BASEBALL INSTRUCTION: SPECIAL REPORT : TODAY’S LINEUP : Options in Abundance for Kids and Coaches

Gaining an edge, a nugget of information or inspiration that enables one player to stand out from the rest.

The relentless search for the secret, that unmistakable glow that enables one coach to stand out from the rest.

Finding quality baseball instruction has become an obsessive quest, part and parcel of the national pastime. As demand has climbed, the list of those offering answers has grown as well.

Youth leagues routinely hire experts to instruct their coaches and players, usually in a one-day clinic setting. The experts are also sought by individuals for specialized training, selling their knowledge by the hour.

Varied in background and style, these experts possess two things in common: They charge a fee and profess a love of teaching baseball.

Some are found at established businesses such as West Coast Baseball School, Sports Star baseball camp and Doyle Baseball School. Others, such as Mark Davis of Thousand Oaks, are former professional players who have built clientele strictly by word of mouth.

College and high school coaches, some motivated by the opportunity to install their methods in youth leagues that feed into their programs, also conduct clinics. Marty Slimak of Cal Lutheran, Bob Lofrano of Pierce College and Don Adams of Ventura College offer instruction near their schools. USC Coach Mike Gillespie runs a popular camp near his home in Santa Clarita. Former Pepperdine Coach Dave Gorrie is regarded as the godfather of camp instruction, and he still holds clinics in Malibu.

The rookie of the year among local instructors would have to be the Valley All-Star Baseball Academy. Nearly 20 professional players, mostly minor leaguers with lifelong ties to the Valley, served as instructors over Presidents’ Day weekend when the Academy attracted 165 youngsters, ages 8 to 18, to the Northridge Little League complex.

“If I was a kid, being around that many pro players and having the opportunity to learn what put them over the top would be invaluable,” said David Waco, a Philadelphia Phillie farmhand and former Chatsworth High player who launched the academy.

“We tried to run a mini-spring training, to give the kids a taste of what it is like in pro camp.”

Indeed, one couldn’t help but be impressed walking around the six-field complex. Mike Lieberthal and Tim Laker working with catchers here, Rich Aude and Brad Fullmer instructing hitters there, Derek Wallace and Joey Rosselli teaching pitchers in a bullpen.

Meanwhile, Tom Meusborn, the Chatsworth High coach, was giving a seminar to youth coaches inside the Northridge Little League board of directors room, the league’s 1994 national championship banner serving as a backdrop on the wall behind him.

Yet the academy also illuminated problems inherent in trying to teach a lot of baseball to many kids in a short span.

“All the players need one-on-one instruction and it’s hard to keep them from standing around,” said Laker, a Montreal Expo catcher from Simi Valley High.

The staff met after the first day, and Waco, who holds a business degree from UC Santa Barbara, took suggestions on how organization could be improved. Each day was better than the next, said several youngsters and parents.

“I learned a lot of little things that will help me,” said Matt Cunningham, 13, of Northridge. “This camp was great and I’d do it again next year.”

Waco plans to make the academy a yearly event and wants to expand to other youth leagues.

Expansion has about peaked for Bryan Maloney and Nez Balelo, owners of West Coast Baseball School since 1989. They employ more than 20 instructors who offer private lessons and clinics for youth leagues, operating out of area batting cages.

West Coast, based at Baseball City in Agoura, recently opened a fifth location, at Tournament batting cages in Saugus. Other locations are World Series batting cages in Granada Hills, Bat-Cade in Burbank and Batty’s in Santa Barbara.

This spring, West Coast has given daylong clinics to Agoura Pony Baseball and to Little Leagues in Toluca Lake, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Beverly Hills and Goleta. West Hills Youth Baseball also is a frequent client.

West Coast makes its clinics fund-raisers for the leagues, donating a portion of each player’s entry fee back to the league.

“We have grown constantly, adding instructors and booking cage time solid,” said Maloney, who also is the Agoura High baseball coach.

West Coast offers camps during the summer and holiday periods, and provides small groups of high school players with intensive five-month training during the off-season.

“We are pretty satisfied with five locations and our camps,” Maloney said. “We want to stay local where we can serve this community. You’ve got to maintain quality instruction, and we don’t want to get so big that we can’t control that.”

Finding and keeping instructors is difficult. Although West Coast instructors played minor league or college baseball, very few have major league experience.

