Fontana’s Roundabout Route to Rancho Santiago Pays Off : Baseball: After transferring from Arizona State, pitcher has won his first 10 games to put his college career back on track.

Tony Pena never picked up a baseball for Rancho Santiago College, but he nonetheless made an important pitch for the program: a sales pitch in the Arizona desert.

Pena, from Mater Dei, was on the baseball team at Arizona State last spring and had become friends with Mike Fontana, a pitcher from Cupertino.

Both felt forsaken but were positive they had brighter futures than pitching batting practice.

Pena’s plan was to transfer to Rancho Santiago to play football. His right shoulder was too sore to continue in baseball anyway. He suggested that Fontana give baseball a try at Rancho Santiago.

Pena had a solid fall as a tight end for the Dons and is now at Oklahoma on scholarship.

And Fontana, thanks largely to an above-average slider, has been the most dominating pitcher in the Orange Empire Conference this spring. He is 10-0 with an 1.40 earned-run average in 96 2/3 innings. He has allowed 55 hits, struck out 92 and walked 27.

“This has just worked out great,” said Fontana, 22. “It’s the best thing that has happened to me. My main goal here was to get as many innings as possible.”

Fontana’s story is hardly that of an NCAA Division I pitcher chewing up inferior competition; he never established himself on that level. The success he’s having this season is part of what has been a long quest.

He lived in Cupertino until he was 7, and then his family moved to Reno for the next seven years. When they moved back to Cupertino, he repeated his freshman year in high school to help him adjust to the school.

He was a football and baseball standout for three years but turned 19 as a senior and was unable to compete in sports under state rules.

Fontana didn’t stray from athletics. He went to baseball practice every day, despite being only a spectator on game days. But with no senior season on which to judge him, he couldn’t get a scholarship to a four-year college. So he walked on at Arizona State in the fall of 1989, with the understanding that he could earn financial aid if things went well.

As a freshman, he pitched on the junior varsity. He was impressive, but no scholarship offer came. He didn’t see much of a chance the next year and elected to be a redshirt, waiting for an opening.

It was last spring that he and Pena became friends while running sprints and shagging balls for hours in the outfield of Packard Stadium.

Fontana considered transferring to a community college in hopes of resurrecting his career, and Pena provided the needed push toward Rancho Santiago. Pena was familiar with the program because he had considered transferring there after his freshman season at Arizona State.

“Tony had good things to say about the program, and Coach (Don) Sneddon, so I decided to check it out,” Fontana said.

After classes at Arizona State ended last May, Fontana came west and met with Sneddon in early June.

“He didn’t want me to think that I would just need to show up,” Fontana said. “He was really straightforward with me, told me what I would have to do and how hard a conference this is to play in.”

Luck struck Fontana when it came to finding a place to live. Mark McElroy, a friend from his Little League days, was living in Azusa, so Fontana moved in.

“My first goal was to just be within an hour of the school, I didn’t care where,” Fontana said.

Things continued to go Fontana’s way when McElroy decided to attend UC Irvine last fall. They now share an apartment in Orange. Fontana works around the baseball field to earn spending money, and his father helps out with his rent and other expenses.

His current success--including recruiting interest from Cal State Long Beach--wasn’t even hinted at in the summer or fall by Fontana, Sneddon or pitching coach Dave Bowman.

In fact, the reviews were pretty much the same.

“During the summer, he was pretty much another guy,” Sneddon said. “No one knew what to expect from him. We hadn’t seen him before, so we really didn’t know about his mental makeup.”

Bowman agreed after seeing him last fall. “He really didn’t stand out like he does now.”

Fontana’s struggles in the summer came mostly because he said he was trying to overthrow his fastball in an effort to impress the coaches.

Then early in the winter, he was not only trying to throw too hard, but he was also learning a changeup, all the while battling his control.

“I did terribly,” he said. “I completely lost sight of the (strike) zone.”

But toward the end of the winter, Fontana started using his slider. When he has control of it, it’s a difficult pitch to hit. And he changes speeds with it as well.

Once the season started, Fontana’s control had returned and things were going his way. He averages about 120 pitches a game, throwing the slider about 70% of the time.

Fontana is learning with each outing. He remembers well the lesson from his first Orange Empire Conference start against Cypress.

He took a 9-1 lead into the ninth but relaxed a little, feeling that his day’s work was almost complete.

A double, two walks and a grand slam by Greg Cole signaled the end for Fontana, but not one he had planned. He had no complete game, but Rancho Santiago held on to win, 9-6.

“He pitched really well that day,” Bowman said. “But in his mind, because of the way it finished, it became a negative. He’s like that. He isn’t impressed with his record. He doesn’t worry about it.”

Fontana’s most impressive streak was not allowing a run over 31 innings, covering parts of five games.

“That streak right there is amazing,” Sneddon said. “His style isn’t overpowering, it’s dominating. He’s definitely gotten on a roll and stayed there.”