Offspring Training : Their Fathers Own Major League Teams, but Harvard-Westlake’s O’Malley, Werner Enjoy Playing Baseball Without Fanfare

The sun was diving for the horizon in a hurry and a thick, golden light cloaked the dusty field as 16 boys yelled and cursed and sweated their way through another baseball practice, just another team on another diamond playing out another day of their fleeting youth with bats and balls and gloves and spikes and laughter.

Just another group of kids.

Except that the first baseman’s father owns the Los Angeles Dodgers and the second baseman’s father owns the San Diego Padres, and certainly the sons of such baseball royalty must be different from other kids, must walk through each day with a heavy weight on their shoulders, must be wise and mature far beyond their years and must see baseball as something far more serious than a game.

Ah . . . no.

Midway through a recent practice of the Harvard-Westlake High baseball team, Ted Werner, son of Padres chairman and managing partner Tom, whispered something to Kevin O’Malley, son of Dodgers owner Peter. The son of the Dodgers owner responded to what must have been a good jab in the manner common among teen-age boys since they first walked from the cave and asked dad if he could loan them a few rocks for the weekend: Using his heavy first baseman’s mitt, O’Malley, who probably will own the Dodgers one day, whacked Werner, who might own the Padres one day, in the crotch, causing young Werner to emit a slight yelp as O’Malley grinned, awash in a young man’s triumph.

“They’re just guys, just regular guys,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Jim Brink said. “They ask for no special treatment because of who their dads are, and they get none. They’re kids playing baseball. That’s all.”

O’Malley, 18, is a senior at the exclusive, 1,100-student school in North Hollywood with a $10,000 annual tuition. He is the team’s starting first baseman and backup catcher who batted .307 last year and is thumping the ball at a .415 clip this season. His swing, power and 6-foot-3, 205-pound body has brought him scholarship offers from some of the nation’s most prestigious schools, including Notre Dame, Georgetown and Penn.

Werner, 17, is a junior and is fighting for the starting position at second base. At 5-8 and 160 pounds, Werner is a singles hitter and a slick fielder with sure hands. He also would like a crack at college baseball after he graduates from Harvard-Westlake.

And while both said they will analyze in great depth the college possibilities, there’s at least one aspect of the process that neither will be too concerned about: financial aid.

The Dodgers and Padres each are valued at more than $200 million. The value of the Dodger franchise and O’Malley-owned Dodger Stadium and its adjoining acres may be twice that much. Peter O’Malley, who inherited the team from his father, legendary owner Walter O’Malley--who moved the franchise from Brooklyn in 1958--attended all of his son’s games last year and this year except for the few weeks when he must be in Vero Beach, Fla., with his other team.

Werner is a television producer (Carsey-Werner Production Co. created The Cosby Show and Roseanne, among other hit television shows) who purchased the Padres in 1990 along with a group of 14 other business associates (Werner is the majority shareholder). Werner, who lives in Brentwood, also regularly attends the Harvard-Westlake games.

When O’Malley is in town, the two major league owners sit together on the shoddy wooden spectator benches at ramshackle Franklin Field where Harvard-Westlake plays home games amid the last remaining cornfields of Encino.

“It’s just fun to watch the joy on kids’ faces when they play baseball,” Werner said. “It’s also nice to watch a group of people play baseball and not have the words ‘salary’ and ‘arbitration’ mentioned for three hours.

“Peter and I sit and watch our sons and we talk about how much fun we’re having and what a pure experience it is for any dad to see their child enjoying themselves. Our talk never turns to major league baseball. Never. Ever.”

There are other traditional father-son activities associated with his son’s games, Werner said.

“Last week Teddy locked his keys inside his car,” Werner said. “So here we are alongside this dusty baseball field and the sun is disappearing and everyone wanders away and we’re waiting for a tow truck to come rescue us. It was one of those moments where you want to both strangle your 17-year-old son and hug him.

“And I thought, ‘If a major league player locks his keys in his car today, he just buys a new car.’ ”

O’Malley, too, said the joy of baseball as a game makes his son’s games significant.

