Diamond in Rough : Esteves Sparkles for Struggling Bell-Jeff

Attend a Bell-Jeff High baseball game. Go ahead, force yourself.

What you’ll see is Kenny Esteves staring down batters, then blowing them away with an overpowering fastball.

What you won’t see is Esteves glaring down his teammates, not that he doesn’t have good cause.

Esteves, a 6-foot-6 sophomore who moved to Burbank from Seattle last summer, has 43 strikeouts in 29 innings and an earned-run average of 1.33. He is batting .525 and hit a 400-foot home run.

Despite the impressive numbers, his record is 0-4 and the Guards are 1-10-1.

Yes, Esteves has yet to win.

“It gets frustrating sometimes, but I do my best to forget about it,” Esteves said. “We’re real young and over the next few years, I hope we’ll improve.”

Should Esteves improve, he will become a professional prospect. He consistently throws in the mid-80s, occasionally pushing the radar guns into the 88-mph range. Last week, he threw a 90-mph fastball.

Esteves is a top-drawer player on a bottom-rung team. Bell-Jeff’s nine-player roster consists of one junior, five sophomores and three freshmen. Only three played so much as Little League.

Routine ground balls and pop flies are adventures. Batters are just as likely to swing at pitches a foot over their head as they are a strike. Baserunners are routinely picked off--they even get fooled by the old fake-to-third, throw-to-first play.

Then there is Esteves, whose towering frame is enough to set him apart on a team with no other players even 6-feet tall.

“I feel kind of bad for Ken,” Bell-Jeff Coach Steve Cameron said. “I wish we could have a little more talent to have a better team, but this will only serve to fortify his strength of character.”

If he were playing for a larger school, scouts likely would be flocking to see him play, speed guns in hand. But Esteves has been virtually unnoticed at Bell-Jeff, a small school better known for its basketball teams.

That, of course, will change. Excellent players at small schools don’t remain secrets for long.

Judd Granzow, drafted by the Dodgers in 1995, played at Faith Baptist in Canoga Park.

Third baseman Jeff Cirillo of the Milwaukee Brewers played at Providence in Burbank.

Off-season teams will continue to give Esteves exposure. He has been invited to play with the Glendale Panthers--an AAU team of top 16-year-olds from Southern California--that will compete in the national Junior Olympics tournament this summer.

“Kenny plays at the highest level of play for his age group,” Panther Coach Richard Robbins said. “This is a national level of competition. It’s a lot different than local baseball.”

Playing for Bell-Jeff has been frustrating for Esteves and he considered transferring earlier this season.

He decided to stay put and help turn the team around.

“The thought crossed my mind,” he said. “But I’m satisfied with Bell-Jeff as a school. Academics are what come first and I’m happy with those. Over the next few years I hope we’ll improve.”

The Bell-Jeff basketball team is another reason for Esteves to stay. The Guards will be among the favorites in the Southern Section Division IV-A next year.

Esteves will contribute.

“He can be a real, real force,” Bell-Jeff basketball Coach Eli Essa said. “He’s got a great outside shot for a big man. If he continues to progress he could develop into a Division I player. He’s going to be a two-sport star by the time he’s finished.”

Esteves, whose parents were divorced when he was three, lived with his mother in Seattle until August, when he moved to Burbank to live with his father.

Bell-Jeff’s basketball program played a significant role in Esteves’ decision to attend the school.

“Ken was already an established baseball player,” Esteves’ father, Ken Sr., said. “We knew he could improve a lot at basketball. So we discussed that Eli Essa was such a good teacher that we thought he could risk playing with a weaker baseball program.”

Esteves averaged eight points and five rebounds for the basketball team this season.

“At first he didn’t know the difference between double-dribble and double date,” Essa said. “But he’s got real good work ethics, the kid is intact.”

He’s received letters from USC and LaVerne regarding basketball, but so far nothing about baseball, where coaches and family believe his future is.

“With basketball, he might be a Division I player,” Ken Sr. said. “But with baseball, the sky is the limit.”

Esteves transferred to Bell-Jeff from Eastside Catholic High in Seattle, where he played on the junior varsity because freshmen can’t play on the varsity.

He played on a Seattle-area AAU team in the Northwest regional 15-and-under championships and was named to the all-tournament team.

At Bell-Jeff, Esteves suppresses the urge to yell at his teammates when a ground ball goes through an infielder’s legs or a pop fly falls to the ground.

“I like trying to take the leadership role,” he said. “I’m a young guy and everything, but since they’re young too, and I have a lot more experience, it’s fun to kind of be a coach plus a player and help the guys out.

“I’m seeing signs [of improvement]. In the next few years we’ll be one of the better teams in the league.”

They have a long way to go.

Against LaSalle, Esteves struck out 10 and allowed three earned runs. Bell-Jeff lost, 13-1.