Angels journeyman still fielding his dream

Reporting from Salt Lake City -- It is five hours before game time and Spring Mobile Ballpark, the picturesque home of the minor league Salt Lake Bees, is empty except for two figures on the field.

Reggie Willits, wearing a gray T-shirt and black athletic shorts with No. 7 on one thigh, is at the plate, bat in hand, honing his craft with a hitting coach.

For Willits, 30, an outfielder unassuming in character and undersized at 5 feet 9 and 185 pounds, this does not involve slugging baseballs over the fence; in 414 major league games, he has never hit a home run.

Instead, he spends 45 minutes bunting balls toward third base and first, polishing one of the fundamental skills he used to carve out a niche as a valued Angels reserve from 2007 until this past June.

For every familiar leading man like Torii Hunter, the Angels’ right fielder who is guaranteed $18 million a season for five years, there are dozens of bit players like Willits whose survival depends on a mastery of nuances such as bunting, pinch running or being a step quicker on defense.

The stars have job security, but the reserves are always looking over their shoulder, agonizing over every mistake and hoping management doesn’t find a younger or cheaper alternative.

Willits, who earned his major league salary of $775,000 more by determination than talent, has been demoted from Anaheim to Salt Lake, the Angels’ top farm team, nine times in the last five years. His once-promising career with the club now hangs by a thread.

On June 4, he was demoted from the team’s 25-man major league roster. In late August, when the Angels needed a spot for an extra pitcher, he was bumped again, this time from the 40-man roster, which is composed of the best players in the organization, major leaguers and minor leaguers.

The move, Willits says, “was like getting punched between the eyes” and a sure sign the team will not offer him a major league contract next season.

It wasn’t that long ago when injuries to two Angels regulars gave Willits his big break and he started 118 of 162 games. That was in 2007, and he was a sparkplug in the leadoff spot, hitting .293 and scoring 74 runs to help the team win the American League West title.

Willits finished fifth in AL rookie-of-the-year voting that season and drew comparisons to David Eckstein, the catalyst of the Angels’ 2002 World Series championship team.

His hard-nosed, unselfish play and old-school appearance — Willits chose jersey No. 77, had a crew cut and wore his red socks up to his knees — made him a favorite in Anaheim, where fans gave him enthusiastic ovations.

But now the Angels have at least five outfielders ahead of him, with highly paid veterans Hunter, Vernon Wells and Bobby Abreu signed for 2012 or beyond, plus two faster and more physically gifted youngsters in Peter Bourjos, 24, and Mike Trout, 20.

Still, Willits’ loyalty to the Angels has not wavered.

“When I get sent down,” Willits says, “it’s not the Angels’ fault. It’s mine. In a sense, I’ve failed.”

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Willits grew up in the ranching town of Fort Cobb, Okla. (population 633), and never attended a big league game. But, he says, “all I dreamed about when I was running up and down those old dusty roads, and there was nobody around for miles, was playing in the major leagues.”

He met Amber Klugh in the sixth grade and they began dating in high school. They graduated in a senior class of 20, went to the University of Oklahoma together and got married after their sophomore year. They celebrated their 10-year anniversary in July.

Willits was drafted by the Angels in 2003 and started playing professional ball that summer for the club’s rookie-league team in Provo, Utah. In 2005, he was with the double-A Arkansas Travelers. Money was so tight, Amber says, she decorated the couple’s tiny one-bedroom apartment in Little Rock with lawn chairs.

She didn’t complain then or in 2008, when Reggie asked her to quit her treasured job as a guidance counselor so the family could be with him in Anaheim. Nor did she complain later that year when he was sent to Salt Lake and all four of them — they have two young boys — lived in a hotel room for a few weeks before he was called back to the Angels.

Willits frets that his baseball career has taken a toll on his family. They’ve had to live apart for much of that time, and for the last three years they’ve had to deal with the uncertainty of where he would be playing.

