A Major League Cast Goes Back to the Future : Baseball: Former Valley-area stars, realizing its value to youngsters, launch own camp--with a spring-training flavor.

Joel Wolfe never went to baseball camps when he was a kid. Too busy playing ball all over the map.

When he signed a professional contract three years ago, Wolfe learned that helping conduct occasional clinics for the children of local residents was part of the employment package.

It was good public relations and all that, an age-old minor-league promotional tool. Wolfe went along. No experience necessary, they said. It’ll be fun.

Surprise, surprise. Not only was Wolfe good at it, he loved it.

“There’s nothing like having a kid look up at you and wish he was you,” said Wolfe, 24, a Chatsworth High graduate who plays in the Oakland Athletics organization. “To be able to reach them and see them improve their confidence may mean as much to me as it does to them.”

Confidence was never something Wolfe and a trio of former Chatsworth teammates, Dave Waco, Derek Wallace and Rich Aude, lacked. The foursome have jumped from professional ball into the entrepreneurial ranks by establishing the Valley All-Stars Baseball Academy. The first camp, which runs Feb. 18-20 at the Northridge Little League complex, is open to players ages 8 to 17.

For corporate neophytes, the four rounded up some heavy hitters . . . and pitchers.

The camp staff includes four young prospects with big-league experience: catchers Tim Laker (Montreal) and Mike Lieberthal (Philadelphia), and first basemen J.T. Snow (California) and Aude (Pittsburgh). All four are on their club’s 40-man rosters.

If the names sound familiar, there’s a reason. Only Snow is from outside the Valley. The rest of the camp staff is composed of former area high school standouts.

Come play with the pros, eh? Wallace went to plenty of camps when he was young. More than anything else, the pro players had the biggest impact on him.

Wallace recalls watching former Pepperdine standout Chad Kreuter when Wallace was 10. Kreuter, a catcher, threw laser beams to second base. He now plays for the Detroit Tigers.

“I was in awe,” said Wallace, 23.

Think how the next wave of area players will feel while watching Wallace pitch. Wallace was a first-round selection for the Chicago Cubs in 1992, pitched last summer in double A and triple A and is one of the club’s top prospects. He is on the Cubs’ 40-man roster.

Infielders Ryan McGuire (Boston) and Brad Fullmer (Montreal), both highly regarded players, will serve as instructors. Catcher Del Marine (Detroit) and infielder Mitch Root (San Diego) also are among the active minor leaguers on staff. A trio of former pros, Tim Costic, Gino Tagliaferri and Sean Boldt, also have signed on. Costic and Tagliaferri each won Times Valley player-of-the-year honors in high school.

This camp will differ somewhat from others--which is the whole idea, of course. First, there will be no old warhorse coaches giving lessons based on experiences from the Pleistocene Epoch. Second, the camp will mirror professional spring training in many respects.

Waco, a utility infielder who hit .339 last summer in the Class A Florida State League, said each day will begin with conditioning, followed by drills on fundamentals, defense and hitting. Games will be held after lunch.

“Each year, we worked various camps,” said Waco, 25. “We figured we might as well do it for ourselves. We’re taking the best of what we’ve learned and applied our own ideas.”

Said Wolfe, an outfielder who hit .275 and stole 26 bases in the double-A Southern League last summer: “Maybe kids will respect their coaches more if they hear it from us too.”

These guys know what they’re doing and when to pull their punches. Most kids, of course, are looking for any edge they can get. At past camps, Wallace said one question was asked repeatedly.

“Curveball, curveball, curveball,” Wallace said. “That’s all they want to learn how to throw. I tell them I never threw the curve until I was a senior at Chatsworth.”

In 1983, Waco and Wolfe played on the Northridge Little League team that advanced to the 13-year-old World Series in Taylor, Mich. Both watched the Northridge Earthquake Kids on television last summer as the team marched into the 12-year-old Little League final in Williamsport, Pa.

Wolfe yelled and screamed at his clubhouse TV. Waco watched nervously from his hotel room on the road.

“We’re not so high and haughty and arrogant that we’ve forgotten where we’re from,” Wolfe said. “I guess this will help us give a little something back to the community.

“Plus, baseball needs all the positive publicity it can get these days.”

Maybe the camp will be a two-way street. Who knows what budding star is hiding under that oversized cap?

Said Wallace: “I remember watching (Pepperdine catcher) Kreuter and thinking, ‘Someday, if I work hard, maybe I can be as good as he is.’ ”