Crandall Finds Return to Baseball in Minors Quite Manageable

Pretty much everyone in the California League, from players to managers to trainers, would rather be in the major leagues.

Everyone except Del Crandall, the San Bernardino Stampede manager.

Crandall, 66, who played 18 major league seasons and managed the Mariners and Brewers, ended his one-year retirement to manage the Stampede. It gives him a chance to get back into baseball while still staying close to his Phillips Ranch home.

“I have no desire to do anything else,” said Crandall, who will manage the Cal League all-stars against a team of Carolina League all-stars later this month. “If I was asked to manage in double A or triple A or be a major league coach, which wouldn’t happen anyway, I wouldn’t. I would spend the rest of my days in baseball right here.”

Until last year, Crandall had worked as a minor league instructor and television commentator with the Brewers. He retired, spending the 1995 season visiting his grandchildren and catching up on the quality time with his wife that 40-plus years in baseball had denied him.

But his wife noted last year, Crandall recalled: “You seem to be happy, but it just doesn’t seem like you are a whole person without baseball.”

When the job in San Bernardino opened, Crandall called his old friend Charley Blaney, the Dodgers’ director of minor league operations, and the deal was done in a matter of days.

“It just seemed like the perfect fit,” Crandall said.

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The next Troy Percival just might be developing in the Cal League.

San Jose Giant right-hander Mike Villano is a catcher converted to a pitcher. And like Percival, who has become one of the most effective pitchers in baseball for the Angels, Villano has dominated.

Villano, 24, recently named the league’s player of the month by a vote of managers, is 5-1 with a microscopic 0.39 earned-run average. He has allowed two runs and 19 hits in 46 2/3 innings and has 70 strikeouts.

He became a pitcher before the 1995 season and had a 1.65 ERA at San Jose in his first year on the mound.

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Languishing in the Montreal Expos’ system, Mike Berry gave the Expos the classic baseball ultimatum: Play me or trade me. So they released him.

And so far, it’s worked out pretty well for Berry, who was picked up the next day by the Baltimore Orioles and is now playing third base for the High Desert Mavericks. Berry is hitting .367, second in the league.

“I think any time you are having success in an organization and not moving up, you have to move out,” said Berry, the younger brother of Sean Berry of the Houston Astros.

Berry was drafted by the Expos out of Oklahoma in 1993. In 2 1/2 seasons he hit a combined .302 in Class-A leagues. When he wasn’t promoted to double A this spring, he asked for his release.

“I thought, ‘What else do they want me to do?’ ” he said.

He said he was surprised the Expos released him, but relieved when the Orioles picked him up and gave him a brief shot in double A this spring. They sent him back to High Desert to play every day.

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Jermaine Swinton, the Stockton Port designated hitter who bolted to the early league lead in home runs and runs batted in, is out for the season because of an injury to his left wrist. . . . Ty Van Burkleo, the 32-year-old player-coach of the Lake Elsinore Storm, had his season interrupted by a broken foot. The former Chatsworth High standout will be out until at least mid-July. He was hitting .359 with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs.

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The starting lineup for the Cal League, which will play a team of Carolina League all-stars June 18 at Rancho Cucamonga, includes JetHawks Jason Cook at second base and Jose Cruz Jr. in the outfield. Crandall said he has not decided on a starting pitcher. Lancaster’s Ken Cloude will be one of the top candidates because the game will fall on what would be his normal day to pitch in the rotation.

The other starters will be Rancho Cucamonga’s Antonio Fernandez at third, Modesto’s Miguel Tejada at shortstop, Stockton’s Drew Williams at first, San Jose’s Craig Mayes at catcher, Visalia’s Keith Kimsey and High Desert’s Rolando Avila in the outfield and Rancho Cucamonga’s Darryl Brinkley at designated hitter.

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Commissioner Joe Gagliardi said he will hold a conference call with the Southern Division general managers Monday to discuss tiebreakers in the event more than two teams tie for the first-half title. If two teams tie, a one-game playoff will be played June 17, the day between the end of the half and the all-star game.