The baseball lives of Roland and Rolando...

The baseball lives of Roland and Rolando De La Maza already make a good story. But with the major league draft less than two months away, the story is likely to get better.

Rolando De La Maza, 64, a Cuban immigrant, dreamed of teaching his son a game he taught himself to play. The dream came to life at age 43, when he fathered Roland, his only son. It caught a spark when, at age 7, Roland joined his first youth baseball team.

“I went to the park and the coach told me (Roland) throws only strikes,” Rolando said. “From that time, I said to myself, ‘I got to help him.’ ”

Help he did, reading books on baseball and imparting his knowledge to Roland.

Now Rolando’s hopes for his son could exceed his original expectations. Roland likely will sign a pro contract in June.

Roland, a senior at Cal State Sacramento who played for St. Genevieve High, is one of the most consistent pitchers in NCAA Division I. He is 7-2 with a 2.75 earned-run average and has 78 strikeouts in 75 1/3 innings. After a junior season in which De La Maza posted an 11-6 record and a 2.68 ERA and recorded 95 strikeouts in 111 innings, the Hornets thought they would lose him to the draft.

It didn’t happen. But Sacramento Coach John Smith said the 6-foot-1, 190-pound right-hander, the first Hornet to win more than 10 games since the program moved to Division I in 1989, should not be passed over again.

“Without a doubt, he’s a pro prospect,” Smith said. “The only thing he lacks is an 87-88-mile-an-hour fastball, and he throws in the low 80s. He pitches with supreme command. He’s only been hit hard once in the two years he’s been here.”

Smith said De La Maza’s greatest asset is his delivery, and Roland credits his father for teaching him the mechanics.

“He never really played the game,” Roland said of his father, an international banking officer at the Bank of Brazil. “He read books by Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan and he watched a lot of pitchers on TV. He filmed me and we would analyze the films. He was my pitching coach all the way to (junior college).”

Rolando taught Roland the fastball, the changeup, the curve and slider.

“I was not so lucky to play any organized baseball,” Rolando said, “but I have about 50 books about pitching. I read them all. It’s very rare you find a pitching coach. I try to help him.”

Four years ago Sacramento offered a full scholarship to De La Maza. But De La Maza turned down the offer because, he said, he wasn’t prepared for it. Scouts and recruiters never visited Branford Park in Arleta, site of St. Genevieve home games, and the scholarship offer caught him by surprise.

“The field we played on, there were no fences,” De La Maza said. “There was no grass on the infield. The infield was full of rocks. There was no mound; it was flat. You had soccer games going on in the outfield.”

Moving on to College of the Canyons for two seasons, De La Maza gained three things: an elevated mound, a good pitching coach in Chris Zavatski and increased velocity on his fastball.

Sacramento never stopped recruiting De La Maza and eventually signed him to a full scholarship after his sophomore year at Canyons. Now, Roland is looking for “a real serious pitching coach” to improve his follow-through, which he believes could be the key to a major league fastball.

“I’m really not trying to think at all about the draft,” said De La Maza, who said he felt snubbed last year. “I’m just trying to have a good time every time I pitch. Go out with a bang. This could be the last year I play.”

Checking the fax: In baseball, Cal State Sacramento left-hander Mike Eby (Westlake) was named Western Athletic Conference player of the week after he pitched a seven-hitter in a 4-1 victory over Hawaii last week. . . . Stanford’s Andrew Lorraine (Hart) has a 6-3 record with an ERA of 4.00 and 60 strikeouts versus 19 walks. Teammate Brodie Van Wagenen (Crespi) has a .292 batting average and a team-high nine doubles and .500 slugging percentage.

In track and field, Jennifer Whelchel of UCLA moved to fourth on the all-time Bruin list in the women’s shotput when she set a personal best of 52 feet 0 1/2 inch to finish third in a quadrangular meet at Drake Stadium on Saturday.

Whelchel (Agoura) also threw a season best of 155-7 in the discus to place third.