Homer Appeal Knocks Bunting Out of the Park

Bunting is becoming a vanishing skill in high school baseball.

Players don’t appreciate it. Parents don’t respect it. Coaches don’t believe in it.

“It’s definitely a lost art,” said Dan Maye, coach at Simi Valley Royal.

Where have all the bunters gone?

Maybe it’s the nightly dose of home runs courtesy of ESPN highlights that sends a message of what’s important in 21st century baseball.

“The home run is sexier,” said Tim Cunningham, coach at North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake.

Maybe the pop of the aluminum bats has convinced players that bunting is a wasted at-bat when one solid swing can translate into a double or home run.

“A lot of coaches have changed their opinion on giving up an out,” said Matt LaCour, coach at Woodland Hills El Camino Real. “They’d rather take an extra crack with the bat and swing.”

Maybe it’s the absence of major league role models that have left high school players with few players to emulate. There’s no Maury Wills, Lou Brock or Rod Carew.

Whatever the reason, bunting has lost its influence as a game-changing offensive weapon, and coaches have abandoned the strategy to force an opponent to implode defensively.

That’s not to say teams have ceased bunting all together. The sacrifice bunt remains an integral part of the game in a pitcher’s duel. And no team would be foolish enough to stop practicing bunt defense. A game can unravel when a team doesn’t know who’s supposed to cover first base when the first baseman fields a bunt.

“We practice bunting faithfully every day,” said Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley Coach Bob Zamora, in his 27th season.

But the days when bunting three or four times in a game helped Granada Hills win four City championships in the 1970s appear to be over.

Darryl Stroh, the coach of Granada Hills’ championship teams, remembers how pitchers and coaches were so worried about the Highlanders’ bunting reputation that they’d be practicing bunt coverage just before the opening pitch.

“You already had this team doing something weird or strange, trying to stop something we may or may not do,” he said. “We played with their heads.”

Sylmar is one of the few schools relying on bunts to aid its offense. The Spartans had three bunt singles in a 2-0 loss to Granada Hills Kennedy on Monday in a game for first place in the Valley Mission League.

“We’re still doing it because we can’t hit,” Sylmar Coach Ray Rivera said. “We’re trying to find ways to manufacture runs.”

Mike Scioscia, manager of the Angels, says knowing how to bunt is a skill high school players should learn.

“Aluminum bats are obviously an allure to go ahead and wail and bail and hit the ball,” he said. “But I think if you’re going to be successful at any level in this game, you need to have a diverse offense. Certainly, bunting is part of that, so it has to be stressed.”

The problem is convincing players brought up in the era of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds that devoting practice time to bunting is important.

“It’s not hard to teach,” Cunningham said. “It’s hard to have a kid sustain it, to put the time in and convince him to have it become a steady arsenal. They just don’t stay with it. It’s part of that lost art.”

One of the most successful bunters over the last two seasons has been senior outfielder Ollie Linton of Encino Crespi. He’s 5 feet 8 with excellent speed and has signed with UC Irvine.

Close to half of Linton’s 38 hits last season were bunts. Opponents must position their third baseman well inside the bag in an attempt to prevent Linton from bunting successfully down the third base line. He can cause havoc too. In the El Dorado National Classic final against Villa Park, Linton faked a bunt, then hit the ball over the third baseman’s head for an infield single.

“I try to think about getting one or two a game,” Linton said. “It’s not about getting the perfect bunt. It’s about dropping it anywhere between the pitcher’s mound and the line, just to make the guy make the play.”

Linton’s success has encouraged teammates to try bunts. Possible first-round draft choice Trevor Plouffe has several bunt singles this season, showing his speed and bat skills.

“Bunting is fun because it’s more of a skill,” Linton said.

Linton said he received inspiration from the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts, who is known as a good bunter. Scioscia insists bunting is not disappearing from the major leagues.

“Although there’s been so much emphasis put on the home run and power probably in the last 20 years, not only at the major league level but the minor leagues, I don’t think that art is getting overlooked by baseball people,” he said. “We pay a tremendous amount of attention to it. We have an instructor in the minor leagues, and all he does is really bunting.”

Scioscia says there are some terrific bunters in the major leagues, citing Angels David Eckstein and Adam Kennedy along with Roberts, Roberto Alomar of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Omar Vizquel of the Cleveland Indians.

But high school coaches have seen a change in philosophy. Royal’s Maye said he has gone several seasons “where I didn’t think teams bunted at all.”

This season, in the Marmonte League, he said more teams were bunting because the scores were closer and the pitching was better. But he said hitters still consider it almost an insult to be given the sign to bunt and rarely bunt on their own.

Bunting will never disappear from baseball but could use a boost in a time of home run worship.

Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.