Big Man in 2 Sports Has Good Chance in Amateur Draft : Baseball: Right-hander with 85-m.p.h. fastball has caught the attention of major league scouts.

At 6-foot-7, Ken Fitzpatrick was the big man on the Bell Gardens High School basketball team. He was an All-Southeast selection, Whitmont League most valuable player and “the guy we always went to,” Lancer Coach Charlie LaCommare said.

But Fitzpatrick’s future may be in baseball. The right-hander, who throws a fastball clocked at 85 m.p.h., a slider and a curve, has drawn interest from several major league scouts. His improvement as a batter gives Fitzpatrick a good chance of being taken in the June amateur draft.

“He has the things scouts like,” Lancer baseball Coach Mike McCurdy said. “He has the size and he throws hard. Every time he pitches, quite a few scouts are there to watch him.”

Although he has struggled with his control, Fitzpatrick has been effective on the mound. As a junior in 1991, he went 4-4, averaged a strikeout an inning and finished with a 2.80 earned-run average on a team that was 6-12. Said McCurdy: “He doesn’t like to lose. He’s somebody who works very hard at trying to be successful.”

Fitzpatrick appears to peak in the summer. For two summers, he has pitched and played first base for the Norwalk Cardinals, which won back-to-back Mickey Mantle League national titles. Fitzpatrick says that, because he is a two-sport athlete, he does not get enough time to make the transition from basketball to baseball during the high school season.

“There’s a big adjustment,” Fitzpatrick said. “In basketball you use different muscles. You need to throw every day to get in baseball shape, and I was only throwing on Sundays during basketball season. I’m throwing better each day, but not as hard as I want. I’m not up to 100% yet.”

McCurdy agreed.

“It will take him two months to get into good, solid baseball condition,” he said. “He only had two weeks to get ready. That makes a big difference, even on great athletes.”

Teammates respect Fitzpatrick.

“He’s a leader on the field,” sophomore shortstop Manuel Arana said. “He is always trying to get players to do better than they think they can do.”

The youngest and tallest of three brothers, Fitzpatrick was not always big in stature. “I was a dinky kid,” he said.

For that reason, Fitzpatrick, who now is 230 pounds, never considered playing football, the most popular sport at Bell Gardens. Football Coach Dave Newell said he approached Fitzpatrick about joining the team but was turned down.

“I just didn’t see a future in it,” Fitzpatrick said.

Said Fitzpatrick’s father, Ed: “He was always a big, tall guy, but he was pretty thin. I just couldn’t see him built for football.”

So Ken continued to play baseball, eventually added basketball, and became a three-year starter in both sports at Bell Gardens. In basketball he averaged 22 points and 18 rebounds a game.

Although the Bell Gardens baseball team has struggled offensively this year, Fitzpatrick has tried to carry much of the load. When he is not pitching, he is playing first base or is the designated hitter. Through the first eight games of the season he hit two home runs, drove in nine runs and batted .360.

At the Las Vegas El Dorado Tournament last week, he batted 4-for-11 and pitched a 12-4 complete-game victory over the host school. Bell Gardens won all four of its tournament games and captured first place.

“In (our first four league games) we scored nine runs and he drove in six of them,” said senior Albert Soto, who plays first base when Fitzpatrick is pitching. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know where we would be right now.”

The Lancers returned to Whitmont League play Wednesday with an overall record of 6-10-1.

Fitzpatrick can be overpowering as a pitcher. His presence also alters the way Arana and Soto play. Arana says that when Fitzpatrick is pitching, he does not see much action at shortstop.

“Hitters can’t get around on him,” Arana said. “They swing late and hit all the balls to the right side, so I don’t get too many.”

But that spices up the action for Soto. “It’s not so scary,” he said. “But I get a lot of balls hit to me, so I have to be ready with each batter.”

With the Lancers struggling, McCurdy sees another challenge for Fitzpatrick.

“Right now, the way the season has been going for us, it’s going to be a big test for his mental toughness,” said McCurdy, whose team defeated Montebello, 4-2, April 10 to end a five-game league losing streak. “We’ve had some ineligible players, some injuries, and we’re not hitting the ball well. When the team is struggling at the plate, it’s tough on pitchers, and they tend to falter also.”

Will the team’s poor season chase away the scouts that have been following Fitzpatrick since his sophomore season? Not likely.

“Everyone keeps telling us that someone is going to go after him,” Ed Fitzpatrick said. “Right now it’s been a learning process for us. I’m not going to say if he will sign or not. It will have to be the right offer.”

If there is not enough interest, Ken is thinking about attending a local community college. He would like to play both basketball and baseball, but feels that might be too difficult.

“I wish I could continue to play both sports,” he said.