Batting Teacher Hopes He Hits It Big : Warner Center: The Dodgers’ Reggie Smith plans to launch a major training center. But some say he may strike out.

Reggie Smith, batting instructor to the last three National League rookies of the year, is stepping to the plate himself and taking an ambitious swing at launching a business.

The 50-year-old former major league slugger and current Dodger batting coach is trying to fulfill a longtime dream of bringing the secrets of the pros to the suburbs. Smith and three partners hope to round third and head for home with Reggie Smith’s Baseball Development Center, to be located in Warner Center.

As planned, the 125,000-square-foot facility will house 40 batting cages, each equipped with a video camera, a full-size infield covered in artificial turf, a major-league quality clubhouse, a video library and screening room, an arcade, a pro shop and a rehabilitation and sports therapy center. The partners say they are negotiating to lease the former Data Products building on Canoga Avenue and hope to open for business early in 1996.

“I’ve envisioned this since I started coaching with the Dodgers in 1989,” said Smith, who lives in Woodland Hills. “This has been my dream, and the concept is sound: offering professional-caliber instruction for players from youngsters to professionals.”

The idea took root a year ago in a baseball fantasy camp--where adults pay top dollar for a chance to practice with the pros. Smith was the teacher, and two men who later became his partners--Bob Selan and Michael Lerner--were in the class.

Smith’s plan is grand, and some speculate that by trying to hit a home run, he may strike out. The partners, who said they have spent several hundred thousand dollars so far, have yet to raise the $4.5 million needed to set up shop. And that’s an awful lot of money, detractors say, when all you really need to run a baseball school are a patch of dirt and some balls and bats.

“If they think giving kids instruction is going to make a bundle of money for a lot of people, they are wrong,” said Kelly Paris, a former major leaguer who runs a small instructional school at the Sunrise Little League fields in Woodland Hills. “With the overhead they are talking about, the thing is going to collapse under its own weight.”

Unless, boosters say, families in the Valley and surrounding areas nourish it by forking over a constant stream of dollars.

“Entertainment is everything right now, and the San Fernando Valley is tremendously family-oriented and sports-oriented,” said Lawrence Solomon, senior vice president at Sutro & Co. in Woodland Hills. The plan “makes major, major sense. As a father of three children, I love what I am seeing.”

The group is starting with baseball camp--12 sessions to be held this summer at the Northridge Little League fields. At the same time, the general partners are trying to raise start-up cash for the center itself.

Early plans to build the Baseball Development Center from scratch at a Calabasas location were scrapped, reducing start-up costs from $13 million to $4.5 million. The general partners hope to raise the cash in a private offering to outside investors.

“We are going to people we know through business management firms,” Selan said. “They see a nice profit in it, but most of them are investing also because they like baseball.”

Marketing began in earnest last month, when workers flooded high schools and Little Leagues throughout the Valley and Ventura County with 30,000 brochures and $75,000 worth of promotional giveaways such as batting gloves, bats and gloves.

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Advertisements in newspapers and on cable TV offer instructional videotapes for $29.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling.

And the group is already taking reservations for its baseball camps, where instructors include the likes of Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda and an array of current and former Dodgers.

Most recently, the company invited about 200 high school and youth coaches to a clinic held at Yankee Doodles restaurant in Woodland Hills.

Early in the morning after the Dodgers’ home opener, Lasorda and coaches Bill Russell, Dave Wallace and Manny Mota joined Smith and former Dodgers Joe Ferguson and Steve Garvey in giving instruction to the local coaches for free.

“These coaches are getting a firsthand look at what [we] will bring to the community,” Smith said. “That’s why I brought the Dodger coaches on board. I need their commitment for this to work.”

Smith’s Dodger friends appear caught up in the spirit of starting the project, although he said that some may eventually become investors or paid employees.

“We’ll work out [financial] details later,” Wallace said. “At this point, I’m just willing to pitch in and help Reggie.”

The local coaches streamed into Yankee Doodles like kids in a candy store, examining displays by several baseball equipment and apparel manufacturers before breaking into small groups to hear instruction from the pros.

“This is unbelievable,” said Martin Swanson, a youth coach from Simi Valley. Swanson and the other coaches clutched bags filled with brochures and giveaways.

“They impressed me with all the Dodger people there,” said El Camino Real High School Coach Mike Maio, whose teams have won the last two City Section championships. “I’m sure they can back up whatever they say they are going to do.”

The group’s big dreams aren’t limited to Los Angeles: Partners envision facilities in other cities where major league baseball is popular--each bearing the name of a local baseball star.

“We will only go ahead [with expansion] if by using consumer projections it appears we will have a very good return on investment,” said Bruce Kanter, the fourth general partner. “Realistically, to my knowledge, this is an untried business venture. Any time you have that, you have to ask, ‘Will the market be there? Can the company be smart enough to capture the market?’ ”

The center’s main local competition will come from the 6-year-old West Coast Baseball School, which operates out of batting cages in Agoura, Santa Barbara, Burbank, Granada Hills and Santa Clarita. Its owners caution that instant profits are not a certainty.

“Nurturing relationships and developing trust, that’s the key to this business,” West Coast’s Rick Magnante said. “It takes time. Knowing all the baseball in the world is important, but not as important as having a genuine love for kids.”

Others wonder whether the Dodger players and coaches will sustain their enthusiasm over time. It’s not as if they need the money.

“Their camps should do very well the first year because of the Dodger names,” said Rick Siebert, director of Doyle Baseball School, by far the largest provider of baseball instruction in the nation. Founded by major league brothers Denny and Brian Doyle, the school, with facilities in Florida and Arizona, taught baseball to 30,000 youngsters last year.

“If the quality is good and they can sustain the quality, then they will do well for a longer period,” Siebert said.

The baseball instruction business, he said, will continue to grow.

“We are in our infancy stages,” Siebert said “We haven’t even chipped the iceberg.”

At Smith’s facility, the instruction won’t come cheap. Private instruction will cost $45 to $200 an hour. A session with Dodgers Eric Karros, Mike Piazza or Raul Mondesi, the past three rookies of the year, presumably would be at the top end.

The partners also hope to bring in revenue from the video arcade, food court and pro shop. “This is an entertainment facility with baseball the vehicle for entertainment,” Kanter said.

To Maio, the El Camino Real High coach, the idea of a baseball-oriented gathering place is appealing.

“There is a need for it, a central place where people can go to get teaching,” he said. Chuck Fick, a St. Louis Cardinals scout who lives in Newbury Park, said pro ballplayers might use the facility to practice during the off-season.

Nothing would thrill Smith more than making his development center the place for baseball junkies from major leaguers to T-ball players. This is the culmination of a dream that began soon after he retired from a 19-year playing career in 1984 that included six years with the Dodgers and two years in Japan.

“I’ve always been serious about teaching baseball,” Smith said. “It’s a passion with me.”