Sweating It Out for a Place in the Suns

Five players and a coach from the Dominican Republic had yet to arrive.

Bleachers, floodlight poles and other facilities remained to be built.

No aroma of hot buttered popcorn enticed fans at the modest Oxnard College ballpark. Indeed, no fans had bothered to come at all for a first glimpse of the minor league Pacific Suns baseball team, even though opening day is less than a month away.

No matter.

On the first day of spring training Friday for these boys of summer, about the only thing not missing was the undercurrent of tension from the 30 or so assembled ballplayers trying to make the 22-man squad.

Running beneath the casual attitude of players clad in identical fresh white T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Pacific Suns Spring Training ‘98” was an unquestioned recognition of this day’s importance.

A chance at that first big professional break. A grasp at that one last opportunity to prove they have what it takes to maybe, just maybe, claw their way into a major league organization. And an opportunity to prove that whatever the individual Suns are--and they are a long way from the majors, players acknowledge--they belong there.

“Every one of them has got a story,” drawled 58-year-old manager Jim Derrington between drags of a cigarette in the dugout, with the languid air of someone who has seen or done it all during a baseball career that has spanned more than 40 years. “I’ve been places they’ve never even dreamt of. And I hope they never even do.”

Just ask 28-year-old Derron Spiller, a former Ventura College pitcher and a nine-year veteran of pro ball, about tough venues.

After spending his first seven seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization, he played the last two with the Moose Jaw Diamond Dogs.

In that hardscrabble town on the Saskatchewan prairie, Spiller endured preseason snow, summer mosquitoes and perhaps three visits a season from his wife and 3-year-old daughter.

“Getting to see her every day before I come to the park, that’s worth coming here,” he said. “If I come here and have a real good year, anything can happen. If I’m going to get another crack [at the majors], this is the time to do it.”

Even if it is minor league ball with an unaffiliated organization that will face the likes of the Bend Bandits, Reno Chukkars and Mission Viejo Vigilantes.

Even if it is in an organization so tiny that owner Don DiCarlo hands out uniforms before practice from the back of a pickup. And even if the man in charge of ballpark construction is the owner’s 77-year-old father, Tony.

With the first game--an expected sellout against the Sonoma Crushers--set for May 23, the construction schedule is expected to be tight. Very tight.

Oxnard College has reached an agreement in principle with the Oxnard Union High School District to move 10 70-foot-high light poles from the former Oxnard High School campus. But the school board isn’t expected to give its final approval until its next meeting May 13, allowing the team scant time to move the poles.

“I don’t know whether they can do it, quite frankly,” Assistant Supt. Dick Canady said. “But that’s their problem, not ours.”

Tony DiCarlo insists the work will be completed. It has to be.

Spring training may be intensive, with two-a-day practices seven days a week, but it isn’t very long. The Suns’ first exhibition game--a free one--is scheduled for Mother’s Day.

Prospective team members ran through their paces very gingerly Friday.

Team doctor Luga Podesta fretted that many of the players were physically “real tight” and “pretty inflexible,” but he remained confident they would be ready by the start of the season.

“That’s baseball,” he said of his charges’ physical preparation for games. “Baseball guys--most of the time--they’re standing around.”

Still, for a minor league team, the Suns tried to project a major league attitude.

Derrington pronounced the day “very informal,” then closed his initial team talk to the media.

Fitness coach Ray Bowman urged the players on while hobbling on crutches necessitated by a torn Achilles tendon.

And a dapper Don DiCarlo vowed, “This is not going to be a team of characters, but it’s going to be a team with character”--while wearing a tie adorned with a baseball-playing Bugs Bunny.

The Suns have plenty of character already.

Second baseman Derek Swafford of Ventura hopes to play in front of his mother this season for the first time ever--and alongside his brother, Lawrence Cottrell.

Outfielder Stephen Bishop is out to prove he should have a legitimate shot at the big time at 27--while at the same time shooting an independent film titled “Desert Hearts.”

And Japanese outfielder Yuri Kanamon wants to show the Seattle Mariners that they should have picked him up after he hit 15 home runs in half a season last year.

But all the players are out there for the same reason as Derrington.

“I love baseball,” he said in a gravelly voice. “It sure as hell isn’t the money.”