“The biggest qualification for an instructor is how well he communicates with the kids,” Maloney said, “not how much baseball he played.”

Doyle Baseball School holds the same philosophy, using instructors whose No. 1 qualification is the ability to teach.

Started in 1978 by former major league infielders Denny and Brian Doyle and their brother Blake, the school has become the largest in the nation, holding lengthy camps at its Winter Haven, Fla., and Glendale, Ariz., locations as well as dispatching instructors to conduct clinics at youth leagues throughout the nation.

Actually, the terms camp and clinic are taboo with Doyle, where the emphasis is on schooling.

“A camp is where you roast marshmallows and a clinic is where you get shots,” said Rick Siebert, director of the Arizona facility.

Ten Southland youth leagues held one-day Doyle schools this spring, including the Conejo Valley Little League in Thousand Oaks. Instructors are trained by Doyle and stick closely to the fundamentals espoused on the videotape series the school makes available.

“The instruction is sound and is similar year-to-year,” said Joel Silverstein, a Conejo Valley Little League spokesman. “They make a strong effort to offer something for everybody, whether you are coaching 8-year-olds or high school kids.”

Siebert attributes Doyle’s popularity--the school conducted more than 400 events for coaches and players this spring--to the teaching ability of its instructors.

“We have a passion for the player,” he said. “We don’t focus so much on what to teach as how to teach it. We make sure kids have fun while they are learning the game.”

Sports Star baseball camp, formerly Joe Torre’s Baseball Camp, has emphasized summer fun in the Valley for 14 years. Located at Franklin Fields in Encino, Sports Star runs camps for 75-125 players a week throughout the summer. Instructors are former minor-leaguers and current high school coaches, with marquee names such as Ozzie Smith and Andre Dawson making appearances.

“We are the most-established camp with the largest array of superstars,” said Matt Borzello, camp owner and father of Mike Borzello, a former Taft High and Cal Lutheran catcher who is a minor leaguer with the St. Louis Cardinals.

A player seeking a more-personal touch can turn to an instructor unaffiliated with a baseball school. Many are available, and anyone shopping around should get recommendations from former clients.

No one locally gets higher marks than Mark Davis, who was hired last summer by parents as a traveling pitching coach for the Thousand Oaks Little League 13-year-old team that won the World Series championship.

Davis, a former minor league pitcher with the New York Mets who attended Sacramento State, College of the Canyons and El Camino Real High, has a waiting list for one-on-one lessons. Although his private lessons are mostly for pitching, he covered all phases of the game at coaching clinics for leagues in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

“What he’s so good at, and why we prefer him is that Mark can relate to every age group,” said Ed Kitchen, a Thousand Oaks Little League coach.

In an effort to expand his business, Davis is launching a service called “The Video Coach,” for players who live in remote areas and lack access to qualified instruction. A player sends Davis a 20-minute videotape of himself performing, and receives in return a personalized videotape analyzing the player’s technique and prescribing drills for improvement.

“Whether they use me, or West Coast or someone else, these youth leagues are doing the right thing by getting instruction for coaches and players,” Davis said.

“I watch freshman tryouts and most kids are not fundamentally sound when they reach high school. It’s surprising how many kids don’t know the basics.”

Getting to them early is the key, said Lofrano, the Pierce coach. Like many coaches, he has given many clinics without getting paid a cent.

“I am more than willing to spend an evening or a Saturday to help out, and so are many others,” he said. “If that’s what they want, our expertise, we are more than willing to share.”

The coaches know they reap what they sow. Pierce catcher Brandon Murphy attended a camp run by Lofrano six years ago.

“Who knows if there is a correlation, but it’s nice to see him here,” Lofrano said.

When it comes to providing paid instruction, Maloney, the West Coast owner, recalls something Davis told him years ago.

“He said, ‘The bottom line in this business is building relationships,’ ” Maloney said. “Players and coaches who are pleased with what we provide will tell more players and coaches about it. That’s the business.”

Waco, whose first-year Valley All-Star Baseball Academy was remarkably successful, already has learned that short-term profit is less important than providing a valued service.

“It’s not a big money-making operation,” Waco said. “We are giving to the community because this is where we came from. At a time when there is so much bad feeling in baseball, this created good feeling.

“I think we did something right for the game.”