Hitting the Road While Clinging to a Pitcher’s Dream : A Onetime Prospect, Maye Endures, Hoping for Another Opportunity

About once a week, Steve Maye climbs into his blue 1989 Chevrolet Silverado and drives from his Simi Valley home to Palm Springs, adding to the 120,000 miles on his truck while ignoring the miles on his arm.

Maye, 28, makes the 300-mile round trip so he can throw about 30 minutes in the Class-A Palm Springs Angels’ bullpen. He does so because one day, he is certain, a team will offer him a contract.

“All I want is one shot,” the right-hander said. “That’s all. Give me two or three weeks to prove myself.”

To prove himself, again.

Maye, who does most of his pitching for the Newbury Park Black Sox in the National Adult Baseball Assn.’s Thousand Oaks chapter, pitched in the minor leagues from 1984 to 1991, never higher than double A. He retired two months into the 1991 season because of a torn rotator cuff.

Maye had been drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the first round of the secondary phase of the June, 1984 draft. He was a prospect who threw in the low 90 m.p.h. range. He was durable too, pitching a California League-high 14 complete games and 185 1/3 innings, tied for the league lead, for Salinas in 1990.

Then he fizzled.

A typical story. Until now.

After sitting out a year and a half, Maye began rehabilitating his arm last December. When the pain disappeared, he got the notion he could pitch in the major leagues.

“I really believe that I can do it,” he said. “If I didn’t, I would have gotten on with my life.”

This is Steve Maye’s life: He wakes up at 6:30 a.m., does aerobics and jogs on the treadmill. He takes ground balls and fly balls from “anyone I can find,” he said. He then goes to his job at a gym in Simi Valley. He finishes his day with martial arts training. About twice a week, he has therapy on his shoulder.

Maye coaches the Royal High pitchers for his brother Dan, the Highlander coach, in the spring. On weekends in the summer, he pitches for the Black Sox and makes those trips to Palm Springs.

A graduate of Culver City High, Maye uses the NABA games to try out what he has learned with Palm Springs pitching coach Howie Gershberg, who started working with Maye about 2 1/2 months ago at the request of Palm Springs General Manager Kevin Haughian, a friend of Maye’s.

“He has his age against him,” Gershberg said. “It’s a shame, because in the little he’s been with me, I like what I see. I’ve tried to do something with our organization, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

The odds against Maye are staggering. Teams tend to shy away from 28-year-old pitchers who have had torn rotator cuffs and haven’t pitched above double A, particularly this time of year, when every organization can fill its minor league rosters with a new pack of draft picks.

“With him, what you see is what you get,” Gershberg said. “With a young kid, you can say there might be improvement.”

Maye depends on guile because his fastball, well, isn’t. Gershberg said Maye throws about 82 m.p.h.

“If you throw 86, (scouts) are looking for 88,” Maye said. “If you throw 88, they are looking for 90. All they are looking for is speed because they think they can teach everything else. That’s wrong. You can’t teach a guy to set up hitters, to throw three good pitches.

“When you’ve got a 1-2 count and can paint the black with a cut fastball, that takes a long time to learn.”

Maye learned his craft during an itinerant, tumultuous minor league career that included three organizations (the Cubs, A’s and White Sox), 10 teams and two countries--he pitched a year for Los Mochis in the Mexican Pacific League.

His first stop was in Pikeville, Ky., where his team once found itself caught in the cross-fire between striking coal miners and a busload of replacement employees.

“The bus driver said, ‘Don’t worry, they aren’t shooting at us,’ ” Maye remembered. “I said, ‘I don’t care!’ and I was on the floor.”

His career did have a few high points. He pitched twice in major league ballparks--the Oakland Coliseum and Milwaukee County Stadium--when his minor league teams played promotional doubleheaders with the parent clubs.

“They were the most incredible places in the world,” Maye said. “When we jogged out, there were still 30,000 people in the stands. It was an incredible feeling.”

That is not the feeling that sustains him during those trips to Palm Springs, though. It’s simpler than that.

“It’s just pitching,” Maye said. “There’s nothing like the feeling of throwing a great ballgame.”

Maye admitted to stealing a line from the film, “Mr. Baseball,” but he said it sums up his feelings: “Baseball is what I love,” Maye said. “It is the only thing I know and it is the only thing I want to do.”