SAVING MATADOR: The National League runner-up in...

SAVING MATADOR: The National League runner-up in saves this season may not yet be a household name to most baseball fans, but he’s certainly well-regarded in the Valley. He’s ex-Cal State Northridge star Jeremy Hernandez, who has nine saves for the Florida Marlins. . . . “He was a very determined young man,” recalled CSUN Athletic Director Bob Hiegert, who recruited Hernandez in the 1980s.

BIG WEEKEND: Northridge breeds more than just big league baseball pitchers. Try big league race car drivers, such as Mike Groff. This weekend, he’ll find out if he’s made the field for the Indy 500. . . . So far, he’s in, but he could get bumped. If that happened, he would get a chance to qualify again in another car.

COMPUTER BYTES: Hillarie Waadt doesn’t like the way her generation has been treated in the media. So what’s the best way to change that? Become part of the media, of course. Waadt, a Sherman Oaks native, puts out Juxt, an anti-Generation X magazine offering politics and poetry. . . . “We are all so different,” says Waadt, 25, “and that is what we have in common as a generation” (Valley Life! Page 32).

BARE FACTS: So much of the ‘60s hasn’t made it into the ‘90s. But don’t put Topanga Canyon’s Elysium Fields on that list. The nudist camp (above) is still around (Valley Life! Page 10). . . . Elysium got exposed in Gay Talese’s best-seller, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” but, said camp founder Ed Lange, Talese “was more interested in places that offered sexual recreation, and we weren’t a swing club.”

GOOD TIMING: For many, aftershocks are routine these days. For some Valley businesses, however, quakes mean ringing telephones and cash registers (B2). . . . “Every time there’s an aftershock, we’ve been going into an even higher gear,” said Billy Carmen, part owner of a Studio City company that sells equipment to protect home and office furnishings.