PRO BASEBALL / JEFF FLETCHER : Major Changes in Minors for Valley Rookies

Jeff Suppan doesn’t seem to mind that he lives with three other guys in one room in a Holiday Inn.

Or that his most exciting leisure activity is video golf in his hotel room.

Or that a typical dinner for him involves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, except for his lucky pasta dinners the night before he pitches.

This is the life he and 19 other area players chose for themselves this summer by signing professional contracts.

Is minor-league life all they expected?

Suppan, a second-round pick by the Boston Red Sox out of Crespi High, is pitching for Boston’s rookie league affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla.

“I’m just getting a taste of (the minors) now,” Suppan said. “I won’t really know what it’s like until the real season kicks in and I’m here for six months. Right now it’s like playing summer ball. I’m enjoying it.”

Bryan Corey, a shortstop from Pierce and Thousand Oaks High, is playing in Bristol, Va., with the Detroit Tigers’ rookie league team.

“It’s different than what I expected,” said Corey, a 12th-round pick. “I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be to play every day.”

Corey said it’s worse when he doesn’t play, though, which is about half the time because Bristol has 37 players. On Wednesday night, for example, he sat through a 15-inning game in the rain.

“I wasn’t really paying much attention (to the game),” he said.

Former Cal State Northridge catcher Mike Sims, a 14th-round pick of the Florida Marlins, is sitting on the bench for Class-A Elmira, N.Y. It’s the first time he has been a backup, he said.

“I’m used to playing every game and I come here and sit in the bullpen and warm up pitchers,” he said. “I’m not too happy with it. I think if I would get a fair share of playing time, I’d do a lot better hitting wise. It’s hard when you’re in every seven days and then you see a guy throwing 90 m.p.h.”

Boredom is another obstacle. Former Northridge third baseman Andy Small, also playing for Elmira, was reached Thursday afternoon in a hotel in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

“We are all watching a soap opera now,” said Small, the Marlins’ 27th-round pick. “That’s our entertainment for the day. We sleep till noon, then get up and eat and wait till it’s time to go to the yard again.”

Suppan has had to find ways to keep busy between starts, now that he no longer hits. He said he considers himself “the best bat boy in the Gulf Coast League” when he isn’t pitching.

Suppan said there’s not much to do on an off day in Fort Myers but go to the beach. The city “has one street,” Suppan said, “and it’s just got a lot of fast food places on it.”

No matter, Suppan and his roommates don’t have a car anyway. Corey and his roommate, who also live in a hotel, solved that problem soon after they arrived in Bristol by buying a $300 car.

“It’s orange and beaten-up, but it gets us from Point A to Point B,” Corey said. “It doesn’t look like it, but it runs pretty good.”

The humidity on the East Coast is another surprise for California players.

“I died when I went to Florida (for minicamp),” Corey said. “It just completely hit me like a brick wall. You take a shower and as soon as you come out, you are sweating already.

“It’s not like California.”

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Just 2,999 hits from the Hall of Fame: Lucky for former Chatsworth High standout Ty Van Burkleo someone was paying attention. After the Angel first baseman doubled Tuesday night at Anaheim Stadium, he missed the significance until umpire Rocky Roe asked if he wanted to keep the ball.

“It didn’t really register until I got to second base and I said, ‘Wow, that’s my first major league hit,” Van Burkleo said. “(Roe) knew it. I don’t know how. Maybe he heard somebody yelling from the dugout.”

Van Burkleo, 29, who had played about 1,000 games in the minor leagues and in Japan before recording major-league hit No. 1, said it was a moment he had dreamed of for “about 24 years. It’s pretty sweet. It’s a special feeling for anybody.”

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Short hops: The Seattle Mariners have not decided whether Roger Salkeld, who is rehabilitating from reconstructive shoulder surgery at double-A Jacksonville, will be promoted to the major league team Sept. 1 when rosters expand to 40, said Larry Beinfest, assistant to Mariner farm director Jim Beattie. Before his start Friday against Birmingham, Salkeld was 3-2 with a 3.32 earned-run average. In 43 1/3 innings, the former Saugus right-hander had 37 strikeouts and 17 walks.

Dmitri Young made seven errors in his first 36 games as a first baseman at double-A Arkansas. Young, a first-round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals out of Rio Mesa in 1991, was moved from third to first in late June, the same time he was promoted to Arkansas.

Mike Lieberthal, the Philadelphia Phillies’ first-round pick in 1990 out of Westlake, has thrown out 47.2% of would-be base stealers to rank among the leaders in the triple-A International League.

Derek Wallace has won three of his last four decisions after losing three of his first four for double-A Orlando. Wallace, a 1989 graduate of Chatsworth, pitched well in his most recent start Tuesday, allowing one earned run in 6 2/3 innings although he did not figure in the decision.

The Chicago Cubs’ first-round pick out of Pepperdine last June, Wallace left with a 4-3 lead, but Orlando lost, 6-5, to Birmingham in the ninth inning. Two of the runs he allowed came home on singles after he balked runners into scoring position. Wallace’s best pro start was July 14 against Chattanooga, when he pitched 8 1/3 innings, allowed two runs on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks.

Right-handed pitcher Sam Minyard, drafted out of The Master’s by the Marlins in June, was sent home because of arm problems.

The Orioles demoted former Birmingham outfielder Damon Buford to triple-A Rochester on Tuesday.

Former North Hollywood outfielder Paul List was promoted from Class-A Central Valley in the California League to triple-A Colorado Springs on July 27. List had five hits in his first 11 triple-A at-bats, including three doubles.

Former St. Genevieve right-hander Roland De La Maza held opponents to a .205 batting average while winning his first seven decisions for Class-A Watertown, N.Y. De La Maza, the Cleveland Indians’ 14th-round pick, was named New York-Penn League player of the week in mid-July.

Times staff writer Elliott Teaford contributed to this story.