All in the Family : Dorado Brothers Enjoy America’s National Pastime at Valley College

One Dorado, two Dorado, three Dorado four, five Dorado . . . Well, you get the idea.

When it comes to baseball, especially at Valley College, there are plenty of Dorados to go around.

Four Dorado brothers--Juan, Javier, Jorge and Jaime-- are in the Monarch program this season and younger sister Norma is a junior third baseman on the St. Genevieve High softball team.

That’s a whole lot of cleats, gloves and rubbing liniment for one family.

“It’s great to be together,” said Juan, the oldest at 25. “It makes you feel more comfortable.”

Not only them, but also Valley Coach Chris Johnson, who knows the Dorados come to play.

“They have great baseball instincts,” Johnson said. “They can all throw.”

Two of them, sophomore right-handers Juan and Jorge, 20, do it from the mound. Javier, 23, is a freshman second baseman and Jaime, 19, is a redshirt freshman and honing his skills with the bat. His fielding is so solid, however, that Johnson figures Jaime and Javier should form the Monarch keystone tandem next season.

But that’s getting ahead of the story. For now, there are three active Dorados in Valley uniforms who are trying to use every ounce and inch of their compact bodies--Juan and Jorge are 5 feet 9, Javier is 5-5 and Jaime 5-6.

Going into today’s Western State Conference interdivisional game at Cuesta, the Monarchs are 7-11-2 and 4-3-1 in South Division play, 2 1/2 games behind front-runner Pierce (7-1).

Switch-hitting Javier leads the team with a .370 batting average in eight conference games.

“Right now, he’s our best player,” Johnson said. “That’s not stretching it. He’s got pop in his bat. He’s playing awesome.”

Jorge, who allowed only one earned run in six innings against Glendale on Thursday, is 2-1 in conference games with a 1.65 earned-run average. He pitched only five innings last season because of a lingering sore shoulder, but played second base and batted .318 with 10 doubles and 17 runs batted in.

And Juan, who will make his next start Monday against Canyons, has no decisions and a 3.44 ERA in WSC play, but he is 2-0 with a 4.55 ERA overall. He worked 19 1/3 innings in relief last season and had a 2.79 ERA.

That Juan and Javier--the only two Dorado children who were born in Mexicali--have done so well at Valley might be surprising for some people. Neither played varsity ball in high school, although both grew up playing the game with their brothers and friends in parks and sandlots near their home in Panorama City. Jorge and Jaime played for Monroe High.

“We were always playing over-the-line,” Javier said. “It was always Juan and Jaime against George and me.”

Their interest in baseball was natural. The boys, who claim that their mother didn’t realize all their names started with the letter “J” until someone pointed it out to her, say that their father, Marcelino, was a decent amateur ballplayer in Mexico and steered them toward the sport.

“When we came here, we would go to the park and our dad would play with us,” said Juan, the only sibling with black hair, like their mother Martha. The others have red hair like their father.

“They would have the (youth) league games going at the park and my dad figured it would be better for us to play there.”

They got into organized baseball that way and stopped only when the doors were closed. Which, for two of them, happened only once.

Juan was on the Monroe junior varsity squad in his freshman season in 1986, sat out the next season because his grades plummeted and didn’t make the varsity team his senior year. Javier was cut from the varsity when he tried out and decided not to try again.

“We got hacked,” Javier joked.

The other two made the team, though, and became stellar players with the Vikings. Jorge was an All-City selection, and Jaime batted .300 last season and was an All-Mid Valley League second-team pick.

“Campbell probably said, ‘Where have I heard these names before?’ ” Juan said. “Do I have to hack these guys, too?”

Said Jorge, laughing: “He decided to give us a chance.”

After graduating from Monroe in 1989, Juan, who has two young children and lives on his own, drove a school bus for five years until he decided to enroll at Valley and pursue a career in justice administration. He now juggles baseball with classes and two part-time jobs, one in a supermarket and the other as a campus security officer at Van Nuys High.

Johnson worked out a deal with Juan so he could play for the Monarchs.

“Our guys know that Juan will do whatever he needs to do to play,” Johnson said. “He has other responsibilities. We made that kind of arrangement with him and the other guys (on the team) understand his situation.”

They also know that Juan and his brothers are key guys on the team. In many ways. The Dorados, it turns out, have contributed to the Monarchs with more than their baseball talent. Especially Javier, the Bob Vila of the team.

“He’s a great plumber,” Johnson said. “One day he took the water fountain (in the Valley bench) apart because the water pressure was bad and he fixed it. These guys are valuable to a team; I’m serious.”