Fortugno’s Long Road Leads Back to Majors : Baseball: Former SCC pitcher, who had a brief stint with the Angels in 1992, resurfaces in majors with the Reds.

Tim Fortugno looked out of the visitors’ dugout at Dodger Stadium, surveying the daily pregame routine. How many times has he seen it and done it all before?

Batting practice, shagging fly balls, fielding grounders, playing catch in the outfield, stretching, jogging on the warning track and talking baseball.

It’s nothing new, but it never gets dull for Fortugno, a left-handed relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds.

“This is the greatest job in the world,” said Fortugno, a former NAIA All-American at Southern California College.

It has to be. Otherwise, Fortugno would have given up long ago. It’s never been easy for him, and maybe that’s what propels him, keeps him coming back night after night, season after season. After all, this is only his second major league stint in nine professional seasons.

When he was young, Fortugno’s mother called him stubborn. He wouldn’t argue.

A high school teammate once observed that Fortugno seemed so at home whenever he stepped on a field. He knows that’s true too.

His wife thought he was crazy when he informed her one year after they were married that he had decided to return to college. But he managed to get a degree and sign a pro contract in 1986.

He has played in Bellingham, Wausau, Salinas, Reading, Clearwater, Reno, El Paso, Beloit, El Paso, Denver, Edmonton, Anaheim, Ottawa, Chattanooga and now Cincinnati.

Sound like a long, hard road?

Consider Fortugno’s 1993 itinerary.

He spent the winter at home in Huntington Beach, then joined the Angels for spring training in Tempe, Ariz. They cut him and he hooked on with Montreal, headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Expos then sent him to triple-A Ottawa. When the season ended, he returned to Orange County. But before the year was over, he went to play winter ball in Venezuela.

Fortugno spent this past spring training at the Seattle Mariners’ minor-league camp at Peoria, Ariz. They released him and the Reds signed him and sent him to double-A Chattanooga. After 14 games there, they brought him up May 13.

So has he settled down for good?

Fortugno, 32, has been around too long, been too many places, to believe he’ll stay in Cincinnati for the rest of his career. But if that troubles him, it doesn’t show.

“It just seems baseball is in my blood,” said Fortugno, 1-0 with a 2.20 earned-run average in 13 appearances for the Reds this season. “I come alive on the field. Somehow, I’ll always be associated with baseball.”

Fortugno has a major league record of 2-1 in 27 games. At 30, he was the oldest Angel to make his major league debut. He pitched a shutout and struck out 12 in beating Detroit, 9-0, in his second major league start.

He earned his first major league save that season, and had the dubious honor of giving up George Brett’s 3,000th hit.

He has played for six organizations. Well, seven if you count that co-op team in Reno in 1989. He has been released three times.

It’s not the most impressive resume in pro ball, but surely one of the most interesting. It’s his career and he’s not about to change a minute of it.

“Some guys are meant to make it when they’re 21 or 25,” Fortugno said. “It just wasn’t in the cards for me to make it until I was 30.”

Did that make his first major league experience more meaningful? Fortugno isn’t sure.

“I worked a lot of years,” he said. “Anything I get on the major league level is icing on the cake. There was a lot of satisfaction just making it because I spent so many years in the minors.

“You bet I appreciate everything.”

In Fortugno’s case, stubbornness produced results and therefore continues to be as important to him as a good fastball.

“There has to be a part of your personality that’s not going to give up on yourself,” he said. “I’m not going to give up on my dreams.”

Suffice to say, Fortugno’s dreams have been altered over the years. So many seasons in so many minor-league towns will do that.

But instead of falling into a trap of bitterness and resentment, Fortugno seized on the real reasons he played baseball. He loved the game. In recent years, playing hasn’t been so much about wealth or fame, but about having a uniform and a locker in a clubhouse. He didn’t even have to be in the major leagues to be happy.

After Seattle released him March 30, he was willing to sign with Class-A San Bernardino, an independent team unaffiliated with any major league organization. Or about as low as you can go.

“At the 11th hour, my agent calls and says he has a double-A job,” Fortugno said. “I said, ‘Great, let’s do it.’ I was ready to go back to A ball, to go with an independent team.”

The Reds liked his control at Chattanooga, where he had a 1.04 ERA with 29 strikeouts and six walks, and quickly promoted him.

“I almost forgot what it was like,” he said of returning to the majors. “The drive and desire have always been there to play in the major leagues. But it’s tough to look at yourself in the mirror after you’ve been released. You tell yourself, ‘Get a clue, Tim. Get a real job.’

“I just have this deep, burning desire to keep playing baseball.”

Fortugno traced that feeling to the summer of 1982. Two years after graduating from Uxbridge (Mass.) High, married with one child, Fortugno decided he missed pitching. His wife, Kelly, wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, but Fortugno believed he had to return to baseball.

After two seasons at Golden West College and two more at SCC, the pro scouts weren’t exactly overwhelmed by Fortugno’s talent. Even a 9-2 record, a 2.37 ERA and second team NAIA All-American honors in his senior season, couldn’t persuade a major league team to draft him.

Finally, Seattle signed him as a free agent. On one hand, his journey was complete. He was a pro at last. On the other, his odyssey was just beginning.

“For two years I didn’t watch a game on TV,” Fortugno said. “I didn’t go to Anaheim Stadium. I didn’t come up here to Dodger Stadium. It was almost like I was running away from the game that was calling me. I think (a pro career) was always something that was meant to be.”

Fortugno had accepted his fate. Now, he couldn’t be happier than when he’s at a ballpark. Earlier this week, that meant Dodger Stadium. This weekend, it’s Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

It’s good work if you can get it.