Pilots’ Gipson Reaches Hall of Fame as Outfielder

It was the kind of decision made every day in cramped minor league clubhouses. A middle infielder, struggling on defense, was moved to the outfield. But for Charles Gipson, a center fielder for the Riverside Pilots, it was a switch that already has vaulted him from the warning track to the fast track.

Last Monday, Gipson traveled to Cooperstown, N.Y., to play in the Hall of Fame game with the Seattle Mariners against Philadelphia. Late in the game, he went into right field and made a game-saving catch during the Mariners’ 4-3 victory.

“I’ve never played right field before,” said Gipson, who was an infielder at Loara High and a center fielder at Cypress College. “When I got out there, a ball was hit to center and it started tailing back to me and I sort of got a feel of how it was hooking toward the line when hit by a left-hander.

“Then (Phillie second baseman) Mickey Morandini came up and hit a shot that was going to go out. I got a good jump, timed it perfectly, jumped up pretty high and went up over the fence and got the home run. Just robbed it.”

Gipson, 21, is in only his third season of professional baseball, his first with the Mariners’ Class-A affiliate in Riverside, but he’s already developed a big league flair for the dramatic.

“I hit the wall and went down and nobody really knew if I caught it or not,” Gipson said. “I got up kind of slow and then just threw it in. There had been a moment of silence and then it was great to hear the crowd go, ‘Ahhhhhhhh,’ when they realized I caught it.

“It was my first time playing with the big guys. (Seattle Manager) Lou Piniella came up and said, “Great catch,” and some of the other guys came up and said it was one of the best catches they had ever seen.”

It will take more than a home run that wasn’t to get to the major leagues, but Gipson has shown that he may have the right stuff, if he can continue to refine his offensive skills.

“Charles has really good instincts in the outfield, which wasn’t really the case in the infield,” Pilot Manager Dave Myers said. “Everything there was a learning process for him. In the outfield, he’s better able to utilize his basic talents. He just wasn’t a so-called natural in the infield, but in the outfield, everything is very smooth.

“Defensively, he could play in the big leagues right now. Offense will tell the story, but if he continues to develop and work on his swing, I think he’ll be there.”

Gipson, who played football, basketball and baseball at Loara, has exceptional speed and is making good use of it as the Pilots’ leadoff hitter. His batting average has been hovering around .290 most of the season, his on-base percentage is in the very impressive .400 range and he leads the team with 30 stolen bases.

“I’m not going to be a home-run hitter,” Gipson said, “so I’ve got to stick to line drives and hard ground balls. Last year, I tried the power thing, tried to hit the ball out a lot, and it didn’t work out too well.”

Gipson hit .258 last season--with zero homers--for Seattle’s Class-A team in Appleton, Wis.

“In spring training this year, I worked on driving the ball more and on hitting the inside pitch,” he said, “but it’s basically just a whole bunch of teeny, little things, some of them I don’t even know yet, and then incorporating them into my game.

“So far this season, I’ve been trying hard to put them in, and it’s worked out pretty well.”

Gipson, who played defensive back in the Orange County All-Star game, always figured he would play football at a four-year school. After high school, he played football at Fullerton College.

“I never played Little League,” he said. “I didn’t start playing baseball until high school. It was always football for me. But the season I played at Fullerton College was kind of like a deciding point for me. I played well, but my body was so beat up after the season, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to deal with that any more.

“At that point, I thought baseball would be my future.”

The scouts weren’t quite as convinced. Seattle drafted him on the 63rd round of the June 1991 draft. Needless to say, he wasn’t able to buy his parents a new house with his signing bonus.

“I knew I could do it, though, if I concentrated all my time and effort on baseball,” he said. “There are some days, when you go 0 for 4 and strike out three times, when you go, ‘Dog, I should have stuck with football and gone to college.’ But those days are pretty few and far between now, especially now that I’m in the outfield where everything seems to just come naturally.

“The thing is, I think I have so much room to keep improving in baseball. I’m still learning the game, really. I’m glad I decided to take the chance. I just know I can be good.”

Piniella, the Mariners and the fans at Abner Doubleday Field last Monday are already convinced of his defensive prowess. And the rest of the organization is beginning to believe they may have come up with a 63rd-round sensation.

“He’s been a very pleasant surprise,” Myers said. “After seeing him play in the instructional league right after we drafted him, to be honest, I didn’t think he would have this kind of success in this league.

“But his progress is a tribute to the hard work he’s put in and his willingness to try things and learn. And given the way he’s worked at it every day, I’ve become a believer.”