Kramer’s Biggest Wound Is Heartbreak : Disappointed After Being Passed Over in the Baseball Draft, He Sits Out the Season

Maki Kramer walked off the mound after pitching the first inning and searched the dugout for painkillers to quell the ache in his right shoulder.

Who could blame him? He hadn’t pitched in two weeks, not since he had been stabbed in the back below his right shoulder after he wrestled a shoplifter to the ground, an act well beyond the call of duty for a rookie stock boy at the local Kmart.

“I just thought I was doing my job,” he said.

With the stitches still in his back, Kramer went to the mound for his American Legion team last summer in a qualifying game for the State tournament. After some initial soreness, he warmed to the task.

In fact, he got red hot. He pitched a complete-game victory, forcing a second game to decide the Area 6 champion. After an hour break between games, Kramer pitched three scoreless innings to start the second game, leaving only because Legion rules limited him to 12 innings.

Westlake-Royal lost the second game to end its season, but Kramer’s performance amazed his teammates.

“It was the best pitching performance I had ever seen,” pitcher Phil Derryman said.

Said Westlake-Royal Coach Mike McClure: “Our younger guys looked up to him and said, ‘He’s a man.’ ”

It was a courageous performance. It was also his last.

Kramer had enjoyed a busy spring and summer, winning 14 of 15 decisions between Royal High and his Legion team. He was an All-Ventura County selection by The Times after posting a 9-1 record with a 2.02 earned-run average at Royal. He also batted .347 with five home runs and 26 runs batted in.

But nearly 10 months after his 12-inning Legion effort, Kramer has not returned to the mound. His arm is fine--the knife wound was shallow, requiring only three stitches to close, and healed without incident.

But Kramer (6 feet 1, 200 pounds) was passed over in the amateur draft last June, a disappointment that proved more damaging than any run-in with a knife-wielding thief. And he just now is beginning to overcome his discouragement.

“I was really disappointed and upset,” he said. “It was a tough experience. I guess they didn’t want me. I didn’t have what it took.”

He even felt sorry for his parents.

“I kind of felt that I let my parents down,” he said. “They helped me through the years and pushed me. I felt everything I did, I did for nothing.”

Kramer’s is a familiar story. An indifferent student who endured classes because they were required to play high school ball, Kramer failed to score the NCAA-required 700 on the Scholastic Assessment Test and never considered attending a four-year college.

“He would have signed for five cents,” Royal Coach Dan Maye said. “I would tell him that he had to keep his grades up but he always said, ‘Coach, no way I’m going to college.’ ”

Signing a pro contract was his way out. But at a tryout at Pierce College for Detroit scout Dennis Lieberthal, Kramer’s fastball seemed to drag. The radar guns flashed a disappointing 79 m.p.h.

“He didn’t have the velocity,” Lieberthal said. “He wasn’t ready to go professional. He needed a year or two at college. If he (signed), he probably would have played for a year or two and got released.”

So, come September, with no other options, Kramer trudged to Moorpark College, although he left his heart at home.

“I didn’t have the drive for it after what had happened,” he said.

A month into the semester, he left school. When his father, Steve, was laid off as a mechanical engineer from a firm in downtown Los Angeles, Maki went to work at a local grocery store, rising before dawn to work the 5 o’clock shift.

“That’s the only thing that keeps me in line,” he said.

Kramer assiduously avoids the Moorpark program even though several former Royal teammates play for the Raiders, including Derryman, his best friend.

When Derryman and Kramer get together to shoot pool or work on their car stereos, baseball is rarely discussed. And Kramer rejects any offers to hang out with other teammates.

“I feel unwanted around them,” he said. “I feel bad because I said I was going to go out for the team and then didn’t. I kind of made a bad name for myself by not sticking with it.”

Kramer’s image remains a constant presence at Royal.

“He was a big strong guy and our kids wouldn’t make mistakes when he was pitching because they thought Maki would kill them,” Maye said.

According to Maye, a home run Kramer hit into the apartment building behind the left-field fence at Chatsworth High has earned a spot in Highlander lore. Yet that feat ranks second to a home plate collision during last year’s 5-4 victory over Simi Valley.

Royal players meet at lunchtime and view a videotape of that game, replaying the part when Kramer smashes into Simi Valley’s Brian Kavanagh, knocking the Pioneer catcher to the ground.

“Maki was out and ejected from the game (for running into the catcher), but it didn’t matter,” Maye said. “Our kids went crazy.”

Maye has stood by Kramer before, even when Royal coaches questioned his commitment.

Kramer was always impulsive, like in 1993 when he broke his right hand punching a wall at a party the night before the last game of the regular season.

“When he was a sophomore, he was flaky,” Maye said. “He was always losing his glove or his jacket or couldn’t find his spikes. But last year, he took things seriously. He was a huge leader for us. You’d give him the ball and he’d get the job done.

“I’d just like to see him play baseball. He’s got to go out and seek it.”

The message might be sinking in. Moorpark Coach Ken Wagner has extended an open invitation to him and Kramer insists he will enroll next fall.

He also got an earful from a pro scout recently.

“A scout called me and said he was shocked that I wasn’t playing,” Kramer said. “He said he wanted to kick me around. I keep hearing that from all these people and it gets in my mind.”

McClure is making sure the idea stays there.

“I’m so disappointed he’s not pitching for Moorpark,” McClure said. “At this time, losing a year is not critical, but he needs to get in a summer program. He’s a good kid and no one ever questioned the guy’s heart.

“You have not heard the last of Maki Kramer.”