Give Wolcott a Dome, Where Major League Hitters Roam

Surprisingly, Bob Wolcott said it’s easier to pitch to major league hitters in the Seattle Kingdome than to Class-A hitters at the Hangar.

Wolcott, the Mariner pitcher who gave up seven runs in six innings during his cameo with the JetHawks on Wednesday, said he didn’t feel he pitched badly in a loss to the Lake Elsinore Storm.

“I felt I had the hitters beat,” he said. “I’m not used to the ball carrying like this. . . . Seattle, they say, is a hitter’s park, but you have to get a lot of wood on the ball to get it out. . . . You throw a fastball on the outside corner [in the majors] and it’s usually a popup. Here, that sucker’s gone.”

Wolcott, who gave up three homers, said he didn’t adjust quickly enough to minor league hitters, whose approach is different that of major leaguers. They may swing from the heels at pitches they ought to push the other way, for example.

“I think it would have been easier in triple A, because those hitters are like the ones in the big leagues,” Wolcott said. “They do the same stuff.”

Blaze engulfs fan: It is one thing to be a die-hard fan. But to be a die-hard fan of a minor league baseball team--and a bad one--that plays its home games 90 miles from your front door is another thing entirely.

But Fred Schaak is undeterred.

Schaak, 45, a junior college math instructor with a bushy brown beard that reaches his chest, commutes from his home in Fillmore to Bakersfield for virtually every home game of the California League’s Bakersfield Blaze.

Schaak became a fan of the Bakersfield team when it was a Dodger affiliate in 1992. Since then, the Dodgers have pulled out, leaving the co-op Blaze with a mishmosh of players who lose an average two of every three games. But Schaak is still in love with the team and with Sam Lynn Ballpark.

Besides the home games, he travels to many of the Blaze’s road games, giving him a schedule of about 100 games.

Major league games? Forget it.

“Real baseball is played at this level,” Schaak said. “What goes on at the major league level”. . . .

He shakes his head in disgust.

“I consider myself a real baseball fan.”

On Cloude 9: JetHawk right-hander Ken Cloude, who won his ninth consecutive decision to become the California League’s first 11-game winner Monday night, continues to be pleasantly baffled by the run support he’s gotten this season.

“All I can say is this is odd,” Cloude said. “Every time I go out there’s just this switch [the hitters] turn on.”

In Cloude’s 18 starts, the JetHawks are batting .306 and averaging 9.1 runs. When anyone else starts, they are batting .285 and averaging 5.2 runs.

It’s quite a switch from last season at Wisconsin in the Midwest League where he had a 3.24 earned-run average but was only 9-8 because of a lack of run support. He said he used to concentrate better when his team didn’t score much and the games were tight, but now he’s learning to focus, even with a big lead.

“It’s happened so often that I’m getting used to it,” he said.

No sweat: Pressure coaching a basketball team? You have to be kidding, Lorenzo Romar says.

The first-year Pepperdine coach learned all about pressure during his four years as an NBA journeyman in the early 1980s, an experience that conditioned him for his job as an assistant the past four seasons at UCLA as well as his new position.

“I don’t feel the pressure,” Romar said. “When Coach [Jim] Harrick interviewed me for the job at UCLA five years ago, he asked me if I could handle the pressure cooker. When I was in the NBA, I was one turnover away from getting cut. Every practice, every game, for the whole time I was in the NBA, I was one bad game away from getting cut. That’s pressure. You don’t have a guaranteed contract. That’s pressure.”

Stats

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Dave Newhan, a former Pepperdine outfielder, became the second player this season to hit for the cycle in the California League. Last week at San Jose, Newhan, the Modesto A’s left fielder, homered in the first, then singled, doubled and tripled in his subsequent at-bats. He drove in the go-ahead run with his triple in the top of the ninth, leading the A’s to a 6-4 victory.

Hot hitter: San Bernardino Stampede outfielder Scott Richardson, a former Cal State Northridge standout, led all minor league hitters in June with a .455 average.

Quotebook

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“I hit him. He hit me back.”

-- Heavyweight boxer Lance Whitaker of Granada Hills, who made his professional debut Wednesday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, on the experience of sparring with former world champion Larry Holmes.

Things to Do

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John Carnevali of St. Francis High is expected to be the starting quarterback for the West team in the Hall of Fame all-star football game Friday night at 8 at Citrus College. The game features top graduating high school seniors from the San Gabriel Valley area.

Jason Klintworth, a running back and linebacker from Glendale, Jonathon Brownfield, a lineman from Village Christian, and David Jones, a running back and defensive back from Flintridge Prep also are expected to play for the West.

The L.A. Kart Club races at Saugus Speedway on Saturday morning. Heat races start at 8. Main events follow at 10.

Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for children 12 and under.

Information: 805-257-3593.

Contributing: Fernando Dominguez, Rob Fernas, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, Bryan Rodgers.