Magdaleno Likes to Horse Around : Cal Lutheran Coach Brings Out Best in Hitters, Pranksters

Mark Magdaleno drives a pickup truck he affectionately calls “The Scud,” which, like its namesake, is a bomb that moves very deliberately and is prone to stray off course.

“There are days when it’s colder in this truck than it is outside,” Magdaleno said as he guided the broken-down vehicle around the Cal Lutheran campus, smiling and waving at almost every passerby. “The Scud has what I call natural air-conditioning.”

The truck also has a payload that speaks volumes about the man at the wheel. The inventory: a load of manure, a quarter-bale of hay, hay hooks, half of a Wiffle ball and a purple and gold baseball bag.

Magdaleno, 34, works full time for Cal Lutheran in a rather unusual dual capacity.

In the morning he is a horseman, managing the school’s equestrian center and 85-acre hay farm. In the afternoon, he is assistant coach and hitting instructor for the Cal Lutheran baseball team.

“As a little boy, I grew up dreaming of cowboys, horses and baseball,” Magdaleno said. “I loved John Wayne just like I loved Babe Ruth. People ask me, ‘How come you’re so happy all the time?’ Hey, how many people get paid for something they once dreamed of doing?”

Magdaleno is in his third season as a college assistant, his 15th month as ranch manager, and is considered equally qualified at both tasks.

“He is definitely a cowboy,” said Mary Jo Lord, one of three horse trainers who teach equestrian skills to Cal Lutheran students. “He knows exactly what he’s doing and he manages this place really well.”

As for Magdaleno’s skills as a batting instructor, the numbers tell the story. Cal Lutheran (29-6-1) takes a batting average of .349 into a best-of-five series against UC San Diego in the NCAA Division III West Regional in La Jolla beginning Friday.

“He puts things into perspective, explains things in a way you can understand and that makes the game fun,” said Jason Wilson, Cal Lutheran’s center fielder and leadoff batter.

Last season, Wilson batted .299, scored 30 runs, had eight extra-base hits, 15 walks, 17 stolen bases and 14 strikeouts.

This season the 5-foot-7, 150-pound senior is batting .344, has scored 51 runs, has 12 extra-base hits, 25 walks, 29 stolen bases and has struck out only 10 times.

Third baseman Scott Sebbo batted .344 last season. This year, he is batting .374 with 14 doubles, 36 runs and 45 runs batted in.

“He works with what you have,” Sebbo said. “When I first came here, I was a little undisciplined with my swing. But he doesn’t try to change you. He helps you make adjustments that make you better.”

Younger players benefit right along with his college pupils.

During spring break and summer vacation, Magdaleno is a prime attraction at Cal Lutheran baseball camps. The key to hitting, he explains to campers in a language they can comprehend, is to “squish the bug” and “slap the midget.”

Squishing the bug is Magdaleno’s catch phrase to remind a batter to pivot on his back foot. Slapping the midget is his way of explaining that a batter must pull the nob of the bat down, slapping with the back of his bottom hand and punching with his top hand. Imagine you are pummeling a short person who is biting your knee, he tells hitters.

Magdaleno tends to be a little more technical when it comes to helping college-age players, but the same mechanics apply.

“He puts things into perspective and in a way you can understand and remember,” Sebbo said. “You think about things like squish the bug and slap the midget. Fundamentally, they’re correct. The thing about Mags is that whatever he’s teaching you, he always keeps it fun.”

Or, at the very least, he makes it interesting.

“If you can make baseball pleasurable and still be disciplined, you’re going to be more successful,” Magdaleno said. “This game has a lot of dead time in it. You don’t always need that football mentality. You need to be a little loose.”

To that end, Magdaleno’s reputation as a practical joker is legendary. His feud this season, as usual, is with the team’s pitchers.

The skirmishes started innocently enough. One day while pitcher Kevin Koschik was loosening up in the outfield, Magdaleno heaved the player’s equipment bag onto the roof of the dugout.

“Everyone knew, so the joke was on me,” Koschik said.

A few days later, Koschik found his running shoes tied in knots to the dugout bench.

“(Magdaleno) comes over and says, ‘Who did that?’ ” Koschik said. “I said, ‘I think you know.’ He said, ‘Who? Who did that?’ I said, ‘I’m going to get you back.’ ”

Just the threat caused Marty Slimak, Cal Lutheran’s head coach, to wince.

“Slim told me, ‘I’ll give you a little advice: Don’t mess with Mags,’ ” Koschik recalled. “So I said, ‘All right. I’ll leave it alone.’ ”

A few days later, Koschik was back in the outfield when he turned toward the dugout just in time to see Magdaleno again throw his equipment bag on the roof.

