COLLEGE BASEBALL / GARY KLEIN : Lions’ ‘Sultan’ Exults After Early Failures

The cover of the 1994 Loyola Marymount baseball media guide features a photo of three uniformed Lion players standing on the beach with turbans on their heads.

One of the so-called “Sultans of Swing” is junior outfielder Mike Peters, an improbable all-conference performer who after years of being cut during high school and college tryouts is cutting down opposing pitchers with regularity.

“My parents told me that if you like something, you should never quit trying,” said Peters, who is batting .333 with six home runs and 26 runs batted in. “There have definitely been times when I didn’t think I would get a chance. But it just goes to show you what can happen if you stick with it.”

Peters, 6 feet 3 and 185 pounds, was cut in his freshman and sophomore years at Loyola High and said coaches discouraged him from trying out again as a senior.

During his freshman year at Loyola Marymount, however, he decided to give baseball another try.

“It was a one-day tryout, and I didn’t do real well,” Peters recalled. “We hit in the (batting) cages, I took two ground balls at shortstop and I threw about three balls in from the outfield. That was it.

“When I got cut, I was pretty discouraged.”

When Jody Robinson replaced Chris Smith as coach at Loyola Marymount after the 1991 season, many players left for other programs. Peters, meanwhile, showed up for tryouts again.

“I wasn’t getting too warm of a response, but at least I was out there for a week,” Peters said. “I was kind of at the bottom of the barrel. (Robinson) just told me to go to the outfield and shag fly balls.”

Recalled Robinson: “When you get a guy like that, you usually stick him in the bullpen as a catcher and pretty much forget about him because he’s just happy to be there. But Mike didn’t want any part of that, and given our situation, we weren’t in a position to turn a guy like that completely away.”

Peters was used primarily as a late-inning defensive replacement in 1992 and got two hits in six at-bats. After the season, he played regularly in a collegiate summer league and returned to Loyola last season as a challenger for a starting position.

“Coach told me it was between me and another guy in center field,” Peters said. “When you wait as long as I had for a chance like that, you don’t want to be the other guy.”

Peters won the job and went on to hit .365 with seven homers and 36 RBIs. He batted .396 in West Coast Conference games and led the league with 76 hits.

This season, Peters is trying to help Loyola win at least a share of the conference title. The Lions enter this weekend’s series at St. Mary’s 16-20 overall and 5-7 in the WCC, three games behind first-place Santa Clara.

“I wouldn’t say that getting cut all those times was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Peters said. “But it does make you battle, and I think that’s one of the things I do best.”

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Trivia time: What pitcher ended Robin Ventura’s NCAA-record 58-game hitting streak after Jack McDowell had held Ventura hitless in his first four at-bats of a 1987 College World Series game?

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Big West battle: One of the biggest local series of the year begins tonight at Blair Field in Long Beach, where Cal State Fullerton (26-6), ranked No. 1 by Collegiate Baseball, will play seventh-ranked Long Beach State (22-7).

Last season, Long Beach swept Fullerton for the first time in a series that was marred by a violent, bench-clearing brawl in the opener.

Fullerton or Long Beach has advanced to the College World Series in each of the last six years, and both could well wind up at Omaha again this season. But the outcome of this weekend’s three-game series might not even determine first place in the Big West Conference.

Pacific, yes Pacific, has ridden a nation-leading 22-game winning streak to the top of the conference standings. It is 27-6 overall and 3-0 in the Big West. Fullerton (5-1) is second and Long Beach (4-2) and UC Santa Barbara (4-2) third.

The Tigers, under fifth-year Coach Quincey Noble, are ranked 26th--the first time Pacific’s baseball team has received a national ranking. And although Pacific’s preconference schedule was nowhere near as difficult as those of Southland Division I teams, the school is only eight victories shy of achieving its best season.

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Pac-10 showdown: First place in the Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division will be on the line starting tonight when sixth-ranked USC (27-8) plays host to ninth-ranked Stanford (21-13).

The Trojans took two of three games from the Cardinal at Palo Alto last month and are in first place in the division, 1 1/2 games ahead of Stanford and Arizona State, which visits USC next weekend.

USC is coming off a sweep at Arizona. Seven hitters are over .300, led by Aaron Boone, who is batting .366 and has stolen 22 bases, two short of the school single-season record set by Don Buford Jr. in 1987. Freshman Randy Flores is 5-0 with a 1.25 earned-run average for a staff that has a 3.01 ERA and has yielded only nine homers.

Trojan Coach Mike Gillespie said pitching and defense have helped his team win 18 of its last 21 games.

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Trivia answer: Al Osuna, who is pitching for the Dodgers’ triple-A affiliate at Albuquerque.