Young Angels Growing Up Fast : Maturity Comes Quickly on a Dark Thursday Bus Ride for Rose, Stevens, DiSarcina

As usual, they weren’t far apart, the pair whose friendship inspired a T-shirt for Bobby Rose that reads “I’m Frick. . .” and a companion shirt for Gary DiSarcina reading “. . .And He’s Frack.”

Near them sat Lee Stevens, dubbed “Hack” on the T-shirt that expanded the duo into a trio this spring.

And as they sat within a row of each other on the bus that carried them from New York to Baltimore last Thursday, they had reason to expect they would soon be back together on the field, too.

They began the season in the Angels’ starting lineup, but Rose lost his job at second base because of a weak bat and Stevens’ paltry production had him sharing first base with Alvin Davis. Only shortstop DiSarcina was a regular, though he was slumping.

But Manager Buck Rodgers, detecting that Rose had begun to shake his fear of failure, planned to work him back into the lineup. Seeing Davis’ bat cool, Rodgers intended to start Stevens in Baltimore; Rodgers trusted DiSarcina’s instincts and was sticking with the rookie shortstop.

“You see that with a lot of teams that started with kids and have gone bad--the kids are gone. We’ve been able to stay with these kids because we’re staying competitive,” Rodgers said early last week. “You look at the transactions in the papers, and the kids who couldn’t cut it are going down. . . .

“They have to show you a little bit somewhere along the line. You can protect them a little bit from this (pitcher) or that guy, but somewhere along the line they’ve got to take the bull by the horns.”

His plans, like the early morning calm, were shattered when the bus transporting Rose, DiSarcina, Stevens, Rodgers and 14 other members of the Angels’ traveling party veered off the road and into a grove of trees along the New Jersey Turnpike in Deptford Township, N.J., about 15 miles from Philadelphia.

Rodgers was the most seriously hurt, requiring surgery on his left knee and right elbow. Davis emerged with no lasting problems, but Rose suffered a lateral sprain of his right ankle and was the only player put on the disabled list.

“I just feel so bad for Bobby,” said Stevens, who ignored his own sore arm and ribs while he pulled a woozy Rose out of the wreckage. “He hurt his shoulder last year, and this year has to go on the DL because of a freak accident. Talk about tough luck.”

After seeing the mangled metal that had once been a bus, Rose considered himself fortunate.

“We’re all pretty lucky to be walking around,” said Rose, whose ankle was fitted with a plastic splint. “You don’t take anything for granted after something like this.”

Said DiSarcina: “It seemed like Bobby was just coming back. He hit that home run (a pinch-hit homer against the Yankees on Tuesday) and was feeling more confident. It’s been setback after setback for him.

“It could go one way or the other: This will either build character or destroy character. But he’s a tough guy. He’ll be back.”

DiSarcina and Stevens showed toughness of their own during the weekend series at Baltimore that followed the accident.

DiSarcina had two singles Friday, his first multihit game since May 6, and Stevens hit a two-run home run Saturday that persuaded interim Manager John Wathan to keep him in the lineup. DiSarcina was one for four Sunday and increased his batting average six points during the weekend to finish the trip at .276, while Stevens’ lifted his average to .218 as the Angels return to Anaheim Stadium to open a nine-game home stand tonight against the Boston Red Sox.

“I feel different, in a good way,” said Stevens, who said he shunned treatment after the accident because he dislikes hospitals.

“I think after you go through something like this, everything else feels so trivial. What else can I go through that can bother me now, if we can live through that?”

That’s not to say he isn’t bothered by his struggles, which can be traced to a chronically sore right wrist. The wrist was in a cast much of the winter, preventing him from swinging a bat before spring training. Weakness in the wrist cost him time and more swings and eventually cost him the starting job.

“I’ve been an everyday player all my life,” he said. “I’ve worked out of slumps before, and it’s easier to do it if you’re in there every day. The wrist set me back much more than I thought. I couldn’t hit basically the whole winter, and I couldn’t get my (at-bats) in spring training and that set me back months. All winter I usually get the kinks worked out, and I couldn’t do that. It hurt because I knew my job was on the line.

“I’ve lost confidence, to an extent. That’s a natural reaction when you’re not in there every day. Your confidence, self-esteem are affected. But you’ve got to remember you’re here for a reason, and that you have to be ready to play.

“If I can get hot like I can, I can take a lot of pressure off a lot of people. I’m hitting between a lot of veterans. Von (Hayes) and Hubie (Brooks) are struggling, and if I’m struggling that’s two left-handed bats. We’re so dominated by right-handed hitters that when left-handed hitters are struggling, it hurts. It’s important somebody get hot and cover a lot of people.”

DiSarcina has cooled off considerably since May 1, when he was batting .318. But unlike Rose, who became obsessed with his failures, DiSarcina is keeping his performance in perspective.

“I’m going to go through valleys. There’s no way you won’t unless you’re Ted Williams,” he said. “The trick is not to get too down. You put pressure on yourself to get two hits in one at-bat. Then it starts affecting your defense. My priority is defense, and I take whatever I’m hitting after that. As long as I get quality at-bats, I’ve got to stop worrying about results. I’ve got to start putting the ball into play.

“A month ago, at times I wasn’t hitting well and the ball would drop in. Now I’m hitting the ball well, but it’s not dropping in. When you’re 0-for-6 you can’t say ‘I can’t go 0 for 9.’ I can’t take it on the field with me.”

Like Stevens, DiSarcina will long carry with him the memory of Thursday’s accident.

“Things seem a lot different. We’re still walking around in wonderment,” he said. “You never think something like this is going to happen. You think you’re safe on the team bus. I talked to my mom and she’s so excited I’m alive. When I go home and spend time with my family and my fiancee, Janee, I’m really going to appreciate them. You appreciate things more and take less for granted.”

Rose has found a new perspective, too.

“From day one I thought I had to do everything perfect. If I did something that wasn’t right it would start to eat at me,” he said. “There were times I came in (to the clubhouse) after the game and thought I didn’t deserve to eat the spread. You can’t live that way, being tight all the time.

“I had a meeting with Buck and he pretty much told me I was a guy who saw the glass as half-empty, which is pretty much the truth. I’ve got to stop putting pressure on myself and play the game I know how to play, leave it at the park.”

Come the day he returns to the lineup, “I’ll definitely go out there with more of the attitude I had in spring training, when I was having fun and being aggressive. That’s how I want to do it. Any other way is not acceptable, and that’s the way I think it should be.”