AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL / JEFF FLETCHER : Things Slide Into Place for Burbank’s Wride

Major league players have been criticized as greedy and selfish who don’t care about giving anything back to the fans.

Don’t lump Mike Magnante of the Kansas City Royals in with the others, because he gave Burroughs High junior Dustin Wride something you can’t buy:

A slider.

Magnante, a native of Burbank, helped coach Burroughs while he was on strike in the spring. While Magnante was there, he showed Wride how to throw the slider.

The pitch helped Wride become one of the area’s more-promising seniors-to-be. Pitching for the Burbank South Legion team, Wride struck out 11 and gave up two hits in a seven-inning complete game against North Hollywood West on Saturday.

“I owe it all to [Magnante],” Wride said. “I had experimented with a slider a little, but I hadn’t thrown anything like that in a while. Then he came around and suggested that it’s a great pitch and in high school if you can get a good slider going, and you can get it over, you can be successful.”

Said Burbank South catcher Tim Cates of the slider: “It’s pretty nice. It kind of just flies right across the plate.”

Cates said Wride, a 6-foot, 160-pound right-hander, has better command of the pitch than he did during the high school season, when he was 2-2 with a 4.64 earned-run average.

Toward the end of the season, Wride suffered a broken rib when he was hit in the side by a pitch during batting practice. Because of the injury, he missed the start of the Legion season.

His first start was Saturday.

“That was the probably the best I’ve seen him pitch in a long time,” said Burbank South assistant Ryan Cates. “I’ve seen him pitch for a while, and he looked like he put everything together.

“He’s got a lot of the tools to become a real dominant pitcher next year as a senior.”

*

Wride’s return is one of the reasons Burbank South has won four of five games after an 0-5 start.

The hot hitting of Devin Grace, who had seven hits in eight at-bats over the weekend, is another reason.

But the key was probably the ceremonial bonfire the team had five games ago, when the players burned scorecards, caps, stirrups, batting gloves and other remnants of the poor start.

Baseball players superstitious? Nah.

*

Mel Swerdling, District 20 commissioner, is investigating a mix-up from earlier in the season that could cost Sepulveda a victory.

The case involves whether Jared Sandler should have been playing for Sepulveda or Las Virgenes.

A left-handed pitcher, Sandler played for Sepulveda last summer, when he was enrolled at Montclair Prep, but this season he transferred to Calabasas.

This summer, Sandler played three innings for Sepulveda in a lopsided victory over Quartz Hill. Sandler was supposed to be playing for Las Virgenes and he has been ever since.

“It was basically a misunderstanding between myself, American Legion [officials] and Sandler,” said Steve Cohen, Sepulveda coach.

Sepulveda may have to forfeit the game.

*

Joe Grodell, District 16 commissioner, has suspended Simi Valley catcher Chad Troxler for intentionally allowing a pitch to hit the home-plate umpire.

“The catcher intentionally bailed out of a pitch, kind of a payback to the ump,” Grodell said. “We can’t have people acting like that.”

Troxler was ejected from the game June 11 against Thousand Oaks. Simi Valley had to forfeit because the team had no extra catchers.

*

It happened Sunday: Westlake-Royal-Oak’s Phil Derryman, a No. 44 pick of the Montreal Expos, pitched a 10-inning complete game against Ventura, winning 2-1. . . .

Sunland-Tujunga’s Dan Craig went four for five with two home runs and five runs batted in. . . .

Sepulveda’s Brian Targon had a no-hitter after five innings, but Sepulveda needed 10 innings to beat Palmdale, 12-7.

*

Short hops: Westlake-Royal-Oak is playing this week in Reno at the Sierra Nevada Classic at the University of Nevada. . . .

Selections for the District 20 All-Star game will be made at a meeting on July 6 at the Woodland Hills Legion Post. The All-Star game will be played at 7 p.m. July 11 at Burroughs High. . . .

Panorama City’s first home run of the season was a grand slam by John Wilson on Monday. Wilson had six RBIs in the game. . . .

Sunland-Tujunga forfeited a game to North Hollywood East on Thursday because not enough players showed up. It rained in Sunland, so players assumed the game was rained out. But the game was to be played in North Hollywood, where it was clear.