Heavy Metal Fan Shows Mettle on Mound : Baseball: Los Amigos graduate Andy Wise is proving he belongs in bullpen at Long Beach State.

The sound of wailing guitars in Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” arrive just about the time Long Beach State relief pitcher Andy Wise leaves the bullpen.

Tired of the pop music and twang of country and western tunes on the 49ers’ public address system at home games, Wise dubbed his own tape and begged for some air time.

And, in the process, he has turned Blair Field into his own headbanger’s ball. Bullpen style.

“It’s great,” he said. “Even when we’re on the road, some of the guys in the dugout will start singing it when I come into the game.

“You know, duh-dun dun-dun-dun . . . “

You get the picture.

It’s a fitting choice of music, this Iron Man, for a guy whose mettle has been tested more than once in this sport.

It was tested at Los Amigos High, where Wise played for a 5-15 team his senior year.

It was tested at Rancho Santiago, where Coach Don Sneddon cut him as a freshman, then invited him back and moved him from catcher to the bullpen. He overcame nagging shoulder problems, changed his pitching motion to a sidearm delivery and relished the thankless role of a middle relief pitcher.

And it has been tested at Long Beach State, where Coach Dave Snow brought him in as a walk-on and used him as a set-up man for Gabe Gonzalez, one of the top collegiate closers.

“If you would have told me years ago that Andy Wise would one day pitch for Long Beach in the College World Series,” Sneddon said, “I would have asked you to take a drug test.”

But that was Wise standing on the mound at Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium last June, pitching in a mop-up role in Long Beach State’s 7-1 first-round loss to top-ranked Louisiana State in the College World Series.

It was Wise’s only appearance in the double-elimination tournament, and it was the kind of duty a middle reliever hates--entering a game trailing by six runs.

Nobody heard Wise complaining.

Maybe it was all the cortisone shots he once had to take in his right (pitching) shoulder, then all the rehabilitation.

Maybe it was the 16,953 fans who watched that game, or the kids who hung around the bullpen, calling out his name. Or maybe it was the thought of his 1-year-old son, Tyler, back home in California.

For Wise, this was why you played college baseball.

“How lucky can I get?” he asks. “I could have easily quit, but I always thought I could play at this level.”

It just took him awhile to prove it.

Unrecruited out of high school, Wise came to Rancho Santiago hoping that his hitting would earn him a spot in the lineup. Sneddon took a long look but cut him.

Wise didn’t listen. He kept coming around the ballpark, a habit that caught Sneddon’s attention.

“Most guys would have hung it up and been flipping burgers by now,” Sneddon said. “But he’s a self-made player, the working man’s idol. He doesn’t have a lot of God-given talent, but his story is the kind you would like to see on film.”

Sneddon asked Wise to sit out a season as a redshirt. Then he handed him a ball and sent him to the bullpen. The kid stood only six feet and his fastball wouldn’t break the speed limit on most freeways, but Wise still showed promise as a pitcher.

“I was throwing overhead, not following through on my pitches,” Wise said. “Then I was working with (pitching coach Jim) Reach one day and I noticed this one pitcher dropped down with his motion. So I decided to give it a try.”

His sidearm delivery forces hitters into groundouts, a must for a relief pitcher. And it also might have helped prolong his pitching career.

Because he wasn’t trying to throw as hard as he used to, the small muscle tears that developed in his shoulder before his sophomore year weren’t getting any worse than they already were.

Despite the injury, Wise had modest success, finishing 2-1 with three saves and a 2.45 earned-run average as Rancho Santiago won the Orange Empire Conference title.

Still, “my arm was done,” he said.

He had arthroscopic surgery right after the season, and only hoped that a Division I college was willing to take a chance with him. San Diego State and Fresno State showed interest early, but backed off because of his arm problems.

After Wise’s surgery, Sneddon asked him where he would like to play. Wise told him Long Beach State or Cal State Fullerton. He wanted to stay close to home, close to his son and his girlfriend, Teri.

“I wanted to play for a good baseball school,” Wise said, “but staying near Tyler was very, very important.”

Sneddon lobbied Snow to take Wise as a walk-on.

“I saw him pitch only a couple innings in the fall,” Snow said, “I took him entirely on Sneddon’s opinion. He told me Andy would be a key guy for us out of the bullpen.”

And he has, but it has taken time.

Most of the attention goes to Gonzalez--or “Blade” as he is known to his teammates. Gonzalez saved 13 games with 50 strikeouts in 53 innings last season and was named to the first time All-Big West. Wise, still battling a sore shoulder, was 2-1 with no saves and a 5.09 ERA.

This season, Gonzalez is among the nation’s leaders with nine saves. And Wise, whose shoulder hasn’t felt better since high school, is 1-0 with one save and a 1.26 ERA in 28 2/3 innings.

“When you do a good job (as a middle reliever) people will tell you,” Wise said. “You lose a game, and you’re the goat. You do well, and the other guy gets the save. But that’s fine. That’s the way it is, and I understand that.”

It’s an easy role to accept, especially when you’re playing for the seventh-ranked team in Collegiate Baseball’s rankings. A good showing against top-ranked Cal State Fullerton this weekend at Blair Field, and the 49ers will be considered serious national title contenders.

“We have much more talent than last year,” Wise said. “We haven’t played well, but we’re still 23-7 and we’re right about where we want to be.”

And if all goes as planned, Wise just might be packing his Black Sabbath tape in June for another trip to that baseball mecca known as Omaha, Neb. With a little playing time, Wise’s heavy metal might just liven up a city known for two kinds of music-- country and western .

“Hey, I worked all summer and all fall to make it back to the College World Series,” he said. “And this time, I want to make more than a minor contribution.”