Paul McDaniels, Millennium Hall of Fame

Those in the baseball industry are always talking about “making

adjustments,” an old cliche, perhaps, but also the epitome of one’s

survival in the game.

The higher up the ladder, the more scrutinized each pitch becomes.

Swings become smoother, infielders snag ground balls deep in the hole and

outfielders dive routinely to make catches.

In the case of Paul McDaniels, a former Boston Red Sox farmhand, he

pulled off an enormous adjustment at a time most scouts and coaches

consider to be the toughest transition period in one’s career -- the next

step after high school.

McDaniels, a standout catcher for Estancia High under Coach Ken

Millard and assistant Paul Troxel, shifted gears upon arriving at Orange

Coast College, where the sons of two ex-major leaguers, Mike Monday and

Dustin Wathan, were in front of him.

“It was a transition out of necessity,” said McDaniels, who realized

the offspring of Rick Monday and John Wathan weren’t in Costa Mesa to sit

on the bench, so he learned to play the outfield, a move that ultimately

advanced his career to the University of San Francisco and two seasons in

the minor leagues.

“It worked out perfectly,” said McDaniels, who played on the last

baseball team coached by Mike Mayne (1992) at OCC, then starred on Coach

John Altobelli’s first team in ‘93, when the Cinderella Pirates reached

the state Final Four and he hit .383 (62 for 162) and scored 52 runs,

both team highs.

Under Mayne, McDaniels said he “went from a child to a man in one

year,” but missed the idea of sitting in a crouch behind the dish,

wigwagging signs to the pitcher.

“You tend to let your mind go in the outfield, but the transition was

a lot easier on my body,” he added. “I didn’t have to soak in a hot tub

and then go ice after every game. My knees felt great and my whole body

felt great.”

A left-handed hitter, McDaniels didn’t follow the textbook plan of

pursuing a pro career after college. Instead, he stayed in school and

finished his finance degree at USF, then worked on the floor of the

Pacific Stock Exchange in downtown San Francisco.

Two years removed from back-to-back selections as an All-West Coast

Conference outfielder at USF, McDaniels was having “a great time, but had

a hole in my heart, because I knew I could still do something really well

and I wasn’t doing it.”

So McDaniels, through his baseball contacts, phoned scouts and rounded

up some informal tryouts. Harry Smith, an Oceanside-based scout for the

Red Sox, bit on McDaniels and signed him in the fall of 1997. By the

following spring he was in Fort Myers, Fla., reporting for duty.

McDaniels made Boston’s Class-A Michigan squad in the Midwest League,

one of baseball’s oldest leagues (established in 1947), but the

curveballs were even more wicked than McDaniels could remember, and by

June 1998, he was sent down to Class-A Lowell in the New York-Penn

League.

That’s where McDaniels enjoyed his minor league experience the most,

playing in a brand new ballpark, Edward Lacheur Park in Lowell, about 20

minutes outside of Boston. It was full almost every night and fans

“treated us like major league players,” said McDaniels, also a former

Estancia basketball standout on the Eagles’ State Division III

championship team under Coach Tim O’Brien in 1991, his senior year.

McDaniels, who batted .260 with a team-leading eight home runs in more

than 150 at-bats for the Lowell Spinners, returned to spring training

with the Red Sox this year. But there wasn’t room for a 26-year-old

outfielder from Class-A ball.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said McDaniels, who has started an e-commerce

business with former Estancia basketball teammate Mike Haas.

“There aren’t enough hours in the day to get done what we need to get

done, but it’s a real exciting time for both of us,” McDaniels said of

the fledgling company called FineSpun Technology in Costa Mesa (available

online at o7 www.finespun.comf7 ).

Winning the state championship in basketball with the guys he grew up

with is atop the highlight list for McDaniels, Estancia’s Athlete of the

Year in 1991, after earning first-team All-Pacific Coast League honors in

two sports.

In baseball, McDaniels batted .384 and .389, respectively, his junior

and senior years to lead the team.

In hoops, he was a three-year starter who switched positions (sound

familiar?) in ’91 from off guard to point guard, while taking on a larger

leadership role. He also played defense against the opposing team’s best

offensive guard.

“He’s got to be the stopper,” O’Brien said of McDaniels in the ’91

postseason.

McDaniels, Haas, Matt Fuerbringer, Torrey Hammond and Son Ly formed

O’Brien’s starting five as the Eagles won the state title.

McDaniels, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame,

celebrating the millennium, said his heart goes out to the families of

Troxel and Billy Nguyen, both of whom died this year and touched

McDaniels’ life.