Padres’ Myers Visits Ex-Teammate at La Jolla

Off day. Nothing better to do. How about lunch with an old friend?

That’s what brought Padre reliever Randy Myers around the La Jolla High campus last Monday. The Padres had an off day and Myers’ old teammate, Bob Allen, is the baseball coach at La Jolla.

“Actually, he just came by to give me (the business) about how I water the field,” Allen said. “He kept yelling at me, ‘That’s not how you water the field. Get a clue.’ ”

And what mystique. Myers arrived in the midst of the Vikings’ five-run, sixth-inning rally that broke a 3-3 tie and lifted La Jolla to an 8-6 victory over Christian.

The key hit in the inning was a two-run homer by sophomore David Myers (no relation).

Nasty team: Myers and Allen first met when they pitched for Kingsport, Tenn., a talent-laden rookie-league team in the New York Mets’ organization in the summer of 1982.

Myers was a No. 1 pick by the Mets in the secondary phase of the June 1982 draft, and other prospects assigned to Kingsport that year included Dwight Gooden, Floyd Youmans, Jose Bautista, Gerald Young and Manny Lee.

“With all those (future) major leaguers, I think we came in fourth place,” Allen said. “These guys were all so raw.”

The man responsible for Allen being there was Kingsport Manager Ed Olsen, who now coaches at Grossmont College. Olsen needed an arm or two to fill out his pitching staff, and Allen figured his high school and college numbers weren’t going to land him any other baseball jobs so he signed as an undrafted free agent.

Allen, who is left-handed, was a backup first baseman at La Jolla High (class of 1977), and he didn’t start pitching until his sophomore year at UC San Diego.

Unfortunately, after a 3-1 start, he started to hit like a pitcher. Attempting to bunt in a game against Point Loma Nazarene, Allen had his left (top) hand wrapped around the bat, and the ensuing contact took a quarter inch off the tip of his middle finger.

End of season, and he was 0-11 his junior year.

“After that,” Allen said, “I learned to use that finger (to my advantage), and I started to get some movement on my fastball. During my senior year, I was 8-6 and made all-district.”

Here’s looking at you: As if excessive spring rain fall wasn’t enough to get them down, professional baseball scouts in the area are claiming this year’s list of potential draft choices would fit on a sheet from a Post-It notepad.

There is some talent out there, and there will be some high picks, the scouts say. But the problem, they claim, is numbers . . . as in, where are the seniors?

For instance, there were 44 teams entered in last week’s Lions/Mike Morrow Tournament and, according to roster listings in the tournament program, 669 players on those teams.

Of those, 45% (299) were seniors, 40% (268) juniors and 15% (102) sophomores and freshmen.

Broken down into a 15-man squad (the average), a typical team in the tournament consisted of six or seven seniors, six juniors and two or three sophomores/freshmen.

Monte Vista, which won the AAA Division, listed four seniors, seven juniors and three sophomores. St. Augustine, the A Division champ, had four seniors, eight juniors and one sophomore.

Castle Park might be the epitome of the scouts’ plight. The Trojans, who lost to Monte Vista in the AAA final, have only two seniors but only one starts. That one, however, is catcher Kiko Palacios, who could wind up being the highest draft choice in the county this season.

Look-alikes: Grossmont High pitcher Matt Olson and Chicago Cub first baseman Mark Grace. “I hear that all the time,” said Olson, a left-handed junior.

Moving along: There have been a number of coaching changes around the county already this spring. Here is a brief update.

Chris Miller is the new football coach at Valhalla, taking over for John Odom, who resigned earlier this year. Miller formerly coached at University City, Patrick Henry, Crawford and San Diego State.

After a one-year hiatus, Steve Sutton is returning to West Hills, where he guided the Wolf Pack to their first football league championship in 1990. Sutton replaces Mike Lewis, who will remain on Sutton’s staff and also serve as West Hills’ wrestling coach.

Six years ago, Russ Furrow coached both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams at El Capitan. Now, with the resignation of Vaquero boys’ Coach Jim Gleboff, Furrow is returning to Lakeside. Furrow had been an assistant to Rick Wilkerson at Grossmont College the past six years.

Eastlake High will not open its doors until the fall, and it won’t have a varsity football team until the fall of 1993. But Eastlake has a football coach, and he is Alan Duke. A former San Diego State defensive back, Duke has been coaching in the South Bay for more than 20 years, but he gave up his position as head coach at Castle Park for the Eastlake job.

Coming out of coaching retirement, former Madison Coach Jim Thompson is the new basketball coach at St. Augustine. He replaces Athletic Director Rick Stewart, who assumed the basketball coaching duties midway through this year when Jeff Armstrong left to coach the Saudi Arabian national team.

Landing the big one: Former San Diego State outfielder Lewie Graham is now a scout with the expansion Florida Marlins. Graham, a graduate of Granite Hills and a former assistant baseball coach at Helix, has been assigned to scout San Diego County.