Linton Trying to Work Way Back to Majors

By PAUL McLEOD

July 18, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The American Association, gateway to the major leagues for some, first stop on the way out for others, has been a rough place for Orange County pitchers this season.

There’s journeyman Paul Abbott, formerly of Sunny Hills High, who, despite 78 strikeouts in 31 appearances, has struggled with a 4-6 record and a 3.77 earned-run average with the Iowa Cubs. He once pitched for the Minnesota Twins.

Then there’s Westminster High’s Mike Fyhrie. Recently assigned to Omaha by the Kansas City Royals, he has yet to get his feet on the ground in middle America. He has worked only 13 innings, given up 14 hits and struck out five.

Former UC Irvine pitcher Doug Linton knows the pitfalls of this triple-A league all too well. Signed by the Toronto Blue Jays for peanuts in 1986, the hard-throwing right-hander has bounced back and forth between the big leagues and the minors throughout his career.

He was in Kansas City with the Royals this spring with hopes of cracking the rotation. But after a couple of outings--including a disastrous start against Cleveland in which the Indians knocked him around for 10 runs--Linton was shipped back to Omaha.

Royal Manager Bob Boone explained at the time that he needed a left-handed pitcher who could come out of the bullpen.

“After that, I was kind of forgotten,” Linton said.

In what most likely has become a make-or-break season now that he is back in Nebraska, Linton is 4-5 in nine starts. His ERA is 4.06 and he has worked only 51 innings. He has struck out 39 and given up 59 hits.

Whether Kansas City, 13 1/2 games behind the Indians in the American League Central, recalls Linton as early as the end of this month, is debatable. When he was sent down to Omaha he was told it would be for only two or three weeks. That was more than a month ago.

“I’ve heard that before,” Linton said. “In baseball, when you hear those words, it’s time to do your best.”

Linton, who graduated from Canyon High, is somewhat of a throwback for Orange County. UCI dropped baseball in 1992. Linton and his former teammate, Baltimore Oriole outfielder Brady Anderson, are the only former Anteaters still in professional baseball.

If the pair were to visit the Irvine campus today, they’d find that their old haunt, the baseball stadium on a mesa below the Bren Center, is no longer the same. The pitching mound where Linton once stared down batters, has been leveled. The grounds have been converted into a soccer field.

“That’s a joke,” Linton said. “It’s Southern California. When you think about all the great weather and college teams in that area, you think that they could have figured out a way to fund the program.

“When I was there they were talking about starting a football team. Then they drop baseball. It’s kind of crazy. What a shame to lose a guy like [former Coach Mike] Gerakos and a quality program like that.”

Gerakos has fond memories of his years managing the Anteaters with the likes of Linton and Anderson. Linton, Gerakos recalls, was an overachiever with a blistering fastball, big ideals and an even bigger heart.

“Doug was a hard-throwing right-hander,” said Gerakos, now at University High in Irvine. “He just loved to work. He wasn’t a pitcher that could get by on athleticism. He was a smart pitcher, as well.”

Linton worked hard enough to draw the attention of a few scouts. “He blossomed into a good pitcher right at the end of his junior year,” Gerakos said. In the spring draft of 1986, Toronto picked Linton in the 43rd round. The Blue Jays offered a mere $1,000.

“I had this scholarship to UCI and I told them, ‘Hey, I’ve got this scholarship and it’s worth more than a thousand bucks,”’ Linton said.

Linton asked for $17,500. Toronto sneezed. Linton went to the Alaska summer league.

In the endless summer sunshine of the 49th state, Linton shined. He shared Alaska most valuable players honors and when he got back to UCI in the fall, Toronto came knocking again.

“I saw him in the weight room a week before the season began,” Gerakos said. “He told me he was having dinner with someone from Toronto. I told him, “ ‘Doug, be sure you order steak and lobster because they won’t meet your demand.’ ”

But Toronto put out $17,000 and before he could throw a pitch for the Anteaters in what would have been his senior season in 1987, Linton was pitching for Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the South Atlantic League. Linton fashioned a 14-2 record and before the season was over was sent to the Blue Jays’ Double-A Knoxville team in the Southern League.

