Talent Aside, Entertainment’s Name of the Game

They call it a league of second chances.

Ballplayers washed out of the major leagues, college athletes never tapped by scouts, or promising players trapped in the minor leagues all find their way onto the rosters of the Western League.

Like the Suns, who are waiting for community approval to move from Palm Springs to Oxnard, the league’s teams have no affiliation with major league baseball. So instead of receiving a steady stream of prospects being groomed for the major leagues, Western League teams rely on, well, leftovers.

That could mean players like Darryl Strawberry, who played for an independent Midwestern league on his way back from drug and alcohol use. Or it could mean Rocky Childress, a plumber who put down his wrench and picked up a baseball to play with the Bend (Ore.) Bandits last year. Ten years earlier, he was pitching in the major leagues.

“Almost everyone’s a story,” said Michael Curto, who was the radio play-by-play announcer for Bend in 1995. “It’s a league of second chances.”

By contrast, the California League, with its major league affiliations, is one of first chances, and the two brands of baseball may be butting heads in Ventura County as soon as 1998.

Groups in Ventura and Camarillo are pursuing Cal League teams. The Stockton Ports, who are affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers, have said they will move to Ventura in two seasons if a stadium is built.

When pressed for comparisons between the level of play, Western League President Bruce Engel replied:

“We don’t need to get into a debate about what is the better baseball. It isn’t the caliber of the baseball. It’s the whole package which is different.”

The Cal League is an advanced Class-A league, meaning it is the third-highest of the six rungs of affiliated minor league baseball. The players are usually 21 to 23 years old and have one or two years of minor league experience.

Independent league players, by contrast, have a wide range of age and experience. A Western League game can look like Double A one day, rookie league the next. On average, it’s probably a slight notch below the Cal League.

Whichever is actually better baseball, though, may be irrelevant to many fans. Entertainment, after all, is the true lure of minor league baseball at all levels. Teams promote the ballpark atmosphere and promotions--such as the Suns’ infamous “Nude Night”--more than the players because, frankly, no one has heard of the players.

Affiliated teams also have anonymous players, but their added disadvantage is they have no control over them. Teams are at the mercy of the major league clubs, which are more interested in developing the players than in their minor league teams winning championships.

The hotshot outfielder who tears up the league in the first half of the season is likely to be gone in the second half, promoted to a higher league on his way to the majors. Of course, a hotshot from below may replace him.

The Western League gives fans what Engel calls “the total baseball picture instead of the fragmented situation of player-development baseball, where you can have a team playing well or playing for a pennant and key players are taken out.”

The positive side of seeing player development is that many of those players will be stars in the major leagues.

About two or three players on each Cal League team will become major leaguers who make an impact. Another two or three will probably make at least a brief appearance in the majors.

A quarter of all players currently in the major leagues played in the Cal League at one point in their careers, said Bill Weiss, the league’s secretary.

In the Cal League’s 55 seasons, it has been a breeding ground for such Hall-of-Famers as Don Drysdale and Reggie Jackson and such current stars as Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Piazza and Raul Mondesi.

The Ventura Gulls, an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays who played just one season at Ventura College in 1986, managed to produce several major league players, most notably relief pitcher Jose Mesa and starting pitcher Todd Stottlemyre.

Most of the marquee names in independent leagues are on their way down and out, rather than up.

The Northern League, an independent league with teams in the upper Midwest, has earned recognition by signing players like Strawberry. The league also signed several former major leaguers such as Jack Morris, Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd and Leon Durham, who were playing for nothing but the love of the game.

The Western League has never had a “well-known” former major leaguer. Most of its players with big league experience are like Childress, the plumber, and each team has a couple.

But the Western League does have one claim to fame: the only potential star to cross through an independent league on his way to the major leagues.

Right-handed pitcher Ariel Prieto, a Cuban refugee, signed with Palm Springs in 1995. Prieto was considered an excellent prospect who could pitch immediately in the major leagues. His presence in Palm Springs brought dozens of scouts to games that would otherwise have been overlooked.

The Oakland Athletics gave Prieto a $1.2-million signing bonus and immediately added him to the major league roster. In a season and a half as an A’s starting pitcher, he has posted an 8-13 record.

One of Prieto’s teammates at Palm Springs in 1995 was Euclides Rojas, considered one of the finest relief pitchers in Cuban history. Rojas was signed by the Florida Marlins and pitched at double A and triple A last year, but this year he became a minor league pitching coach.

Such marquee players are the exception rather than the rule in the Western League. But at least one man is hoping to change that.

Bend Manager Al Gallagher, who played for the San Francisco Giants and the Angels in the early 1970s, said he is currently negotiating with a former major league player whose name he will not disclose in an effort to bring him to the Western League as a player-coach. Gallagher first has to convince the player to accept the $1,000-a-month salary that is the norm in the league.

“You don’t play here for the money,” he said.

Gallagher, whose nickname is “Dirty Al” and whose trademark is throwing his shoes at umpires who “stink,” has become a baseball philosopher of sorts. He has broken down independent league baseball players into four basic categories.

“There’s the guy that’s through with his career,” he said, referring to players like Childress.

“Then there are the Darryl Strawberry-types, who played in the big leagues and people don’t think they can do it any more, but maybe still have the talent.

“Then there’s the guy who made it to double A or triple A or high A and the guy’s organization just says he can’t go any further, and the guy doesn’t believe it.

“Then there’s the fourth type of guy, the guy who went to, say, [Cal State] Dominguez Hills, and hit .400 and [scouts] say, ‘Aw, if he would have gone to USC he wouldn’t have done anything. He’s not any good.”’

The common denominator--save for the first group--is players trying to prove something. Or looking for a second chance.