Kyle Evans Discovers the Keys to Success : Baseball: Katella first baseman makes the choice to play ball rather than the piano.

The compromise was easy. A piano to please mom; a batting cage to make dad happy.

The trick for Kyle Evans, the whiz kid from Katella High School, is finding the time to juggle the two. He spent his childhood going from the bench to the plate.

Evans became a talented piano player, good enough to spend four years in a conservatory. But there was never much doubt where his future lies.

Even his mother knew it.

“Kyle was too good at baseball to ever go into music,” Judy Evans said. “Even I got converted. I had no choice.”

The piano still sits in the living room and still gets used. But the batting cage, complete with pitching machine and lights, gets the workout.

It’s there that Evans developed that swing, which some call the sweetest in Orange County.

“I’d just hack away, sometimes for six or seven hours,” Evans said. “It didn’t matter if there was no one else around. I’d throw the ball up and hit it.”

Such dedication has paid off.

Evans, a senior first baseman, is batting .420 this season. He started slowly and was hitting a mere .250 three weeks ago, but has gone 14 for 22 in his last seven games.

It’s not just that Evans can hit that makes opposing coaches cringe. It’s the damage he can cause.

At 5 feet 10 and 170 pounds, Evans doesn’t cut an imposing figure. But he can generate plenty of power.

Just ask Los Alamitos Coach Rob Megill, who saw Evans hit three home runs against the Griffins last season.

“This season our idea was not to let him in a position to beat us,” Megill said. “I don’t know how to pitch him, really. (Esperanza Coach) Mike Curran said at the end of last year he had an idea, but I don’t know how that worked out.”

Evans went three for three with two home runs, including a grand slam, in a 13-7 victory over Esperanza three weeks ago.

“We thought we knew how to pitch to him,” Curran said, “but he doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses.”

Evans has five home runs this season. He’d likely have more except that Katella (9-8, 4-3 in the Empire League) plays its home games at Boysen Park, which has larger dimensions than Anaheim Stadium.

It’s 392 feet to the left-field power alley and 393 to the right-field power alley. It’s 335 down the left-field line and 344 down the right-field line. Evans has four triples at Boysen Park this season.

Evans, who has signed a letter of intent with Cal State Fullerton, has even hit two home runs out of Boysen Park in his high school career.

The first came last season against Los Alamitos. The previous day, his grandfather had a leg amputated because of a circulation problem.

Evans had promised him the home run.

“I’d forgotten we were playing at Boysen,” Evans said. “When I hit it, I couldn’t believe it. My mom went running out to get the ball so I could give it to my grandfather. We had the team sign it. He cried.”

This season, Evans hit his second home run at Boysen, this time against Foothill.

“If Kyle played on a normal high school field, he’d set the county record for home runs,” Katella Coach Tim McMenamin said. “We were playing against El Dorado and their right fielder was almost on the warning track when Kyle was up.”

Evans developed that power in his back yard.

The batting cage showed up when Evans was 4 and his brother Jess was 6. Their father, Mike Evans, then a truck driver, said he happened to be passing a baseball equipment company on his way home.

“My sons were just getting interested in baseball and I didn’t like the idea of chasing baseballs all over the neighborhood,” said Evans, now an operations manager for a moving company. “The cage seemed ideal.”

Kyle Evans, though, said it might have been more premeditated.

“Mom wanted me to play the piano and I think dad was determined to have a baseball player,” Evans said.

Said Judy Evans: “My husband didn’t say anything to me. The cage was just there.”

Of course, it was also Mike Evans who brought home the piano, from another trip.

Kyle Evans showed early promise at baseball and music.

“I remember his first recital because he had to sit on the very edge of the bench to reach the peddles,” Judy Evans said.

By the time he was 6, Evans had been accepted into the Maria Ledda Conservatory in Anaheim. He studied there four years.

The conservatory closed when Ledda died in 1984. But Evans continued working on his own, expanding his repertoire to include jazz and classical music.

“Every time we have company over, my parents ask me to play,” Evans said. “I don’t mind. I still really enjoy the piano.”

Said Judy Evans: “I was really hoping he would go in that direction.”

But the pull of baseball was too strong.

At first, Evans didn’t want anything to do with the game. He was asked to be the batboy for his brother’s Little League team, but refused because he didn’t want to part with his cowboy boots.

“He had these boots just like his dad and he wasn’t going to do anything where he couldn’t wear the boots,” Judy Evans said. “He could be very stubborn as a kid. He finally agreed to wear regular shoes when he realized he liked the game.”

He has since become a fanatic.

Last summer, Evans played for five teams--American Legion, Connie Mack and three scout teams. He also played for the 714 Area Code team in a tournament.

“I think I may have had 14 days off all summer,” he said.

Evans made the junior varsity as a freshman at Katella, but missed part of his sophomore year because of an injury. Still, he was called up to the varsity for the Southern Section 5-A playoffs.

“I really hadn’t seen him play too much,” McMenamin said. “The first practice he starts hitting shots all over the place. He had the quickest bat I’d ever seen.”

Last season, Evans batted .420 with four home runs and 25 RBIs.

“It was good for Kyle to find something athletic,” Judy Evans said.

Even at the expense of the piano?

“Well, that’s why he hits so well, “ she said. “Playing the piano made his wrists strong.”