Easley the Best at Second Base : Baseball: After floundering on third, he returns to his natural position with Angels, who see All-Star potential.

Draw a line from first base to second, from second to shallow right-center field and from there back to first, and you have the Angels’ version of the Bermuda Triangle.

Since Bobby Grich retired after the 1986 season, it seems every Angel who ventures out to play second base spends a little time there, then vanishes.

The Angels have had five “starting” second basemen--Mark McLemore, Johnny Ray, Luis Sojo, Torey Lovullo and Harold Reynolds--in the last seven years. Numerous others--remember Ken Oberkfell, Rick Schu, Junior Noboa and Gus Polidor?--have come and gone.

In Gary DiSarcina’s three years as the Angels’ starting shortstop, he has played with 10 second basemen.

“Nobody has come in and said, ‘Darn it, I’m going to win this job and not be unseated,’ ” DiSarcina said.

Until now.

DiSarcina will have a new double-play partner this season, young guy named Damion Easley. Right, the same Damion Easley who has bounced around the Angel infield in recent years but has spent this spring exclusively at second.

Manager Marcel Lachemann thinks Easley, 25, has All-Star-caliber tools--a strong, accurate arm, speed, quickness and agility, good hands, the potential to be an above-average hitter. DiSarcina is just as impressed with Easley’s mind-set.

“He’s starting to realize there’s something to be said for your heart,” DiSarcina said. “He’s not as quiet as he used to be, he’s coming out of his shell. He’s more assertive, more vocal. He’s showing that he really wants the job.”

Easley had the second-base job when the 1993 season began but was limited for the first three months by shin splints. When Kelly Gruber was put on the disabled list in early July, Easley moved to third base.

The former Lakewood High and Long Beach City College standout hit .313 in 73 games, but by the end of July, the shin splints were too painful. He had surgery in August and sat out the rest of the season.

Told he would be the team’s third baseman in 1994, Easley bulked up during the off-season, adding 20 pounds to his 5-foot-11 frame. Normally a 175-pound infielder, Easley never felt comfortable at 195.

He struggled at the plate, was moved back to second in June, and by August, Easley and his .215 average were on the bench.

Disaster that his season was, some good came of it. The Angels, realizing their Easley experiments weren’t working, told him he would be a second baseman and nothing else. So he had the entire off-season to concentrate on one position.

“That has been a tremendous help,” said Easley, who came up quickly through the Angel farm system as a shortstop. “I never felt like a third baseman, and I didn’t hit like a third baseman should hit. You need to have a guy like (San Francisco’s) Matt Williams, who is going to knock in 80 runs.”

Easley also thought his agility was wasted at third base, more a reaction position than second, which requires you to cover much more ground. He lost 20 pounds over the winter and said his quickness at 175 pounds “is like night and day” compared to 195.

You could describe his 1993 and ’94 seasons the same way. Though pain from the shin splints was excruciating at times, Easley fought through it and hit remarkably well in 1993.

With pain-free legs and added strength, Easley figured he would have a big year in ’94. But after a .267 start in April, he sank to .202 in May, .189 in June and .167 in July.

“I hit a wall and didn’t see it coming,” Easley said. “I started out OK, hit a little rut, and that turned into a big rut because I put too much pressure on myself to do statistically what I did in ’93.

“I wouldn’t get a hit my first at-bat in a game, and I’d try harder my second and third at-bat, until it snowballed. Five at-bats would turn into 75 or 100 at-bats.”

Easley thought 1994 would be his breakthrough year. Angel coaches think he will have that kind of season in ’95 and may have him batting No. 2, but Easley has tempered his expectations.

“I’ve lowered my goals, so if I reach them, then I can raise them,” he said. “I don’t want to try to hit the pinnacle out of the chute, I want to work my way up.”

Bobby Knoop, an Angel coach who was one of baseball’s steadiest second basemen during the 1960s, is working to get Easley to decelerate a bit on defense too.

“His one problem is anxiety,” Knoop said. “He wants to turn the double play right now, get the grounder right now. Sometimes you have to do that, but doing things too quickly can also cause you to make mistakes.”

Easley thinks he will improve with experience.

“The more games I get, the more I’ll learn when I can take my time, when I can’t,” he said. “You can make errors as easily when you’re rushing it as you would if you were lazy. There’s a happy medium somewhere.”