Picture Perfect : Canyons’ Shaw Brings a Swing to the Plate That Has Produced Big Numbers in WSC

The game has long been decided, another thumping victory by College of the Canyons, and Andy Shaw shuffles toward the plate in the ninth inning, his thick hands wrapped tightly around a black-and-gold metal club, his helmet pulled down snugly onto his head, his dark eyes locked on the mesh fence 330 feet down the right-field line and a single thought filling his head.

Situated beyond the fence at Pierce College and just across Winnetka Avenue is the sprawling West Valley Occupational Center. If Shaw--now pawing at the hard dirt with his metal cleats much the way a bull rips up the ground before attempting to maim the matador--gets his wish, the vocational school is about to add a course: Glass Repair 101.

The first two pitches are balls, inside then outside. But the third comes smoking down the middle and Shaw, who bats left-handed, uncoils, hips turning quickly and then the shoulders and then the heavy arms and strong hands, all in perfect rhythm, all designed to flatten the baseball on the heavy metal of the bat. The ball has arrived in the hitting zone now and Shaw brings his bat to meet it with great force.

And misses it by a foot.

The follow-through on the whiff and the bat speed Shaw generates causes his body to twist violently and, for an instant, it appears he might end up a 200-pound heap on the ground. But he catches himself before losing his balance and brings the bat back nearly as fast as he has swung it forward, a recoil motion that leaves the club back on his shoulder. Then he exhales, a giant whoosh that hangs in the warm spring air.

And then Shaw does what he does nearly as well as hit home runs. He watches two more close pitches that he doesn’t particularly care for and trots down the line with a walk.

“That was the only time all season I tried to hit a home run,” Shaw said in the aftermath. “We had the game wrapped up and I let myself go. I wanted the homer. I swung too hard.”

Shaw, a freshman, has whacked eight home runs in his 23 games this season--all of them in Western State Conference play--and has helped power Canyons to first place in the WSC with a 17-2 record (21-5 overall).

Shaw’s homer total is three more than second-place David Stevenson of Valley in the WSC, and with the possibility of playing in as many as 24 more games, including regional and state tournaments, he could threaten the school record of 17 set by Pete Kuld in 47 games in 1986.

The highlight thus far is a three-homer game in a rout of Santa Monica on March 18, a memorable show by Shaw. So memorable, in fact, that after he smashed the third one, he dropped the bat and stood in the box, watching.

“I couldn’t believe I did that,” said Shaw, a 1991 graduate of Montclair Prep. “I’m not like that. But it felt so good.”

A year ago, nothing felt very good for Shaw. He suffered a torn tendon in his right knee during training for his first season at Division I Cal State Fullerton, and an operation in November, 1991, left him in rehabilitation for 14 months. When the knee was back in shape, he couldn’t crack the Fullerton lineup.

The hunt for a junior college began, and he settled on Canyons.

“I told him he’d get a shot at first base,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said. “We had trouble at that position and when Andy came here in January, he worked hard and earned the job. To be honest, I didn’t know a whole lot about him. I had a few coaching friends who said he could hit. They were right.”

Shaw doesn’t bring the typical home run body with him. Jose Canseco and Cecil Fielder show up looking like they’ll do some damage. Shaw shows up looking like he’ll do your tax return forms. His 200 pounds are packed onto a 5-foot-11 body--he weighed 225 a few months ago--and it isn’t an overly impressive frame. It’s . . . well, let’s just say he’s not the first guy in a crowd you’d check for steroid use.

What he does bring is a short uppercut of a swing, a motion designed to get the ball in the air. Against Pierce last weekend, he hit a fly ball to center that seemed to disappear.

The swing is perfect for Canyons’ home field in Valencia, which always has a breeze blowing down the right-field line. Shaw has pounded six of his homers at home. But the wind alone doesn’t account for Shaw’s success. When he isn’t hitting the ball over the fence, he’s crashing line drives around the park.

Dangerous line drives.

A shot off Pierce pitcher Bryan Corey last weekend--Shaw’s second single of the game--came back at the mound roughly at lip level, sending a wide-eyed Corey into a self-preservation bail-out as the ball screamed through the space that only milliseconds earlier had been occupied by his head.

“The man has quick hands,” Corey said. “And he only hits his pitches. He’s got a great eye. I hung a changeup on him and he got his hands extended and bang , it was by me.”

The selective eye has produced 20 walks for Shaw, which ties him for the team lead, and he also has a devout belief in not ducking. He has been hit by 11 pitches, making him the runaway leader in welts.

“Discipline at the plate has really helped me,” he said. “I will only go after my pitch. If I have to take a strike or two, I will. I have enough confidence that I just need one pitch to produce.

“As for getting hit so much, it’s simple. I don’t get out of the way. It’s just hard for me to move out of the way of an inside pitch. I turn my back and take it. Coach Mohney is on me a little about that, telling me he needs me to swing, to get the RBIs, not to keep getting hit in the back.”

Now there’s something for Shaw to work on: moving his body away from the ball as quickly as he moves his bat into it.