SPORTS NOTEBOOK : Warren High to Make It Official: Baseball Field Is Buck’s Place : Downey: Facility will be named Taylor Field on Saturday in honor of former Bear coach and athletic director.

When Buck Taylor learned that the baseball field at Warren High in Downey was to be named after him, he was shocked.

“It really bothers me,” he said, sarcastically. “Our school district has a policy of naming things only after people who are dead.”

Taylor’s sense of humor, coupled with a firm but fair use of authority, were his trademarks during his 27 years as Bear baseball coach.

On Saturday, between games of an alumni doubleheader that starts at 11 a.m., Taylor will be honored in a ceremony that will name the varsity diamond Taylor Field.

Unofficially, the field next to Paramount Boulevard has been known as Buck’s place for years. Taylor, who retired in June after 34 years at Warren as a teacher, athletic director and coach, had a record of 290-278-5 as baseball coach. He took the Bears to the Southern Section playoffs 10 times. In 1965, the Bears advanced to the 4-A Division championship game at Blair Field in Long Beach but lost to Arcadia, 5-0. Taylor said that season was the high point of his career.

Taylor was generally soft-spoken and known for planning practices down to the smallest details.

“He was a fundamentalist,” said Woody Tollefson, who played at Warren in 1969 and 1970 and now manages a sporting goods store. “He wasn’t real gruff, but he expected you to do what he told you to. He always patted you on the back when you did it right, but never disciplined you if you did it wrong.”

Taylor’s sense of humor sometimes cut to the edge. Simon Niekerk, who owns a temperature control company in Las Vegas, was the student manager in 1965. He remembers when Taylor caught him with a candy bar on the field.

“Buck unwrapped the candy bar, took a lick of the whole thing and then handed it back to me,” Niekerk said.

But Niekerk was rewarded for his service when Taylor told him to pinch-hit in the last inning of the last game of the regular season. Niekerk drew a walk and eventually scored the game’s final run.

“He was a real character,” Niekerk said. “It was really enjoyable to work with him, and that’s why he’s still close with his former players.”

More than 50 players are expected to take part in Saturday’s alumni games, an annual event that Taylor created four years ago to raise funds to upgrade the field. Taylor, who was Warren’s athletic director in 1973-79, always pushed for fund-raising activities to help upgrade facilities.

During the 1980s, Taylor saw a change in the attitudes of players.

“Youngsters nowadays look for success to happen a lot faster,” he said. “They are very impatient. They go to camps and hitting schools and get told a lot of things about their ability. The good ones today play in off-season leagues, and scouts are out there with a (radar) gun blowing smoke in their ears.

“More youngsters back (when I was younger) played for the fun of the game, not necessarily as an immediate avenue of success.”

St. Paul sophomore Mathew Merlan was excited to be selected to a team of high school wrestlers that will travel to the former Soviet Union as part of an exchange program. But Merlan has received a lesson in economics while trying to raise the $2,500 needed to make the trip.

Merlan, one of six Southeast-area wrestlers who will travel to the new republic of Moldova (formerly Moldavia), has raised about a third of the money through donations. He has to have all the money in hand before leaving April 10 on the two-week trip. Other wrestlers in the same predicament are Jeff Carlin, Victor de la Ossa, Jason Rivas and Victor Key, all of St. Paul, and Rudy Garcia of Santa Fe.

“We’d like to pay their way there, but we just don’t have the funds,” said David Davidson, the coach of the Buena Park Wrestling and Judo Club.

This is the fourth year that the club has sponsored the exchange program. The trip includes workouts at the Olympic training center of the former Soviet Union.

“Since we started doing exchanges, we have had five guys return and then go on to win six state (high school) titles,” Davidson said.

Short of going door to door, Merlan, who lives in Whittier, has received money from friends and local businesses. He predicted he would raise the money in time.

“He’s very shy, but he works very hard at what he does,” said Cathy Merlan, his mother.

Merlan, a 152-pounder who was 26-10 for St. Paul, has never been out of the United States. In fact, his only trip outside of California was to Arizona.

Asked what he expected to see in Moldova, he said, “Snow.”

Cal State Long Beach President Curtis McCray is in no hurry to appoint a permanent athletic director because of state budget concerns.

“Right now it’s steady as she goes,” McCray said. “I know there are fans out there that want me to move on this, but I’m not moving on vacancies in other departments, too, because of the state budget crisis.”

Interim Athletic Director Dave O’Brien has been running the department since September, when Corey Johnson resigned to become the athletic director at Colorado State. O’Brien said he would like the job.

“When I was appointed acting athletic director, I indicated to most people that I was interested in this job on a permanent basis,” he said. “Despite four difficult months, nothing has changed.”

But McCray indicated earlier this week that the upcoming state budget will determine whether the position is opened.

“Everything we’re getting out of Sacramento right now is that we have to prepare for the worst,” he said. “I’m extremely reluctant to fill a position which would require a national search because a national search would be expensive and adding another person to the payroll would be costly.”

The school will have to rebuild its fund-raising efforts after McCray’s decision in December to drop football. O’Brien said that fund raising is “definitely down,” but that the university hopes to raise about $400,000, about the same as last year. Long Beach has never raised more than $500,000 a year, although it set a goal of $600,000 for the 1991-92 fiscal year.

“That may have been too ambitious,” O’Brien said.

Long Beach plans to push ahead with the construction of an events center for basketball and volleyball, the construction of a softball field and upgrades to the baseball field that would include new seats and lights for night games. The total cost for all three projects is estimated at more than $7 million.

The potential comeback by Bill Simpson, a former No. 1 draft pick of the Texas Rangers, has been put on hold because of red tape in the federal prison system.

Simpson, 33, an All-Southern Section outfielder in 1976 at Lakewood, had been throwing daily at the Federal Prison Camp in Lompoc, Calif., in anticipation of his release, which could take place as early as next January. Simpson has served more than five years of a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking. He drew the interest of an agent and hopes to sign a minor-league contract upon his release.

But according to Todd Craig, an administrator at the Lompoc facility, Simpson’s daily baseball workouts have been prohibited and the pitching mound he built has been razed. Craig said the action occurred after it was determined that the baseballs Simpson used were not approved by federal officials.