Last of a Brood : Northridge Catcher Robert Fick Is Baby Brother in Family of 10

The photo, tacked to the dugout bulletin board, generated huge laughs. Which was the whole idea, of course.

It was a candid-camera shot of fair-skinned catcher Robert Fick in the Cal State Northridge locker room, fresh out of the shower.

Caught unaware, Fick had a white towel wrapped around his head and looked like an albino Smurf or Casper the Friendly Ghost.

A teammate snapped the picture of Fick, who was dressed in his birthday suit. Had he been wearing the towel around his waist, Fick would have looked like a freshly diapered newborn.

To some, Fick is still considered a baby. Particularly in one well-known Newbury Park circle.

Fick is the last of eight kids in the family clan. He is one of six brothers. It isn’t a family tree, it’s a forest and several of Robert’s relatives have made a mark in the baseball jungle.

Brother Chuck played triple-A ball and has appeared in a slew of baseball-related feature films and commercials. Another brother, Chris, plays in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization. Bryant, a nephew, is a junior pitcher at Wyoming.

All six male Ficks played ball at one time or another. Robert the redhead, a 21-year-old sophomore, represents the end of the familial line.

“He’s the runt of the litter,” said Bill Fick, the oldest brother. “I think we spoiled the you-know-what out of him.”

Not by a 400-foot-poke, they haven’t. Sociologists long have argued whether people are products of heredity or environment. Regarding the fiery Fick, the answer is both.

Chuck says Robert is so competitive that he “cheats at checkers.”

Want to see a verbal free-for-all? Go to a Northridge game, find the seats that are thick with Ficks and ask which son is the best baseball player. Stand back. Call a paramedic.

Between the lines, Robert has been knocked cold with a bat and plowed under by baserunners. Nothing prepared him for NCAA Division I baseball like the home games in Newbury Park.

“I learned how to take a beating, that’s for sure,” Robert said, grinning. “The wars some of us used to have. . . .”

Boys will be boisterous.

Each of the six Ficks is named Charles, after their father. First or middle name, it’s somewhere on their birth certificates.

Retired cop Charlie Fick, 66, is the patriarch of the bunch. And definitely not in name only.

“I’m sort of an aggressive guy,” Charlie said. “I don’t screw around. I was a pretty hard-nosed guy when I was young, you know?”

As they might say in his former line of work, evidence is everywhere.

Kids, of course, are sponges. Robert learned most of his baseball skills from Chuck, now a full-time scout with the Cardinals. He absorbed everything else from his tight-knit, somewhat nutty clan.

Some guys have seminal moments. Fick had a seminal summer.

Three years ago, the family, including mother Gloria, took a storied ride that ended in Fargo, N.D., site of the American Legion World Series. Several fairly talented ballplayers from Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks highs also participated in the Ficks’ Great Plains invasion.

Chuck was manager of the Newbury Oaks team, Robert was the catcher, Bryant a pitcher and Charlie the business manager. Chris, so nervous that he began chain-smoking, was chief crowd rabble-rouser.

The bumpy playoff road was cartoonish, even for this bunch. During the regionals in Las Vegas, Charlie got creamed in the casinos. The family motor home broke down. The team kept winning, though.

“It was one of the most-exciting times of our lives,” Charlie said. “What a ride.”

Chuck, Robert’s baseball role model, stole the stage in Fargo. After a series of postgame press conferences--in which Fick somehow managed to discuss topics ranging from AIDS and Billy Martin to abortion rights--the Fargo newspaper said Chuck “stood out like Bozo the Clown in a sea of nuns” amid the ultra-conservative Legion personnel.

Legion officers didn’t know what to make of the team. Before the tournament started, Chuck, wearing No. 1 on his uniform, confidently told a Fargo television station that Newbury Oaks was definitely the team to beat. Legion folks bristled. The circus was in town.

Jim Quinlan, the national Legion commissioner, learned that Chuck had appeared in several motion pictures. Quinlan was informed that Fick was the catcher in a memorable baseball scene from “Naked Gun.”

Said Quinlan: “I thought he was the horse’s ass in ‘Ben Hur.’ ”

Never a dull moment with this brood, but it’s by design. Charlie said he didn’t raise his kids to be shrinking violets.

Chris, 25, a former standout at Cal Lutheran, is playing in exhibition games with the Cardinals in Florida. He hopes to become a replacement player, which won’t endear him to his big-league brethren.

Said Chuck, 39: “I hope some big-leaguer gets in his face. I’m waiting for the day. I’m on the first plane out there.”

Each of the six male Ficks have markedly different personality traits, but all share one indisputable characteristic: Mega-moxie.

“They’re not exactly introverts, I can tell you that,” Charlie said. “They speak their minds. They don’t mess around and pull any punches.

“I guess they get that from me. I believe in taking the bull by the horns.”

Brass runs in the family. Robert the copper-top is every bit as gung-ho as his siblings. More so than most teammates.

