leaguer Jeff Schneider in exchange for outfielder Dan Ford.

DeCinces played a key role in helping the Angels win the American League Western Division. That year, DeCinces had single-season career highs for batting average (.301), home runs (30) and RBIs (97). He was second on the team to Fred Lynn in batting average (.316) in the AL championship series loss to Milwaukee.

DeCinces said the change in scenery, and the sudden removal of the pressures he felt in trying to replace a legend such as Robinson, contributed to his initial success with the Angels.

“When I left Baltimore, I felt like the painters who have to die to be appreciated,” DeCinces said. “I kid Brooks about that whenever I see him. I tell him, ‘How come I had to take so much flak to replace you but it has taken 43 guys to replace me (in Baltimore).’ ”

By 1987, DeCinces didn’t figure in the Angels’ plans anymore. He was bitter when the club unceremoniously released him late that season. He prefers not to rehash the event and doesn’t want to talk about the Angels, something he was accused of doing far too frequently and negatively by Angel management back then.

“To be treated the way I was by (former Angel General Manager) Mike Port, treated the way I was by (former Angel Manager) Gene Mauch . . . it was probably the toughest year I’ve had in baseball,” DeCinces said in 1987.

DeCinces finished the year in the National League, playing in four games with the pennant-chasing St. Louis Cardinals. He then signed for a reported $1.05 million with the Yakult Swallows, one of the Tokyo-based franchises in the Japanese League.

He played the 1988 season with the Swallows--an experience DeCinces found interesting and exasperating.

“I went over there with an open mind. It was their country and it was me who would have to adjust,” said DeCinces, who went to Tokyo with wife, Kristi, daughter Amy and Tim. “But I realized early on that I would never fit in because I was a foreigner. Those were some tough times.”

The animosity, DeCinces said, extended from daily life and reached more pronounced levels at the ballpark. He said there’s not only resentment from teammates, but also opposing teams that show their displeasure in potentially painful ways.

“They (pitchers) throw at opposing foreign players all the time,” DeCinces said. “They do what they can to pound the nail down . . . That’s when I adopted my rigid policy of infinite flexibility.”

At the end of the season, DeCinces also adopted another policy-- sayonara to Japanese baseball.

The year in Japan, however, produced some benefits. Besides the big checks, he also established contacts that helped him with his properties management business and he now represents several Japanese interests here.

He’s also working as a technical adviser on a Tom Selleck movie about an American ballplayer playing in Japan.

“And I’m working with Tom on his (batting) swing so it looks real,” DeCinces said.

Improving the skills of his Connie Mack League players, and even helping out with the Bobby Sox softball team--Kristi is the coach and 11-year-old Amy is a pitcher--is also one of his top priorities. In fact, his dedication has surprised former Dodger pitcher Bill Singer, who founded the Connie Mack League last year.

“He’s a lot more involved in the league than I anticipated,” Singer said. “He’s kind of like the new kid on the block. I thought he would be overwhelmed at the beginning. But he has done much better than I thought . . . He’s gone out and really hustled and has gotten some really good kids.”

DeCinces said he became interested in working with high school players when he and his family returned from Japan, and Tim started playing at Corona del Mar.

“When we came back, we built a home in the Newport Beach area and my son came into a baseball program (at Corona del Mar) that wasn’t very strong,” DeCinces said. “It needed financial help and it was in disarray. I got involved with the booster club and we were able to get pitching machines and equipment and new fences.

“Now I’m in a situation where my son has progressed to play in a higher league, so I talked to Bill Singer to see if there was a coaching opening. There wasn’t one, so I started my own team.”

And so far, DeCinces said he’s having a ball, despite a few irritating situations.

“I get a little frustrated sometimes with the things that go on,” he said. “For example, we played a couple of teams that have what I call bush attitudes. But overall, I have enjoyed it.”