Linton wanted to impress people in Knoxville and he threw too hard in early workouts there. Then, while lifting weights one day, he felt a pop in his pitching shoulder. After that, “I couldn’t even raise my arm to brush my teeth,” he said.

Surgery for a torn rotator cuff followed and Linton spent the next three seasons rehabilitating his pitching arm, first at Dunedin in the Florida State League, then back in Knoxville.

He advanced to triple-A Syracuse in the International League in 1990 and spent the next three seasons there, compiling a 32-32 record. But his ERA never dropped below 3.40. When Toronto called him up at the end of the 1992 season, he got three starts and went 1-3.

In 1993, Linton was claimed on waivers June 17 by the Angels, where he went 2-0 with a 7.71 ERA in 19 games.

He joined the Met organization for the 1994 season. He was 6-2 with a 4.47 ERA in the strike-shortened 1994 season for the Mets, before landing with the Royals.

Linton, whose overall record in the major leagues is 9-6 with a 6.32 ERA, also has spent six seasons in Venezuela playing winter ball. In retrospect, he said, that has been the highlight of his career.

“I’ve learned to speak pretty good Spanish,” he said.

Perhaps he’ll take up Japanese next. Although he hopes for a future with the Royals, Linton once discussed playing with a team in Japan. Quitting is not an option.

“I feel confident that I will do well and make it back to the majors this year,” he said. “But for me to quit, they’re going to have to tear the uniform off me because I like this game so much.”

Bob Hamelin, 1994 American League Rookie of the Year, sent down to Omaha by the Royals on June 11, was recalled recently and promptly went one for one and scored a run in a 9-1 loss to the New York Yankees. But in Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, he struck out three times in four trips to the plate.

Before being sent to Omaha, the former Irvine High and Rancho Santiago slugger was batting .175. Through Sunday, he had raised that average five points. Time will tell if the short experiment in triple-A ball worked.

“I wasn’t going to be able to give him the game time because he was struggling so bad,” Boone, the Royals’ manager, said. “We felt it would be best for him to go down and get some quality time in the minor leagues and get the Bob Hamelin swing back.”

Outfielder Eric Fox, formerly of Capistrano Valley High, is batting .318 for the Oklahoma City 89ers, a Texas Ranger affiliate. Fox, 31, has knocked around the minor leagues since graduating from Fresno State in 1986 with a degree in physical education. He began his career with the Seattle Mariners organization and played briefly with the Oakland Athletics in the 1992 American League championship series.

Infielder Jeff Gardner shocked the Iowa Cubs June 22 when he retired suddenly after an 11-year career that included 1 1/2 seasons with the San Diego Padres and half a year with the Mets. He has joined the Padres as a scout. The former Estancia High and Orange Coast College standout was batting .323 with 24 runs batted in when he quit. He hit safely in 15 of his last 16 games and had recently got his 1,000th minor league hit.

Times staff writer Jason Reid contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A TRIP TO THE MINORS

American Association Road Map

This is not a small minor league, despite only having eight members. Most of the cities have big ballparks, long baseball traditions and solid population bases from which to draw. Here’s a look at the league, which has included such future major leaguers as Keith Hernandez, Willie Wilson, Bob Hamelin and Ken Griffey Sr.:

When formed: 1903 as a Class-A league; has been a triple-A league since 1969.

Titan connection: The home of the Omaha Royals should be a familiar site to any Cal State Fullerton baseball fan. The Kansas City Royals’ farm team plays at the site of the College World Series, where Fullerton has won three NCAA baseball titles.

Big league setting: When New Orleans rejoined the league in 1977, the team--then called the Pelicans--played in the 62,000-capacity Superdome.

Unhappy home: Buffalo played many of its home games in Niagara Falls in 1969 after players refused to play at Buffalo’s War Memorial Stadium. The protest stemmed from a clubhouse break-in in which the players were burglarized.

League Locations

Here’s a look at the teams at their major league affiliations:

A) Buffalo, N.Y.

(Cleveland Indians)

B) Des Moines, Iowa

(Chicago Cubs)

C) Indianapolis

(Cincinnati Reds)

D) Louisville, Ky.

(St. Louis Cardinals)

E) Nashville, Tenn.

(Chicago White Sox)