Well-Traveled Clayton Covering Familiar Ground

Craig Clayton’s Baseball Career, Take Three.

Clayton is back in the California League, which happens about as frequently as, say, his birthday. Every year.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in this league,” Clayton said sitting in the Rancho Cucamonga Quake dugout Wednesday, the first day of his sixth consecutive season in the Cal League.

Clayton, 25, earlier has been with Seattle Mariner affiliates in San Bernardino and Riverside.

Though Clayton may seem a hamster on a treadmill, working furiously and going nowhere, he’s actually more like a mouse running through a maze to find the cheese. He discovers one path doesn’t work, so he goes back to the beginning and starts over.

After starring as a pitcher and a hitter at Cal State Northridge, Clayton signed with the Mariners in 1991 and began his quest to become a major league third baseman. He rose to double A, and stalled.

So the Mariners made him a pitcher, and sent him back to the California League. After a rotator cuff injury slowed his progress, the Mariners released him this spring.

The San Diego Padres signed Clayton in May. He pitched in the Midwest League for about a month, and this week was assigned to the Quakes.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Clayton said. “Before I got hurt I was going to the big leagues.”

That was spring training 1994, Clayton’s first as a pitcher. He was so good that Mariner Manager Lou Piniella said: “He’s one of the most impressive pitchers in camp. With a little improvement and experience, he’s not far from pitching in Seattle.”

But Clayton never made it beyond double A as a pitcher in the Mariner system. After the Mariners released him in spring training, he was invited to work out in the San Francisco Giants’ camp while they evaluated him.

A month--and no paychecks--later, Clayton gave the Giants an ultimatum: Sign me or let me go. So they let him go, and he wound up with the Padres.

He was first sent to Clinton, Iowa, home of the Padres’ lowest full-season team, and the lowest Clayton had been since 1991.

But he went 2-0 with a 1.33 earned-run average and eight saves, earning a trip back to the spot he’s known so well: the Cal League.

“At least this time I’m on my way up the ladder,” Clayton said.

Clayton concedes being in a league in which he’s one of the oldest players eats at his ego, but he hangs on, still baited by that cheese he hasn’t quite found: the major leagues.

“I believe in my abilities,” he said, “and that’s what keeps me going.”

*

Last week’s inaugural Cal League-Carolina League all-star game was called a tie after 11 innings because the teams ran out of pitchers.

Hmmm, how could this problem be avoided in the future? (Sound of head scratching.) Oooh! Here’s a brilliant idea: Invite more pitchers.

The Cal League had only seven pitchers, which is barely enough to make it through some high-scoring regular-season games. Add the fact that every organization is protective of its pitchers going too many innings--the JetHawks were upset that starter Ken Cloude pitched two innings--and the problem is clear.

Next year they should invite 11 or 12. Who’s going to complain about being an all-star? One or two pitchers could be designated for use only in extra innings. They would be told they probably wouldn’t get in the game, and if they didn’t like it, a couple others would be happy to take the spots.

Considering all the years they’ve been playing all-star games, you wonder how the Cal League didn’t figure this out before Tuesday’s game.

*

San Bernardino Stampede outfielder Scott Richardson has turned his season around. Richardson, another former Cal State Northridge player, earned his second consecutive Cal League batter-of-the-week award last week.

He was hitting .209 on May 9. By Saturday morning, he had raised his average to .339, fifth in the league.

The difference?

“Well,” said Stampede Manager Del Crandall, “he’s getting a lot more hits.”

Besides that.

“I think he’s a little more disciplined in his approach to the baseball,” Crandall said. “Early in the year he was not staying with the ball and he was swinging at a lot of bad pitches.”

*

If the name of Lake Elsinore Storm infielder Paul Failla sounds familiar, you must be a college football fan.

Failla was the Notre Dame backup quarterback who led the Fighting Irish to a 31-13 victory over USC in 1993. It was the second and last game he started at Notre Dame, leaving school to sign with the Angels after his junior year.

Surprisingly, Failla hasn’t heard much from USC fans since he’s been playing baseball in Southern California.

“They must not remember the losses,” he said.