AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL / STEVE ELLING : This Zinger Tickles More Than Merely the Funny Bone of Fick

Newbury Oaks Coach Chuck Fick is, by all accounts, a humorous guy. He’s appeared in several baseball feature films, wherein the roles usually consist of Fick hamming it up for the camera.

He’s quick with quips and baseball witticisms. So how come his family is the only one in stitches?

For the second time in as many summers, a member of Fick’s family has been seriously injured in a baseball game. Last summer, Robert Fick, a catcher from Newbury Park High and Chuck’s younger brother, accidentally was hit in the head by a swinging bat as he bent down to retrieve his catcher’s mask near the batter’s box.

The injury left Robert with a broken nose and required dozens of stitches to close the wound. Robert later underwent plastic surgery.

On June 13, Chuck was victimized by another freakish accident. While Fick was sitting in the dugout during a District 16 game against Westlake-Royal, a line drive caught him flush in the face.

“Deja vu is how the headline should read,” Chuck Fick said.

It happened so fast, the coach didn’t have a chance to react.

“I was just getting ready to yell, ‘Look out!’ and I didn’t get a chance to,” Fick said.

Blood poured from Fick’s face, but the coach never lost consciousness. He was transported by car to a local hospital, where he remained for several hours.

Fick, who suffered a broken nose and also cracked a finger in the subsequent fall to the dugout floor, said the attending emergency room physician took one look at the injury and called a specialist.

On Monday, Fick had plastic surgery to repair a damaged septum and the bridge of his nose. Surgery was performed by the same physician who operated on his brother.

“I can’t believe it,” said Fick, a former minor league catcher. “I’ve been in 10,000 baseball games and was never been hit like that. Shoot, I’ve never been hurt on the field.”

Fick never lost his sense of humor, even when things seemed darkest. Namely, while awaiting treatment in the emergency room.

“I was there so long I got hungry, but they wouldn’t deliver a Domino’s pizza,” he cracked.

The hospital was the worst part of the ordeal. Fick said he remained in the emergency room for six hours awaiting treatment.

“It was horrible,” Fick said. “The guy next to me went into cardiac arrest and was flip-flopping around like a fish. It was terrible, brutal.”

Almost as scary as the ordeal itself was the eerie prediction from yet another family member. Fick’s 6-year-old son Chuckie had a graphic nightmare four days before the Westlake-Royal game. Chuckie dreamed that his father was going to be hurt by a baseball during a ballgame.

“It’s all pretty unbelievable,” the elder Fick said.

Add Newbury Oaks: Though their leader has been temporarily sidelined, Newbury Oaks hasn’t missed a beat. The team is 8-1 in District 16 play and fields perhaps the most talented lineup in the region.

Included on the team are several key players from last summer’s offensively loaded Conejo A squad, which won the District 16 and Area 6 titles before finishing third in the state tournament.

Newbury Oaks has scored 137 runs (15.2 average) and has spanked nine home runs. Leadoff batter Ryan Kritscher, a 1991 graduate of Thousand Oaks High who played last summer for Conejo A, is 17 for 27 (.630), has scored 21 runs, knocked in 15 and swiped six bases.

Trent Martin and Adam West, Thousand Oaks products who also played for Conejo A last summer, have hit three and two homers, respectively. Kritscher and Martin each hit grand slams in the second inning of Sunday’s 22-0 win over Santa Barbara.

If Chuck Fick recovers from his injury as well as his brother Robert has, the team could go all the way to the state championship. Robert is 21 for 35 (.600), scored 16 runs and driven in 23.

Add brothers: Pity the umpires who officiate games involving Woodland Hills East.

Ever know a lawyer who couldn’t make points in an argument? Woodland Hills East has one coach that is an attorney and another who is studying for the bar exam. Which is which is anybody’s call. Brothers Mark and Mike Clouser, first-year co-coaches for East, are identical twins.

If this narrows it down, Mike is the attorney and Mark is the attorney in the making.

Changeup: Van Nuys West is gone. And almost forgotten.

The District 20 team voted to fold last week after coaches were unable to produce enough funding to pay for umpiring and insurance fees. But a reserve stands waving a bat in the on-deck circle.

Canoga Park will join the district this week and likely will be plugged into the schedule in Van Nuys West’s spot. Canoga Park will be coached by George Vranau, the former Chaminade High coach, and will play all its games on the road.

Vranau and District 20 Commissioner Mel Swerdling ironed out the plan Sunday night. Swerdling said the move was hastened when a donor stepped forward Monday with $500 to help offset umpiring and insurance fees.

Team spirit: The ultimatum was simple: Increase team spirit or else, pump up the volume or run laps.

Different tactics were needed to motivate the West Hills team, which had quietly trudged through the early portion of its schedule.

“No matter who we played, we were the deadest team on the field,” Coach Dave Desmond said. “We could have played the Addams Family and we would have been the deadest team.”

In an effort to light a fire under a team that had been deathly quiet in the dugout, Desmond reached into the video archives. He borrowed a videotape of Game 7 of the 1988 National League Championship Series between the Dodgers and New York Mets and plugged it into a VCR at Chaminade High, the school most of the team’s players attend.

As though they were Dodger reserves, West Hills players were required to cheer on Dodger right-hander Orel Hershiser as he took on the Mets. When the inning ended, West Hills players were required to grab their caps and gloves, sprint to the baseball field and make it back before the next inning started. There was one small problem, though.

“We only had time to watch the first five innings,” Desmond said. “Hopefully, we won’t poop out in the sixth.”

Still going: The high school season has been over for several weeks, but two players from The Times’ All-Valley team haven’t exactly fallen out of stride.

Crespi right-hander Jeff Suppan, a junior and The Times’ Valley pitcher of the year, is 2-1 with an earned-run average of 0.75 and 57 strikeouts in 28 innings for Encino Crespi. Suppan is 17 for 37 at the plate with 13 runs batted in, four doubles and a homer.

Chatsworth first baseman David Stevenson, a first-team All-Valley selection, is 13 for 28 with nine RBIs and six extra-base hits for Valley North.