“I’ve enjoyed it since his earliest days in Little League to now,” O’Malley said. “I watch and I think how proud I am of Kevin. He’s such a decent, level-headed kid. Watching him play baseball is a great joy.”

Both players work hard, they said, at simply being a part of the school and a part of the baseball team. Both were hesitant to sit through interviews with a reporter, eventually being ushered to the task by Brink.

Brink, assistant Mel Swerdling and teammates say O’Malley and Werner never mention the Dodgers or Padres and receive no special treatment from schoolmates or teammates. There is, of course, a reason for that.

Johnny Carson’s children walked the halls. So do the children of Michael Eisner, the Walt Disney Co. chairman and NHL Mighty Ducks owner. Doctors, lawyers and the heads of mega-businesses make up the bulk of the school’s parent association, and the student parking lot would make noted car collector (and driver) Jose Canseco wince in jealousy.

“At first it was a novelty to coach the son of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ owner,” said Brink, who has coached the team for 13 years and moved O’Malley to the varsity last year. “Now to have two kids whose fathers own major league teams, well, it was, briefly, something to talk about with my other coaching friends.

“But really, they’re just two guys on the team. Two terrific kids who are entirely unpretentious about what their families own or do for a living.”

Both players realize that it is indeed odd for the sons of two major league team owners to end up on the same high school baseball team. Beyond that, though, neither sees much cause for flashing lights. Or a newspaper story.

“We know there are only 28 major league baseball owners, so this certainly is unique,” Ted Werner said. “But it’s really not a big deal to either of us. It’s just what our dads do.”

Until his father did what he did in 1990, Werner was a Dodger fan.

“People ask, because I grew up in L.A., if I’m a Dodger fan,” he said. “And I tell them that I used to be.”

Werner, who said he hasn’t met any of the Padres yet, said friends occasionally ask questions about his father’s team, “about trades and salaries and things like that,” Werner said. “Like I know.”

While Tom Werner has made an effort to keep his family away from the Padres and out of the spotlight, Kevin O’Malley grew up around the Dodgers, spending time each year in spring training in Florida with his grandfather, Walter, and father.

Although Peter said his son was introduced to baseball as a youngster, “ . . . just like any other youngster,” Kevin actually spent much time, he said, at Vero Beach and Dodger Stadium, watching close-up the workings of Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith and Davey Lopes and Dusty Baker and Rick Monday and other Dodgers.

But now, he said, he’s only a high school kid playing baseball.

“I really don’t see the point . . . why it’s a big deal,” he said. “I’m just another kid with a regular family trying to play baseball.”

Uh-huh.

His teammates, most of whom said they grew up as Dodger fans, keep it tightly veiled, but they do indeed know who Kevin O’Malley is. And what his father owns .

“There are no written rules about how we deal with it, but we know what to say and not to say,” third baseman Damon Lapa said. “One of those unwritten rules is, ‘Don’t rip the Dodgers.’ It was tough last year. A few times, we slipped. Someone would blurt out, ‘Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis. That was a good deal.’ And we’d catch ourselves and everyone would glance over at Kevin. And you know what? He’d just smile and turn away. He and Ted don’t flaunt it. They don’t ever wear a Dodgers or Padres shirt or anything.

“Sometimes I look at Kevin and I think, ‘This kid could own the Dodgers some day.’ But mostly, that just doesn’t seem real.

“I mean, look at him.”

That, it should be noted, was an 18-year-old jokingly slamming his 18-year-old friend. Lapa smiled after he said it and then went back to slamming something else: baseballs.

Moments later, O’Malley trapped baserunner Edward Han in a rundown and accidentally stepped on Han’s foot, tearing a hole in Han’s leather shoe. O’Malley stopped to inquire about his teammate and the condition of his shoe, and you wonder if somewhere inside this young man the thought lurks: Don’t worry about it. My dad can make one phone call and have a dump truck fill your driveway with new baseball shoes by sunrise.

Probably not.

O’Malley says one word-- Sorry --to Han and trots back to first base where he pounds his glove eagerly with his right hand, his eyes wide with excitement as he waits impatiently for the next play on a dusty baseball field at twilight.

Someday he might be the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. But not this day.