“I feel like I’ve let my family down by constantly being sent back, because I haven’t done my job the way I should have,” he says from the living-room couch of their rental in Salt Lake City. As he speaks, 6-year-old Jaxon is on his lap and 3-year-old Eli is at his feet. Amber, who is seven months pregnant, sits on a love seat.

“I don’t feel like he’s let me down,” Amber says. “He knows that I don’t care where we’re at, what we’re doing. I’ll do whatever we need to do to get through this.”

Willits’ career has been a roller coaster, one that would put a strain on any young family. But neither Reggie nor Amber wants off the ride.

“As long as it’s his dream and it’s what he wants to do, I can do this,” Amber says. “It’s definitely not normal, but it’s a good phase of your life.”

It’s made for some humorous moments, and not just when the kids were whacking Wiffle balls past Angels players.

“Jaxon’s first day of Little League — I’ll never forget this — we told him to get dressed for his game, and he said, ‘No, I’ll just get dressed in the clubhouse,’ ” Reggie says. “I told him, ‘There are no clubhouses in Little League.’ That’s all they’ve known, all they’ve been around.”

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When he’s done practicing his bunts, Willits moves to the mesh cages under the stadium to hit against a pitching machine for 20 minutes. He focuses on his hands, stance, weight shift — the mechanics of his swing — not where the ball goes.

Then it’s onto the field for an hour and a half of stretching, throwing and regular batting practice. In the final hour before the game, Willits spends 10 minutes hitting off the curveball machine in the cage, grabs a bite to eat and sits in a hot whirlpool for 15 minutes to keep his body loose.

“Whether I’m in Class-A ball or the major leagues, I stay with a routine, make every day the same,” Willits says. “It worked in the past, and it will work for me again.”

Each demotion is a blow to his spirit, but he has learned to channel his frustration.

“You don’t have a week to get over it; you have about 12 hours,” Willits says. “If you’re going to constantly mope and whine and complain, you’re not going to play the way you need to play.”

Assorted injuries to his left leg limited Willits to 65 games at Salt Lake this season, where he hit a meager .260 with just five stolen bases in nine attempts. “The most frustrating year of my career,” he says, but it hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for the game.

“My job is to step between those lines and give it everything I’ve got, whether they put me in rookie ball or the major leagues,” Willits says. “I hope people see that, especially my kids.”

That approach and team-first attitude made him a leader in the Salt Lake clubhouse.

“When he comes here he’s the veteran, he’s got to keep an upbeat attitude,” says Salt Lake pitcher Trevor Bell, who spent the first half of this season with the Angels. “The guys coming up from double-A don’t know what to expect, it’s a jump, so after talking to a guy like Reggie, they feel more comfortable.

“The guys coming down, they’re a little irritated because they think they should be in the big leagues. When they talk to someone like Reggie, who’s been through it.... It helps a lot.”

Most players take a huge pay cut when they are demoted. The major league minimum salary is $414,000 a season, and superstars routinely make more than $10 million. At Salt Lake, salaries range from about $15,000 to $60,000 a season. Because Willits has more than four years of big league experience, he is earning his Angels salary of $775,000.

Willits will close this season on the disabled list — the buildup of scar tissue in his Achilles tendon will keep him in a walking boot for four to six weeks. He knows his best chance of getting back to the big leagues will be with another team, but he will not ask the Angels to release him to seek a job elsewhere.

“That’s just not me,” he says. “The Angels are a first-class organization. If and when the time comes I’m no longer working for them, it will be tough.”

Willits has planned for that time. He built a 3,000-square-foot home on five acres in Fort Cobb. He saved money by enclosing his backyard batting cage and adding a kitchen area, bathroom, television and couch so he, Amber and Jaxon could live there during the construction. He also invested a good portion of the money he’s earned in his 600-acre cattle ranch nearby.

When he’s done playing baseball, he’ll simply trade his cap for a cowboy hat.

There will be no regrets.

“Every time I walk off a major league field and we’re shaking hands, I look at the crowd one last time, I take it in,” Willits says. “I know it will be over sooner or later.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com