It’ll Take Wood, Paint and Seats for a Field of Dreams

Improving the baseball field at Cal State Fullerton has been a slow process, but it will undergo some more refurbishing in time for the upcoming season.

A wood outfield fence is being added, replacing a chain-link one that was covered by a wind screen. The fence will be painted dark blue, and the concrete retaining walls on the sides of the field will be painted to match.

“We think it will help the appearance a lot,” Titan Coach George Horton said. “We’re also going to add new artificial turf around home plate, and that will keep that area from looking so worn, the way it did before with natural grass. We also want to have a permanent logo there.”

The fence will have advertisements on it as in the past, but it also will have numbered disks to honor some of the Titans’ top players from the past as well as former coach Augie Garrido.

Horton remains hopeful that more seats will be added in the future to make Titan Field a potential NCAA regional tournament site, but that appears to be at least a year away.

“We’d like to be able to add around 2,000 or so more seats,” Horton said. “That seems to be the number needed to make it financially feasible for us to host a regional.”

Titan Field has 1,540 permanent seats. Temporary bleachers along the left-field line and standing room bring the capacity to more than 2,000. There have been three crowds larger than 2,400 and several others of more than 2,000 since the ballpark was first used in the 1992 season.

The NCAA will move to a new playoff format this season that will have sub-regional tournaments as well as regionals.

Horton said he hopes to eventually see even more expansion.

“We’d like to build a structure on the first-base side of the field for locker rooms and offices, as well as a Hall of Fame-type of room,” he said.

The Titans begin practice Monday and open the season at home with a three-game series against Stanford, beginning Feb. 5.

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Titan center Matt Caldwell was a restless benchwarmer in Sunday’s basketball game against San Jose State.

Caldwell had to sit out the game as part of an automatic one-game suspension after being ejected from last week’s game against Quincy for what referees ruled was fighting.

Caldwell knows he’ll have to be on his best behavior now. According to NCAA rules, Caldwell would be suspended for the rest of the season if he is ejected a second time for fighting.

John Dangleis, the Big West Conference supervisor of officials, said he reviewed videotape of the incident and determined the ejection was justified.

“[Caldwell] was fouled hard on the play, but we determined that when he came up he threw a punch that didn’t land,” Dangleis said. “Then he pushed the other player, and the player pushed back. The push itself can be regarded as a combative act. The film shows it clearly.”

Caldwell said he doesn’t want the incident to affect his aggressive style of play.

“I just have to be careful after the whistle blows,” he said. “I’m sure the other teams are going to try to provoke me, but I just have to walk away in those kinds of situations.”

In Caldwell’s absence, the Titans were outrebounded, 39-26, by San Jose State.

“When you take one of our three post players out of the mix, it has to hurt,” Titan Coach Bob Hawking said. “We’re missing one of the guys who helped us get the six wins we have.”

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The Titans ended the nonconference portion of their schedule with a 6-4 record, which is the second best in Hawking’s five seasons as coach. Fullerton was 7-3 in nonconference games in 1996-97 and finished 13-14. They were 5-5 last season and finished 12-16.

Fullerton is 5-0 at home this season. The Titans’ only road victory came at Loyola Marymount, 74-61.

All four road losses have been by decisive margins. The Titans lost to San Jose State, 84-59, on Sunday, a week after losing by 43 points at Portland. They were beaten by Saint Louis by 34 and Kansas State by 21.

Travel problems added to the Titans’ bad day in San Jose. Fog forced the team’s scheduled flight from San Jose Sunday night to be canceled. Another flight was canceled early Monday morning. The team ended up returning in rental cars later in the day.

Titan Notes

Fullerton’s baseball team is ranked 11th in Collegiate Baseball’s preseason poll. Wichita State is No. 1, followed by Georgia Tech, USC, Rice and Long Beach State. . . . Joey Coughran is ranked sixth among 141-pounders in the current NCAA wrestling rankings. Jason Webster is 19th in the 174-pound division.

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Lon Eubanks can be reached at (714) 966-5904, fax 966-5663 or e-mail lon.eubanks@latimes.com