With a Bass or a Ball, Plemel’s Got the Right Pitch

Packing for the road, Lee Plemel style:

Baseball mitt, check.

Extra pair of socks, check.

Toothbrush, check.

Bass guitar, check.

Bass guitar?

Baseball is Plemel’s profession, but music is running a close second these days.

Plemel has been a pitcher since Little League days. He pitched Laguna Hills High School to the Southern Section 2-A championship in 1984. He pitched Stanford to the College World Series Championship in 1988 and was the MVP of the tournament.

He now pitches for the Arkansas Travelers, a double-A team in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization.

But there’s an alter-ego at work here, too. A side of him that comes out in small clubs and honky-tonks.

Plemel is the bass player for V.I.E.W., a rock group formed by Chicago White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell. The band is composed almost entirely of baseball players, including White Sox pitcher Scott Radinsky, a part-time drummer and sometime roadie.

“I think it works as a hobby, something to fill in when I’m not playing baseball,” Plemel said. “It’s an off-season job. But as far as off-season jobs go, this one’s pretty great.”

His regular job has been on hold of late.

Plemel made the transition from starter to reliever last season. He appeared in 53 games for the Travelers and had a record of 1-3 with three saves and a 3.30 earned-run average.

This year, he has been slowed by tendinitis in his elbow and has been on the disabled list for nearly two months. He has appeared in only five games, but did not allow a run in seven innings.

With so much time off, Plemel has been able to work on his other interest. He even takes the guitar with him on trips, where he practices in his hotel room using a special head set.

“It’s not too heavy to carry around and the guys don’t give me too hard a time about it,” Plemel said. “With the (head set) I’m able to turn up the volume. You couldn’t do that in a house . . . or hotel room.”

Actually, the band has progressed beyond the hobby stage. They released an album in 1990 and will release an EP in the near future.

They also toured as the opening act for the Smithereens this past winter, playing across the country on one long trip.

It has a chance for Plemel to live out his fantasy, and make a few bucks in the process.

“Everybody wants to be a rock star when they are young,” he said. “You want to be on stage with fans screaming. It’s not as glamorous as everyone thinks, but it’s still fun.”

Plemel was with McDowell even before the group was formed in 1989. In fact, McDowell taught Plemel to play the guitar while the two roomed together at Stanford during the summer of 1987.

Plemel already had some background in music.

He took piano lessons as a kid and played trumpet in junior high. Plemel was even in the marching band as a freshman at Laguna Hills, but quit to concentrate on sports.

Besides pitching on the baseball team, he was also a quarterback.

“That made it a little hard to do the halftime show,” Plemel said.

He returned to music in 1987, getting tips from McDowell and practicing on his own.

“I didn’t even know he played the guitar until he returned home for a visit,” said James Plemel, Lee’s father. “All of a sudden, he was in a band. I guess parents are always the last to know.”

But as far as records and tours were concerned, those were still just idle dreams.

Baseball took all of Plemel’s concentration.

He had been a starter as a junior in 1987, finishing with a 9-5 record. Stanford, led by McDowell, won the College World Series.

As a senior, Plemel became the team’s No. 1 starter. He finished 12-8, including two victories in the World Series.

Plemel was drafted by the Cardinals and was sent to Hamilton, Ontario, the team’s Class-A affiliate. He pitched one game there and then was shipped to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he made two starts before being injured in a bench-clearing brawl.

“I wasn’t even involved with the play,” Plemel said. “It was a play at home plate. I didn’t even know what happened. I went out there and got crushed. I thought some one had hit me with a bat. I was covered with blood from head to toe. That ended my season.”

It was in St. Petersburg that Plemel got back together with McDowell, who had been sent to Sarasota for rehabilitation after an arm injury.

The two started playing music together again.

“Jack was writing songs, so we started pursuing it more seriously,” Plemel said.

The group then included drummer Wayne Edwards, who was also in the White Sox organization. They put out their album, “Extendagenda,” in 1990 and had their first public performance during spring training in 1991.

“We knew at first it would be a novelty because we were baseball players,” Plemel said. “But we’ve tried to stay away from that angle. We’re trying to base it on our music.”

Nevertheless, it was baseball that got V.I.E.W. on the bill with the Smithereens.

Pat DiNizio and Mike Mesaro, two members of the Smithereens, are also baseball fans. They had read about McDowell’s group and asked the band to be the opening act.

The tour began in the Midwest in November and continued through January.

“It was funny because we’d talk with Pat and Mike and they would tell us, ‘Boy, it must be great out there playing baseball in front of all those people,’ ” Plemel said. “And we’d be thinking the same thing about them.”

McDowell got Radinsky to play the drums because Edwards had other commitments. Radinsky later got a friend to play drums, but continued on the trip as a roadie.

Plemel said the highlights of the trip were playing in the Bay Area, where he had gone to college, and in San Juan Capistrano, where he had grown up.

“We were on stage and I heard this girl yell out, ‘Lee, is that you?’ ” Plemel said. “It was this girl I knew in high school. She’d come to see the Smithereens and saw me on stage. That was great.”

For most of the tour, the group traveled in a van, following the Smithereens’ bus. The van broke down in Hendersonville, N.C. They rented a moving truck and put their equipment and two Army cots in the back.

They made the show the following night in Charleston, S.C.

The tour ended in Southern California, where the band members went their separate ways to spring training. The group is planning to tour on their own this winter.

“I’ve been stepping on a baseball field to pitch since I was a little kid, so it’s really no big deal to me now,” Plemel said. “But standing up in front of an audience, playing an instrument, that was something. Baseball is my job right now, but music may be in the future.”