Players’ Pitch Is a Hit With the Kids

Their hats and T-shirts and baseball gloves were two sizes too big. But the youngsters who gathered Tuesday at knee-level around former major league pitcher Dave Frost didn’t care.

They were hungry for some baseball advice.

So the veteran right-hander, once a standout for the California Angels, wound up and delivered just like he used to in the big leagues, smoking a little heat straight down the middle.

“The worst thing anyone can ever say about you is you’ve got a million-dollar arm but a 10-cent head,” Frost told the youngsters assembled on the playground at Will Rogers School in Ventura.

“I just want you to remember that this,” he said, pointing to his head, “is the most important part of your body, whether in sports or anything else. Always use your head and you’ll be OK.”

That was the message hammered home Tuesday at Will Rogers, where former big league stars taught local youngsters a little about baseball and a lot about staying off drugs, out of gangs and in school.

As part of a Ventura County-based program called Baseballers Against Drugs, about 80 youngsters enrolled in day camps across the county got to sharpen their pitching, hitting and fielding skills while learning life lessons from sports role models.

Dozens of Former Players Take Part

The free program was the last of six youth baseball clinics across Southern California hosted by the nonprofit organization and sponsored by regional McDonald’s restaurants.

Nationwide, about 10,000 youngsters have gone through the baseball program launched in 1989 by former Chicago Cub Jim Dantona.

Dantona said he was fortunate enough to grow up at a time when there was little worry about the influences of gangs and drugs.

But as his own children passed through their influential preteen and teenage years, the Simi Valley-based political consultant said he was inspired to combine his love of baseball with a positive network for kids nationwide.

“I could see that times were changing,” said Dantona, who put up $10,000 and called on old major league friends such as Chicago Cub legend Ernie Banks to start the program.

“This is about getting out a positive message,” he said. “It’s like a ripple in the ocean. That ripple forms a wave, and that wave has an impact on the land it hits.”

Dozens of former major league ballplayers take part in the clinics.

On Tuesday, Dantona tapped Southern California natives Derrel Thomas, a longtime Los Angeles Dodger, and Ellis Valentine, a Crenshaw High School product and former all-star with the Montreal Expos.

Valentine, who produced three consecutive seasons of more than 20 home runs, taught the youngsters how to swing the bat.

Thomas worked on the fundamentals of fielding, urging the kids to move their feet and follow the ball with their eyes all the way into the glove.

A baseball star at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, Thomas was the first player taken in the 1969 winter draft.

He played 15 years in the major leagues, most of that time with the Dodgers, where he was a key part of the team’s World Series championship run in 1981.

Dressed in his old Dodgers uniform, Thomas delivered an anti-drug message that was particularly heartfelt.

He pleaded no contest to cocaine possession charges in 1993, an incident he has described as the defining moment in his life.

Dodgers’ Thomas Wants to Give Back

He said he now counsels kids every chance he gets to make smart decisions and keep their eye on the future.

“This is just our way of giving back,” said Thomas, who lives near San Bernardino and runs development baseball programs for youth.

“We get a great reaction from the kids. We have their undivided attention, and they really seem to absorb the information we’re putting out there.”

Ten-year-old Max Morten will vouch for that.

After fielding three tricky grounders from Thomas, the Oxnard Little Leaguer could hardly believe his good fortune.

“I’m going to remember this day,” he said. “And I’ll probably get better now from them teaching me all this stuff.”

Camarillo resident Karen Roberts got one of the morning’s best workouts.

She had three children--Sarah, 9, Joey, 7, and Sam, 5--participating in the clinic.

Because the youngsters were divided into groups based on age, she spent a lot of time running from one group to the other snapping photos and shouting encouragement.

“This is really great for the kids to have the opportunity to meet these players and learn from them,” Roberts said. “And I know Sammy is going to go home and look through all his baseball cards to find out all about these guys.”

In the end, the players who volunteer for the program--grown men who fell in love with a game and want to once again be the boys of summer--say they get plenty back from the experience.

Like the smile that stretched across Dave Frost’s face when the youngest group, boys and girls 7 and under, erupted into a spontaneous chant of “Angels Rock, Angels Rock!” during fielding practice.

He said he remembers the feeling he got as a kid when he waited for two hours to get the autograph of one of his favorite ballplayers.

“And that was just to have the guy sign a piece of paper,” said Frost, who lives in Long Beach. “I figure this is at least as exciting as that.”