Dunckel Proving Collegiate Stats Were No Fluke

Sorrow, pain, disgust, frustration--those were merely a sampling of emotions Bill Dunckel felt after not being selected in last year’s amateur baseball draft.

Instead of sulking, however, Dunckel was able to call upon those emotions in last year’s Alaskan Summer League season every time some poor soul was foolish enough to throw him a strike. And after signing with the Angels as a free agent in September, he continues to produce for their Class-A team in Boise, Idaho.

“I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get drafted,” Dunckel said. “It was completely baffling, totally discouraging. The only reason I could think of was because of my power.

“So I went up to Alaska to prove I could hit. After a while, it got to the point I didn’t care anymore, I was going to prove to myself I could play.”

To say Dunckel made his point in Alaska would be an understatement.

Playing for the Fairbanks Goldpanners under Jim Dietz, his coach at San Diego State, Dunckel led or tied for the league lead in batting average (.400), hits (86), triples (12), home runs (15), runs batted in (60) and stolen bases (43 in 47 attempts).

To put things in perspective, Dunckel became only the fifth player to hit .400 in the 33-year history of the Goldpanners. The other four were Bob Boone, Steve Kemp, Alvin Davis and Bobby Jack.

“He had a career in a summer up here,” Don Dennis, a team representative, said.

By the end of the summer, many of those same professional teams that passed over Dunckel for 102 rounds only a few months before began bidding for his services.

Citing a previous relationship with Bob Fontaine Jr., the Angels’ director of scouting, who, like Dunckel, is from Fallbrook, Dunckel signed with the Angels. Neither side has been disappointed.

After a four-for-six game Monday and an off day Tuesday, Dunckel, 24, was leading the Boise Hawks with a .325 batting average, 39 hits and nine doubles. He was also third in runs batted in with 20 in 29 games, and his game-winning double in the bottom of the 10th on Monday pushed the defending champion Hawks (19-13) into first place in the Northwest League for the first time this season.

Of course, hitting has never been a sour subject with Dunckel, a right-handed hitting outfielder.

At Fallbrook High, he set a school record with a .519 average. The next year, he set a school record at Palomar College with a .470 average, and followed that by hitting .420 as a sophomore. At SDSU, he hit .330 with six home runs and 47 RBIs as a junior and .332 with two homers and 42 RBIs as a senior.

Still, he was passed over in the draft.

“I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t given that opportunity,” Dietz said. “He can play.”

As for the lack-of-power theory, Dietz isn’t buying it. “People don’t realize what a big park we have at San Diego State,” he said. “And I can remember him hitting two blasts out of an Amarillo park (Potter County Memorial Stadium in Texas) that was much bigger than San Diego State’s (Smith Field).”

Good hands, too: In his senior year at Fallbrook, Dunckel set San Diego Section football records with 91 receptions (for 1,428 yards) and 25 touchdown receptions. Both records were broken by Orange Glen’s Jake Nyberg.

Good eye: Brian Grebeck, Dunckel’s former SDSU teammate who now plays in the Angel organization at Class-A Palm Springs, is once again leading his team in walks.

Grebeck, a 5-foot-7 middle infielder, has walked 53 times in 59 games for the Angels. Combine that with his senior year at SDSU and his first two seasons of pro ball, Grebeck has walked 279 times in his last 307 games.

He also leads Palm Springs in batting with a .344 average.

So close: Joe Brownholtz, a 1988 graduate of Mt. Carmel High, on July 5 came within two outs of throwing his first professional no-hitter.

Brownholtz, 22, a left-hander now pitching for the Class-A Charlotte Rangers, an affiliate of the Texas Rangers in Port Charlotte, Fla, had retired 25 Ft. Lauderdale batters without allowing a hit before Bo Gilliam singled with one out in the ninth. That hit also knocked Brownholtz from the game, but Barry Goetz picked up the save and the Rangers won, 3-2.

Brownholtz finished with seven strikeouts and three walks.

Since being promoted from Gastonia (N.C.) in mid-June, Brownholtz is 3-2 with a 3.60 earned-run average with Charlotte. At Gastonia, Brownholtz was 6-2 with a 2.12 ERA in 11 starts.

“He’s projected as one of the top pitchers in our minor-league organization,” John Agin, a Charlotte representative, said.

Triple-A stars: Jim Tatum (Santana High) was named one of the three most valuable players in the July 15 Triple-A All-Star Game.

Tatum, a third baseman for the Denver Zephyrs in the Milwaukee Brewers’ chain, went one for three and scored the winning run as the American League took a 2-1 victory in the rain-soaked game at Richmond, Va.

Tony Muser, Denver’s manager who guided the American League squad, played at Mesa College.

Tatum is batting .328 (second in the American Assn.) with 108 hits (first in the league), 27 doubles (first), 66 RBIs (third) and a .383 on-base percentage (fifth). He also has 14 home runs.