During the Las Vegas Legion regionals at Cashman Stadium, Newbury Oaks was forced to play three games in less than 24 hours. August temperatures topped the 110-degree mark . . . in the shade. Robert lathered himself with Chernobyl-strength sunscreen and assumed his position behind the dish.

He caught 33 innings in a 24-hour span as the team eked out the regional title, then was miffed when exhausted teammates expressed sub-zero interest in sticking around for the Las Vegas Stars’ triple-A game later that night.

“The guy’s a total gamer,” Chuck said.

Gamer than most. In the summer of ‘91, Robert reached down to retrieve his catcher’s mask as the batter took a full practice swing and clipped him squarely between the eyes. His nose was shattered and it took 50 stitches to close the gash. Sympathy was overwhelming.

“With that face,” Bill said, “what’s another scar?”

A couple of months after winning the Legion title in ‘92, Robert had shoulder surgery. He said his arm hurt so badly all summer that he could hardly hold it above his head, much less throw.

While recovering from surgery, he didn’t play in 1993, but quickly caught his stride last year at Ventura College. He batted .339 and led the team in home runs (four), doubles (10), runs batted in (32) and stolen bases (25).

Things started out equally well at Northridge. In his NCAA debut in January, Fick homered and had four hits. He went home, did some quick math and told his highly amused roommate: “That means 59 homers and 236 hits for the season.”

He still ranks second on the team in homers with five, but his average has skidded to .222, lowest among Matador regulars. Frustration feeds the fire, of course.

Everyone in the family agrees that Robert’s best baseball attribute is his aggressiveness. Everyone in the family agrees that Robert’s worst baseball attribute is his aggressiveness.

“You’d be fearless, too, if your brothers kept beating the crap out of you while you were growing up,” said brother Bill, 41.

As a grade-schooler, Robert’s path to the principal’s office was a well-beaten one. He never backed down from a challenge and was involved in more than a few schoolboy skirmishes.

“Typical redhead,” Robert said. “I have a short fuse. Too short. I wish I wasn’t like that.”

Last fall, Northridge Coach Bill Kernen had players enroll in a taekwondo course at the school, figuring a dose of the martial arts would help players learn self-discipline and balance. Sounds like something right up Robert’s alley. Nope.

“There was no contact,” Robert said. “You don’t get to hit anybody.”

Actually, Fick hasn’t hit anybody--or anything--in a couple of weeks. He’s in Kernen’s doghouse.

Fick was benched after an incident last month in which he blew his top at the plate umpire during a game at Texas A&M.; The umpire made a questionable strike call. Fick had a more-questionable response.

“I don’t really remember what I said, I was so (angry),” Fick said.

The fair-haired kid isn’t Kernen’s fair-haired lad right now, which has little to do with the fact he is in a lengthy slump.

“The problem is that he can’t keep his mouth shut,” Kernen said. “He talks back to umpires, players, me, his teammates.

“He means well and wants to be involved, but sometimes it comes out wrong.”

Fick made Kernen seethe last month. A Northridge pitcher was getting banged around and Fick kept looking into the dugout, waiting for Kernen to make a move toward the mound.

Kernen didn’t budge. Fick kept glancing into the dugout. Back and forth it went. Kernen, who rarely barks at players in full view of the fans, gave Fick an earful.

“You’re still in there and you’re batting .200,” Kernen said. “So give the (pitcher) a break.”

Kernen said the benching is an attempt to get Fick’s attention, though it’s really more of a reminder. Coaches have asked Fick to channel his emotions more productively many times .

“Aggressiveness works for me and against me,” Fick said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know I need to focus it on the opponent. I’m hurting myself.”

Under normal circumstances, Fick hardly seems like he’d have a hot button to push. He speaks slowly, deliberately, almost with a drawl. He isn’t particularly loud. He has many endearing characteristics, sort of like Dennis the Menace. Yet when games begin, he’s usually a mere degree or two shy of the boiling point.

Obviously, appearances can be somewhat deceiving.

“He looks like a classic redneck,” Bill said, failing to suppress a laugh.

“He’s scrawny and pale. I think he’s adopted.”

He isn’t, but it’s hard to keep track. Robert has “14 or 15” nieces and nephews--he’s lost track--including three who are his senior. Nephew Bryantis two weeks older.

Many folks assumed that Bryant, who also attended Newbury Park High, was another in the seemingly endless line of Fick brothers.

Reasonable assumption. Getting a fix on the Ficks isn’t easy.

“We’re like brothers,” Robert said. “Bryant was my babysitter. He kept me out of trouble.

“My family means everything to me; they’ve always been there,” Robert said, turning misty-eyed. “My dad, he’s a tough old bird.”

Now that Robert’s left the nest, it’s insufferably quiet around the Newbury Park domicile of Charlie and Gloria Fick.

“We’re experiencing something now that we never thought would happen,” Charlie said. “We have this 3,000-square-foot house and the place is empty.

“It’s scary here. And kind of boring.”