Sharts Reluctantly Relinquishes Bat, Focuses on Mound : Baseball: Indians’ organization forces former Cal State Northridge slugger to concentrate on pitching.

The experiment is on and the question is, can the big bopper turn bullpen stopper or will a Cleveland Indians’ affiliate in Watertown become his Waterloo?

Scott Sharts, one-time tower of power, now performs from a mound of little renown, toiling for the upstate New York Class-A club of the pitching-poor Tribe.

Just 13 months ago, the 6-foot-6, 225-pound Sharts gave up his senior season at Cal State Northridge to launch a professional baseball career as a power-hitting first baseman and designated hitter.

That career didn’t get very far. Sharts, a 10th-round draft pick, batted .159 in 61 games for Watertown, striking out twice as often as he got a hit.

“Scott can hit the ball a long way,” said John Goyrl, a minor league instructor who charted Sharts’ progress last season. “He just didn’t do it very often.”

As a result, Sharts now views baseball from a perspective 60 feet 6 inches due north of his accustomed place in the batter’s box.

He pitches in middle relief for Watertown, a city of 30,000 in northeastern New York, only a few tape-measure drives from Lake Ontario.

Pitching isn’t new to Sharts, whose mound assignments ranged from starter to stopper at Simi Valley High, Miami and Northridge.

There is, however, a distinct difference. In the past, Sharts has always been counted on to hit even when he wasn’t pitching. This season his only cuts have been taken during an occasional batting practice appearance.

“They took my bat away,” Sharts said in a recent telephone interview.

Two days before the conclusion of spring training, the Indians’ hierarchy broke the news to him. Pitching was his fastest, if not only, ticket to The Show.

Sharts, who in 12 spring-training at-bats had five hits and seven runs batted in, did not agree. He reacted with anger, shock and dismay. “I had to go home and kick the dog a few times,” he said.

Fortunately, Sharts does not have a dog. He did, however, bat around his options. He could quit, or he could take the mound full time. Either way, he was giving up his passion for blasting baseballs into oblivion.

Meanwhile, the Indians brought in reinforcements.

They introduced Sharts to Greg Booker, a 6-6 former big leaguer who is Cleveland’s minor league pitching coach. Booker spent parts of seven seasons pitching for the San Diego Padres and Minnesota Twins, but he, too, started his professional career as a hitter.

“He is the one guy I can relate to probably better than anyone else in this organization,” Sharts said of Booker. “It gives you a little extra incentive when you know someone else went through what you’re going through.

“He made a big difference, eased the pain a little.”

Sharts had known doubters before, but always in the past, he had alternatives. He started his freshman season at Miami in 1989 as a part-time designated hitter, but when he was relegated to the bullpen, he decided to transfer.

He landed near home, at Northridge, where he pitched, played first base and in only two seasons belted 51 home runs, a school record.

“When this happened before, I had a way out,” said Sharts, who holds the Southern Section record for career home runs with 32. “I controlled what I did. Now these people do.”

With that in mind, Sharts has gamely attempted to convince himself that his unwavering attention to pitching will pay major league dividends. The battle still rages.

Sharts gave his self-confidence a boost by pitching 28 consecutive scoreless innings during a six-week stint of extended spring training in St. Petersburg, Fla.

At the same time, he wondered what happened to the Indians’ assurance that he would be given chances to hit on days he was not pitching.

“When I didn’t touch a bat for a while, I kind of got the hint that they wanted me to just concentrate on pitching,” Sharts said.

Reassigned to Watertown, he was 1-1 with a 4.08 earned-run average in four starts.

Manager Shawn Pender then moved him to the bullpen, reasoning that Sharts needed to work on his control and mechanics more than once every five days.

His record is now 3-3 and his ERA is down to 3.35.

“It was tough for a while, all the adversity, but I’m making a good adjustment now,” Sharts said.

Which is not to say that he does not itch to hit.

A few weeks ago, the Watertown pitchers were called together for a rare session of hitting practice. Sharts almost tore his locker from its hinges pulling his bat down from its perch.

Then, on the third pitch he saw, he drove the ball three-quarters of the way up a 120-foot-high light pole behind the left-center-field wall of Watertown’s home field.

“All the position players just went nuts,” Sharts said. A few said it was the farthest they had even seen a ball travel.

“Every so often I grab my bat and do some stuff when (the coaches) aren’t around,” Sharts confessed. “I’m not going to let it go. I can’t.”

Pender says Sharts has never asked to hit--”He knows better than that,” he said--but Sharts has been known to drop a hint or two.

Said Sharts: “I told him, ‘If you need a pinch-hit home run, you know where to call. The bullpen.’ ”