Father Knows Best

When Stephanie Carew climbs into the batter’s box, her father, Angel batting coach Rod Carew, can’t help but grin. She’ll fiddle with her uniform and paw at the dirt before she focuses on the pitcher.

Just like Dad.

“I noticed that she had the same mannerisms as me,” Rod Carew said, “but I couldn’t understand how that happened.”

During Rod Carew’s playing career with the Angels, Stephanie would come to Anaheim Stadium but wouldn’t watch the games. Instead, she headed straight for the Angels’ family room, where some children of the players congregated.

“She just liked to go play with all the other kids,” Rod Carew said.

But it’s clear more than just Rod Carew’s mannerisms have stayed with Stephanie. Now 22, she is a key player for Chapman’s softball team, which this week plays in Salem, Va., for the NCAA Division III championships. And her team advanced to the finals thanks, in part, to some timely hitting advice from her dad.

Stephanie’s success at Chapman comes only three years after she gave up the game as a student at UCLA. And only two years ago, her family struggled with the death of her sister, Michelle, after a seven-month battle with leukemia.

The story of Michelle’s illness was widely publicized and greatly raised public awareness for the National Marrow Donor Program. It’s something that is still very painful.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Stephanie said.

When Michelle became ill, Stephanie dropped out of UCLA, along with her older sister, Charryse, who was a senior at Chapman at the time, to help care for Michelle.

For several months, while Michelle was in the oncology intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the Carews lived in their motor home in the CHOC parking lot.

Stephanie wasn’t too disappointed about leaving UCLA. Though a highly touted player coming out of Brea Olinda High, she didn’t enjoy UCLA.

“Everything was so serious,” she said.

“I think she didn’t like being a little fish in a big pond,” Chapman softball Coach Janet Lloyd said. “At a Division I school with scholarships, there’s more pressure to perform. It’s different at Chapman.”

After Michelle’s death, Stephanie enrolled at Chapman in the fall of 1996 to be closer to her parents, who live in Anaheim. Thriving in the small-school setting, she has been an A-minus student there.

Lloyd began to urge Carew back into softball in early 1997.

“Janet invited me out to just hit in the cages,” Stephanie said. “I was thinking that softball was in the past for me. But I went a few times and remembered how much I love to hit.”

Lloyd said Carew would show up twice a week to hit.

“That’s when I knew she had the bug again,” Lloyd said. “She didn’t have much fun at UCLA. She had two years off, but mentally, maybe that was one of the best things to get her back on the road to recovery.

“She got to know a few of the players on the team and softball became fun again.”

Carew began to blossom on the field. A first baseman, she led all Division III players with 15 home runs last season, when she hit .547, had 59 runs batted in and earned second-team All-American honors. She hit .496 this season with 12 homers and 43 RBIs.

“I was having fun again,” Stephanie said.

So was her Dad.

After Chapman struggled with its hitting during the first two days of the West Regional playoffs last weekend, Stephanie went to her father for advice.

“After those first two games, Stephanie asked me if I would come out and help her,” said Rod Carew, a Hall of Fame infielder who hit .328 in a 19-year major league career. “Now with my schedule, I don’t get out to see her play that often. So every chance I get, I’ll go, even if it’s only for an hour or half hour.”

Since the Angels were playing at home last weekend, Rod Carew saw more Chapman games than normal.

Stephanie took advantage of the opportunity and offered her father’s guidance to any teammates who wanted it.

“I didn’t want them to feel like they had to take his advice,” Stephanie said. “They said, ‘Are you crazy? Of course we’ll listen.’ He really enjoys it.”

Said Lloyd: “When Rod talks to them, their eyes are glued on him. It’s like E.F. Hutton. They all listen.”

Stephanie made a minor adjustment in her stance. She said a slightly more upright stance prevented her from hitting pop flies.

Cindy Bemis, Jessamine Maiben and Lacee Rashi also took some last-minute pointers during last weekend’s regional playoffs, and they paid dividends.

The four players had combined for one hit in the first two games. In the final three games, they had 15 hits.

After Chapman lost the first game of the regional, the Panthers won four consecutive games to win the regional and advance to the NCAA finals.

“Everyone in my family is excited about this,” Stephanie said by phone Tuesday from Virginia. “My mom is even coming out here. I think she’s missed only one of our games all year.”

But her father will be on the road with the Angels. Stephanie plans to provide him with game-by-game updates by phone.

“When she was growing up, I was at about every game,” said Rod, who retired as a player after the 1985 season and is in his seventh season as Angel coach.

“Wherever your kids are, you want to spend time with them,” he said. “But in the business I’m in, she understands. And I know that I have to go to work.”

Eventually.

Last Sunday, Rod left Chapman’s game against Buena Vista with the Panthers leading, 3-0. But he couldn’t stay away.

“I needed to go home and pick up some books before I went to the stadium,” Carew said. Stephanie said she saw her Dad leave, but then he reappeared.

“I had some more time, so I stopped by for another half hour or so,” Rod said.

And when he finally left for work?

“Then he kept paging my sister [Charryse] trying to find out what the score was,” Stephanie said.

“I told them if they win, to give me a call at the park,” Rod said.

He’ll be waiting for some more good news this weekend.