A few days after that, Koschik found a dead rat in his shoes.

“Don’t mess with Mags. . . . “

Soon after, other members of the team were drawn in.

After finding a snail shoved down one of the fingers in his glove, pitcher Sammy Arroyo vowed revenge. In early April, Magdaleno opened his equipment bag to find his fungo mummified.

Instead of having tape wrapped only around the bat head, Kingsmen players had encased it entirely, scribbling the message, “Don’t screw with the pitchers.”

“Pay-back,” Magdaleno growled.

The next day, Koschik strolled into the locker room to find his cleats tied in knots. Undaunted, he went to put on another pair of shoes that appeared untouched, their laces still in bows.

However, when Koschik lifted the tongues of the cleats the bows fell off. Underneath, they had been snipped.

“I had to go out there with my shoes taped,” Koschik said. “He called me Deion Sanders the rest of the day.”

“Don’t mess with Mags. . . .”

Too late. War was declared.

The players found the keys to Magdaleno’s truck, took out his prized fungo, coated it with deodorant and tied his shoes to it. Then they placed a theft deterrent device on the steering wheel, locking it in place.

Magdaleno had campus security use bolt cutters to remove the device. “It cost them $50 to play that practical joke on me,” Magdaleno said.

Not true, the players reminded him. The device had a money-back guarantee.

The following day, several players found horse manure stuffed into their shoes, jacket pockets and gloves. “Oooh, it was fresh, too,” Koschik recalled.

The day after that, a group of players recycled the mess, which wound up in the coaches’ offices.

Slimak finally called a mandatory truce.

“I think we’ve kept one of the local drugstores in business,” Slimak said. “They’ve been sold out of shoelaces for weeks. And the manure thing was the last straw. It gets to the point where you have to say, ‘OK, that’s it.’ ”

And so it was--until the players got bored during a 14-0 rout of Occidental on April 22.

Magdaleno, sitting on the bench talking to Koschik, was given a hot foot by pitcher Marc Weiss.

“I looked down and it was a big flame,” Koschik recalled. “I thought, ‘Should I tell him? . . . No way!’ ”

In the battle of pranks, the players figure the hot foot has them in the lead--for now.

“I’m sure he’s waiting for a big one,” Weiss said of Magdaleno. “He’s saving the best for last.”

Slimak, who is forced to play referee in such jousts, all but guarantees it.

“Mags does not like to lose,” he said. “Whether it’s a game of checkers, a game of marbles, Nintendo or a baseball game.

“He’s the kind of guy, if you get one up on him, he won’t be able to sleep at night. I’ve tried to tell these guys. . . . ‘Look, you think it’s fun now, but you will lose. Sooner or later, you will lose.’ ”

Cal Lutheran hitters attest to Magdaleno’s competitive side.

Sebbo learned quickly not to watch the flight of a well-hit ball when Magdaleno was pitching batting practice.

“If you look at it, you’d better just give your back up right there,” Sebbo says. “If he catches you looking, the next pitch is coming at you. I got bruises on the back of my hamstrings last year. One time, he hit me right on the spine.”

Magdaleno credits his father, Narciso, for instilling “a competitive fire.”

“My dad, he was my hero,” Magdaleno said. “He never got the opportunity to coach or go to school--I think he only got through the fourth grade--but he taught us the fundamentals and a work ethic you could see every day.”

Narciso worked long days at the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu and in the evening taught sports to his daughter and six sons.

“We’d practice and practice,” Magdaleno said. “He knew the fundamentals. Things he taught me I’m still teaching now.”

Magdaleno played baseball at Buena High and Westmont College in Santa Barbara. “I was an average athlete, but I got the most out of my ability,” he said.

Helping others stretch the limits of their ability might someday land Magdaleno a job in pro baseball.

This summer he will manage an independent Class-A team that is starting in Palm Springs. Because of his track record and his ability to speak fluent Spanish, Magdaleno hopes to land a job as a minor league instructor.

Until then, he is content with his dual positions.

His typical day starts between 7 and 8 in the morning when he makes rounds of the 20 or so horses that are boarded at the equestrian center. After checking water and feed supplies, he splits chores with Abran Nava, a ranch hand.

Magdaleno winds up his ranch duties by noon, grabs lunch at one of the school’s cafeterias, and is on the field by 1:15 p.m. for “early outs”--extra practice for any of the Cal Lutheran players who need additional work.

Regular practice session begins at 2:30 p.m. and goes until about 5:30, after which Magdaleno takes a final tour of the ranch facilities before going home.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “I’m one of the few people I know who looks forward to coming to work in the morning.”