UCLA’s McGuire Learns Olympian Lesson : College baseball: Being cut from U.S. team shows first baseman that success isn’t automatic, and Bruins benefit.

Ryan McGuire hoped for a gold medal, some playing time or, at the very least, a trip to Barcelona when he advanced to the final stage of tryouts for the U.S. Olympic baseball team last summer.

What he got, after becoming the last player cut, was an Olympic-sized dose of humility.

“In Little League, high school and college, if you’re one of the better guys, you never run into adversity,” McGuire said. “You’re always the guy they want to have on the team. You’re never the last guy cut.

“What happened to me puts things in a different light.”

The quietly confident McGuire might have been humbled, but he also appears to have been inspired by the disappointment. He opened his junior season regarded as college baseball’s best first baseman and has done nothing but improve his stock with professional scouts as it has unfolded.

He is batting .377 with 18 home runs in 43 games. McGuire, who bats and throws left-handed, also has 64 runs batted in for a UCLA team that is 25-18 overall, 13-11 in the Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division and challenging for a berth in the NCAA playoffs.

“Usually, players tabbed as the best before the season fail to live up to expectations,” UCLA Coach Gary Adams said. “That hasn’t been the case with Ryan. He’s lived up to the hype.”

McGuire, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound redhead, is the latest in a growing line of outstanding UCLA first basemen. Eric Karros of the Dodgers, the 1992 National League rookie of the year, was selected in the sixth round of the 1988 draft. Chris Pritchett was a second-round pick by the Angels in 1991.

UCLA has more former players in the major leagues than any other school in the nation, a distinction not lost on critics who say Adams fails to get everything out of his players while they are in Westwood. UCLA made its only College World Series appearance in 1969.

McGuire, however, said his performance this season is related directly to the instructional philosophy at UCLA.

“The coaches here let us play and develop,” McGuire said. “At other schools, coaches call the pitches, and the players look like clones. One through nine in the lineup all hit exactly the same way.

“Here, our catchers call their pitches, and hitters have their own swings. Of course, the more leeway coaches give you, the more mistakes you’re going to make. That’s part of growing up. If they took a stronger hand, we might win a few more games, but that infringes on everyone’s development.”

A history major, McGuire has improved steadily since arriving from El Camino Real High in Woodland Hills, where he batted .375 and, as a pitcher, compiled a 7-1 record and 1.91 earned-run average his senior year, striking out 20 in one seven-inning game.

McGuire was not drafted because scouts questioned his power and speed and wondered if he had already peaked.

As a UCLA freshman, he was used mainly as a designated hitter and reserve first baseman. He batted .319 with seven homers and 30 RBIs in 51 games. The Bruins finished that season 29-30 and 13-17 in the Pac-10, despite having 10 players drafted after the season.

“That season turned into sort of a fiasco because we had so many talented guys who were in their draft year,” McGuire said. “I accomplished a lot more than I ever thought I would. But I really wasn’t sure if my first year was lucky, or if I was successful because I was able to hide out behind other people in the lineup.”

Last season, McGuire confirmed his status by hitting .316 in 63 games and leading the team with 14 homers, 61 RBIs, 19 doubles, 56 runs and 48 walks. UCLA finished 37-26, losing to Oklahoma in the championship game of the Mideast Regional at Starkville, Miss., 10-0.

His performance attracted the interest of Team USA Coach Ron Fraser. McGuire had not been among the players invited to a pre-tryout camp in Homestead, Fla., in November 1991, but he was summoned to Millington, Tenn., for the regular trials. “I was pretty scared and nervous when I first got there,” McGuire said. “I was trying to be realistic. I didn’t think I had much of a chance.”

But McGuire’s confidence grew with impressive displays in the field and at the plate during intrasquad games and exhibitions against Venezuela. He was the top candidate for the starting job at first base before a key exhibition series against Cuba in Havana--a series McGuire called a disaster.

In the opener, he was hitless in four at-bats, with three strikeouts. In the second game, he went 0 for 4 again and was stung by a bee. He did not play in the series finale and was used as a late-inning replacement in exhibitions at Denver and Minneapolis before he was released.

McGuire was not sure what stung more, being cut on the eve of the Olympics or answering questions about the bee that reportedly rendered him ineffective.

“When I got home and read the paper, it was kind of embarrassing,” McGuire said. “People were saying, ‘Boy, that must have been a tough break, getting stung by a bee.’ I was thinking to myself, ‘They must think I’m a real tough guy to let something like that keep me out of the Olympics.’

“Going 0 for 8 against the best team in the world left a lot of question marks in the coaches’ minds. . . . I was bitter and upset at first, but you’ve got to do what you have to do. I would have loved to be in their plans, but I wasn’t.”

Team USA finished fourth at Barcelona, behind Cuba, Taiwan and Japan. Meanwhile, McGuire went to Alaska for another summer of collegiate competition.

“It was kind of hard to get motivated at first,” he said. “One day you’re thinking about playing in the Olympics and going to Barcelona with Carl Lewis and the Dream Team, then all of sudden you’re back in the same place you were last year.”

McGuire returned to UCLA, intent on leading the Bruins to the World Series. He was batting only .212 with one homer and three RBIs through nine games before going 13 for 20 with eight homers and 22 RBIs during a four-game stretch against Loyola Marymount and Arizona.

He has maintained that level throughout the season in what is generally regarded as the nation’s best conference. “Against us, he’s Lou Gehrig,” USC Coach Mike Gillespie said. “He’s workmanlike and unselfish, and he hits everything we throw up there.”

McGuire will get his chance to follow in the footsteps of Karros and other Bruin alumni in the major leagues when the amateur draft is conducted June 3-5.