This Pitcher Wants to Go Where Everybody Doesn’t Know His Name

Stay in one minor league town too long and you’ll start catching the kind of flak Kevin Shaw gets.

“They call me the mayor of Baseball City because I’ve been here for three years now,” said Shaw, the former Katella High School pitcher.

If Shaw was stuck in Class A because he was pitching poorly, if he was in this Orlando, Fla., suburb because he had little chance of advancing through the Kansas City Royals’ farm system, he might take offense to such ribbing.

But Shaw laughs it off because it’s not a lack of talent that has kept him there. It’s a lack of health. Shaw had surgery in 1989 to remove a bone spur in his right (pitching) elbow and again in 1990 to remove scar tissue that had accumulated from the first operation.

The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Shaw pitched with pain for two years at Baseball City and had to sit out several months during each season. This is the first year Shaw has pitched pain-free, and the results have been good.

His record (6-11) doesn’t seem to jibe with his earned-run average (2.55) until you discover the Royals have a team batting average of .226, have hit only 19 home runs and averaged 3.5 runs this season.

Shaw’s velocity isn’t quite back to par--he was clocked at 90 m.p.h. a few years ago but is in the 86-m.p.h. range now--but he’s beginning to resemble the kind of prospect the Royals thought he would be when they drafted him in the eighth round in 1987.

“I was dominating at the beginning of the year and they considered moving me up to double A,” Shaw, 22, said. “But they wanted to make sure I was healthy, and they didn’t want me to get hit around up there and lose my confidence.”

Before Shaw reported to Appleton, Wisc., in 1988, he said a pitching instructor in the Royals’ organization told him he would be in the majors in two years. That timetable has obviously been tabled, but Shaw is confident he will be promoted to double-A Memphis next season.

If he is, it will be strange playing in a town where no one knows him. That certainly isn’t the case in Baseball City.

“People in the booster club call me by my first name,” Shaw said. “They say, ‘Kevin, how ‘ya doing?’ My teammates say, ‘Wow, you know everyone down here.’ ”

He’d like to know them a little less.

Good wood: Two months in the minor leagues have turned Mike Robertson, former Servite High and USC first baseman, into a baseball purist. While many college players dread switching from aluminum to wood bats for fear of losing that extra power aluminum provides, Robertson was glad to dump his college bat in a recycling bin.

“I like the wood bats better,” said Robertson, a third-round pick of the Chicago White Sox who now plays for Class-A South Bend, Ind. “Wood bats give you a real good showing of how someone can hit. I love hearing the sound of a ball hitting a wood bat, feeling it hit the sweet spot.”

Robertson has experienced that feeling often in his first professional season. He’s batting .322 with 12 doubles, 26 runs batted in and 27 runs in 46 games for the White Sox. He went 12 for 22 from Aug. 5-12 to earn Midwest Player of the Week honors.

“I’m seeing the ball well, making solid contact and the balls are dropping,” Robertson said.

They’re not dropping behind fences, though. Robertson, who hit 16 home runs this past season for USC, is still waiting for his first professional homer.

“The parks are a little bigger and the ball doesn’t sail like it does on the West Coast,” Robertson said. “I’ve been hitting balls off the wall quite frequently, getting doubles and triples. The home runs will be back soon enough.”

Add good wood: Mike Basse, who played at Mater Dei High and Tennessee, was one of those college players who was anxious about the aluminum-to-wood bat transition, but the outfielder has also made the switch rather smoothly.

A 17th-round pick of the Milwaukee Brewers in June, Basse is batting .367 with three home runs, four triples, 15 doubles, 26 RBIs, 55 runs and 16 stolen bases for Class-A Helena, Mont.

“I didn’t think I’d adjust to the wood bat so quickly, but playing in the Cape Cod League (which requires wood bats) for a couple summers gave me an advantage,” Basse, 21, said.

Basse played only one season (1988) of varsity baseball at Mater Dei and was a 40th-round pick of the San Diego Padres after high school. But he opted for Tennessee, where he started for three seasons and earned third-team, All-American honors in 1991, when he hit .395 with 50 stolen bases.

Basse, who set a Southeastern Conference career stolen-base record with 146, said the other big adjustment to pro ball has been playing every day.

“The coaches let you know that every day you have something to prove to someone,” Basse said. “What you did yesterday is yesterday, and today is another day. That helps you put bad things behind you.”

Tattered Titans: Two former Cal State Fullerton players have had their seasons cut short by injuries. Mate Borgogno, an infielder on the San Francisco Giants’ Class-A Clinton, Iowa, team, broke his collarbone sliding into first base July 26, and Matt Hattabaugh, a catcher at South Bend, was hit by a foul tip last week and suffered a severely bruised left wrist.

Both have returned to Southern California. Hattabaugh was hit in the same spot three weeks ago while playing for the White Sox’s Utica, N.Y. team. Borgogno, who had health problems early in the season, was batting .226 when he was injured.

“I had the flu and then got a sinus infection and missed most of the first half of the season,” Borgogno said. “I finally get healthy and start playing every day and break my collarbone.”