1994 LOS ANGELES TIMES : All-Valley Baseball Team : Player & Pitcher of the Year : Pitcher Perfect : Randy Wolf: Dodger draft pick accomplished near miraculous feats for El Camino Real.

Randy Wolf might have been able to do more for El Camino Real High in his four years as a starter.

Walk on water, perhaps.

Ridiculous? Yes.

But it’s easy to slip into hyperbole when discussing Wolf.

Wolf, a senior left-hander and the clear choice as The Times’ 1994 Valley player of the year, was 12-3 with a 1.19 earned-run average, including 3-0 in the playoffs, this season.

He also batted .443 with six home runs.

In the two seasons Coach Mike Maio used Wolf as a pitcher, he was 23-4 with a 1.13 ERA. In 191 1/3 innings, he gave up 107 hits and struck out 265 while walking 81.

He threw 24 complete games.

“I had to learn three things to coach Randy Wolf,” Maio said. “I had to learn to spell his name to put it in the lineup card. I had to learn to unwrap the balls. And I had to learn to give them to Randy.

“You don’t have to be too smart.”

Maio made that comment just before Wolf pitched nine innings in the City Section 4-A Division final at Dodger Stadium. He beat Chatsworth to lead the Conquistadores to their second straight title.

In his career in the playoffs, Wolf was 5-0 with an 0.83 ERA and 64 strikeouts in 42 innings, which was probably one of the main reasons he won back-to-back City 4-A player of the year honors, the first player to do so since Dorsey’s Billy Consolo won the award in 1951-52.

Speaking of back-to-back, Wolf threw a no-hitter and perfect game in consecutive starts last season when he was The Times’ Valley pitcher of the year.

Wolf missed two more no-hitters this season when his own fielding miscues were ruled hits, once early in the season against Birmingham and again in the playoffs against Carson. He finished with one-hitters both times.

Wolf is far more than an accumulation of plaques and statistics.

On April 18, Wolf’s father James died of a heart attack.

Wolf missed only two games, and in his first game back, he hit a home run, glancing to the sky just after the ball cleared the fence in center field, as if to say, “That was for you, Dad.”

“I don’t know if it was difficult (to play again) because that was what I had to do,” Wolf said.

“I had to get on the field. That’s my place. My dad wouldn’t want me sitting out. He’d want me to go out and play.”

Maio said of Wolf: “He has tremendous character. That’s what’s going to help him out in life.”

Wolf’s teammates had black patches with James Wolf’s initials placed on their sleeves for the remainder of the season.

The Conquistadores also honored James before each game by touching the flagpole.

Even in Dodger Stadium before the final, the players all leaped in front of the center field fence, motioning toward the flagpole between the outfield bleachers.

After the game, which El Camino Real won, 7-6, in dramatic fashion, Wolf sat in the dugout and thought, again, about his father.

“I kind of broke down right after that game in the dugout,” Wolf said.

“That’s when it really hit me that he wasn’t going to be there. That was the final game. There wasn’t a game to look to next.”

But there is a promising future for Wolf.

He accepted a baseball scholarship to Pepperdine last fall, and he was drafted earlier this month by the Dodgers.

Whether the Dodgers come up with a six-figure deal to sign Wolf, or if he goes to Pepperdine, where the baseball field overlooks the Pacific Ocean, odds are he will be happy.

And if he performs anywhere close to the way he did at El Camino Real, his teammates will be happy, too.

Walk on water? Give him time. He’s only 17.

1st-Team All-Stars Invited to Times’ Awards Ceremony

Players selected to the All-Valley and All-Ventura County baseball and softball teams are invited to a Times’ awards brunch Sunday at 9 a.m. at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The guest speaker is Rich Hill, baseball coach at University of San Francisco who formerly coached at Cal Lutheran.

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

Randy Wolf’s father died on March 27, 1994, not April 18th as stated in this story.

--- END NOTE ---