Hitting Against the Wind : Toros’ Darrell Conner Posted Record Streak in Unfriendly Park

As his Cal State Dominguez Hills teammates took turns in the batting cage before Thursday afternoon’s game with visiting Cal State Los Angeles, Darrell Conner toiled behind the Toro baseball dugout at a batting tee. In the distance the clinks of aluminum bats hitting rawhide baseballs could be heard as the overcast gave way to hazy sunshine.

On the Carson field, which is not kind to hitters, Conner had long since taken his practice swings in the cage. Now he stood in front of a giant net and swung his black aluminum bat at tennis ball after tennis ball.

“You can’t ever get enough hitting,” he said.

As the contact-hitting junior first baseman almost always does, he had arrived early to get a little more practice. The tee, he said, “helps me get loose.” It is one of many devices, including vision training, that were instrumental in his school-record, 19-game hitting streak earlier this season.

“I’m seeing the ball real well,” he explained.

Conner’s batting average, which has hovered around the .375 mark all season, is exceptional for a hitter in this wind-whipped park, where right-handed batters also fight the late-afternoon sun as it sinks into their eyes behind center field.

“If Darrell played somewhere else, I would say he might be hitting .430 or .450,” said Toro Coach George Wing.

The 6-foot-3 Conner, who has hit only five home runs in his collegiate career, agreed.

“This is a different kind of park. It’s not a hitter’s dream. It’s a pitcher’s dream,” he said. “I’ve hit balls in the gaps that I thought would get in, and they didn’t. You can’t do too much in this park.”

What does a line-drive hitter like Conner, who has struck out less than once in each 10 at-bats, miss most when he plays here?

“Dongs,” he said. “A few more dongs (home runs).”

Conner has just two home runs this year, but he is closing in on the school record for most doubles in a single season.

Hitting, by itself, not just on the Toro field, “is the toughest thing to do,” Conner said.

“You face a different guy each day. Each throws the ball differently. Some of them have balls that move; others throw more straight. Another guy will have a better deuce (curve ball).”

A native of Riverside, Conner transferred to Dominguez Hills from Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa not because he loved the playing facilities, but because he fell in love with the program and the social climate at the university.

Ironically, he was heavily recruited by UC Riverside, currently in a three-way race for the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title. Dominguez Hills, on the other hand, entered this weekend’s three-game set with Cal State Los Angeles with a disappointing 13-19-2 mark and is likely to finish with the school’s third consecutive losing record.

Still, Conner insists he made the right choice.

“This was definitely the place to go for me,” he said. “I could have gone to UC Riverside and been playing for a championship. But I like it here. I have a lot of confidence here.”

This has been a frustrating season for Wing, the Toros’ second-year coach, who once was an assistant at Riverside. When the year began, he thought he had a team, stacked with junior college transfers such as Conner, that would challenge for the CCAA title. But entering the Cal State L.A. series, the Toros were in a tailspin, having lost 10 straight conference games.

“It’s been a matter of no consistency on this team,” Conner said. “You hear a lot about our lack of pitching, but the fact is, when the pitchers went out and did well, the hitting let this team down.”

Conner’s record-setting performance, which ended a week ago when he lined out three times at Cal State Northridge, has stood out despite the losing streak, Wing said. The streak might have been even longer had Conner not missed four games with a chipped bone in his left wrist, sustained in a rundown in a game against Cal State Long Beach.

“I’m still not quite there yet,” Conner said of his recovery, which included a week wearing a cast. “Before the injury, I felt like no pitcher could get me out. Now I miss some (pitches).”

Wing said Conner has still been a force at the plate.

“To be honest, he’s only half what he was before,” the coach said. “He may not be driving the ball like he was, but he still hits the ball with pop to all fields.”

Wing has been a bit irritated lately by some of the things he has read and heard about his team’s performance.

“Darrell’s performance has been overlooked and neglected,” Wing said. “Everybody--the media, fans, and everyone else--has harped on our won-loss record. We have not won on a consistent basis, and because of that he has been overlooked.”

Unlike the rest of the team, Conner has been consistent.

“What I like about Darrell is his stable personality,” Wing said. “He is consistent in everything he does. He comes to practice with the same attitude that he comes to play with.”

Added assistant coach Eric Mihkelson, who calls the offensive signals for the Toros: “He has such good work habits. I wish I had a lot more players like him.”

Conner was an outfielder at Orange Coast and at Riverside Poly High School, where he was named most valuable player in the Citrus Belt League three consecutive years.

Wing recruited him to play first base because he thought Conner was too slow to be a college outfielder. In addition, the Toros were well fixed in the outfield.

Conner didn’t mind the switch, but during winter ball the Toros lost their projected third baseman when he quit following a run-in with Wing. Conner moved across the diamond to third as the season began, but he never got comfortable there. After about a dozen starts at the corner, and nine errors, it became clear to both Conner and Wing that the switch wasn’t working.

“I would get my hits and my runs batted in, but then I was giving up a lot of runs at third base,” Conner said.

Since moving to first base, Conner has committed only two errors.

As for the team’s poor showing, Conner isn’t defensive.

“It’s frustrating to all of us,” he said. “Every guy out there is busting his butt to win.”

Conner would like to play in the Cape Cod League this summer, where aluminum bats are forbidden. The clinks, then, would be replaced by cracks of bat on ball.

A hit is a hit to Conner, no matter what the sound.