| THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER | FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1998 |
Major League Talent?
BY JOHN ERARDI
Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Wes Parker, Maury Wills, Ron Fairly, Willie Davis and Tommy Davis played for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
And, to the north, in San Francisco, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Jim Ray Hart, and Tito Fuentes and Gaylord Perry, played for the Giants.
Oh, to be young and a major-league baseball player.
Which is exactly what Anthony Munoz wanted to be.
In the summer, from the time he got up in the morning, to the time he went to bed at night, there was nothing Anthony Munoz thought about more about than baseball.
It remained true through his high school years, up until he was a junior in college at the University of Southern California, where he played some baseball for legendary USC coach Rod Dedeaux.
How good was Munoz?
"He was a major-league pitching prospect," Dedeaux said. "He had a major-league arm. And one thing¹s for sure: When Anthony pitched for us, never once did anybody charge the mound."
Munoz's first recollections of playing baseball begin at 6 years old. Two years later, he got involved in organized baseball practices -- and couldn't get enough of them.
"I was 8 years old, and my brother Tom was on a Little League team," Munoz recalled. "Back then, they automatically put siblings on the same team. But you started at age 9 -- it was 9-12 -- so I still had a year to go. I would go to just about every practice with Tom.
"And the whole first part of practice was batting practice. . . . So, I'd get my glove, sit myself on third base, and the whole time they took batting practice I would play third base because I knew that next year I was going to be the starting third baseman for that team. Sure enough, I was.
"Even before then I would have started. I was playing with them the whole time as a kid, playing with kids much older; I realized it was a gift, that I was very talented in baseball. And I loved it."
At Chaffey High School, Munoz was known primarily as a baseball player, even though he played football.
"He played football, but only because he was 6-foot-7 and 295 pounds," said Mike Alonso, who was the assistant coach at Chaffey. "I mean, if you're that big, you're going to be on the football team. But Anthony was a baseball player. Baseball was his love, what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a professional baseball player.
"As a pitcher, he threw the ball 88 to 90 miles an hour, and as a hitter, he hit the ball a long way. He was one heck of a third baseman, very agile. Great reaction time, nimble on his feet and that strong arm."
Jim Semon, who was the head coach at Chaffey, recalls Anthony's first season -- his sophomore year -- on the varsity.
"We were playing in the CIF (California International Federation) tournament, 4A, the top bracket," Seamon recalled. "We were playing a parochial school, Mater Dei. The first time up, Anthony hit a ball about 10 feet off the ground to left-center that went over a wide-open field, across the track and football field and hit a fence on the other side. Anthony was already in the dugout before the outfielders even got to the ball.
"The umpire was a Pac 10 (university) ump and he said it the hardest hit ball he'd ever seen."
Semon and Alonso both recalled the night Munoz hit a pitch more than 500 feet. The game was on a ball diamond that was end-to-end with another ball diamond beyond the outfield.
"The ball Anthony hit went over the center fielder's head in our game, over the center fielder's head in the other game and landed on the infield between second base and the pitcher's mound," Semon said. "Anthony's next time up, the center fielder in our game backed up so deep he was just beyond second base in the other game, and Anthony hit a fly ball about 450 feet that the guy caught."
As strong as Munoz was as a hitter -- in batting practice, he regularly hit the ball over the tennis courts' fence that was 430 feet from home plate -- it wasn't as though he was Babe Ruth, Alonso said.
"You could get him out if you threw it in the right place," Alonso said. "But, my gosh, as a pitcher, he was something else. He hadn't even grown into his body yet, but he was throwing the ball 88 to 90 miles an hour! He was very intimidating."
One time, Munoz brushed back an opposing batter named Ronnie Lott -- later to become an NFL great, himself -- and Lott charged the mound. Well, he charged part way to the mound. Munoz had come down from the mound to meet the charge. Both young men immediately thought better of it and the game resumed.
"The only reason Anthony didn't get drafted out of high school (by a major league organization) is because they all knew he was going to USC to play football," said Semon, who pitched for USC's 1961 national championship team.
"I remember talking with Larry Maxie, who pitched for the Atlanta Braves and at the time was head of the Major League Scouting Bureau. He said, ŒIs it going to hurt his feelings that he's not drafted?' I said, ŒIt's gonna kill him. He's a baseball player. He loves the game. He'd love to see his name in the paper.' So, Larry talked with Anthony, explained it to him, and that was that."
But USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux didn't give up on Munoz just because Munoz was going to play football at USC.
Baseball's a big deal at USC. Outstanding high school baseball players are urged to play both sports if they feel up to it. USC running back great Mike Garrett played shortstop for the Trojans and was a major-league prospect. Fred Lynn, who would go on to become an outstanding major-league baseball player, went to USC on a football scholarship.
Dedeaux knew that Munoz was being scouted by USC football coach John Robinson.
"In fact, John and I drove over to Ontario together one day to pick up Anthony to bring him to USC, and John popped the Trojan fight song into the tape layer," said Dedeaux, laughing. "Anthony later told us that was a moment he never forgot."
Dedeaux never forgot a game USC was playing against the University of Texas in Austin one day in 1978, a season in which USC would go on to win the national championship.
"They had a pretty wild crowd down there in Austin," Dedeaux recalled. "They'd get on the opposition pretty good. Back then, the designated hitter rule was just coming in. The crowd wanted to know if Anthony was our Œdesignated elephant.' He got a good laugh out of that."
Dedeaux also remembers the day he heard two of his players talking about this huge, young Trojan baseball player named Anthony.
"How come he goes by his full name?" one player asked the other.
"Because Anthony is what he wants to be called," said the other. "You want to be the one to tell him he should go by Tony?"
Munoz never forgot the day USC pitching coach Marcel Lachemann -- now the pitching coach for the California Angels -- taught him to throw a slider and change-up.
"I'm thinking now, man, this is great!" Munoz recalled. "My speed increased and my control had gotten so much better. I was thinking, ŒEven though I'm on a football scholarship maybe I can take this a little further.' "
It never worked out that way, and nobody wishes now that it had.
But there are days when everybody -- Semon, Alonso, Lachemann, Dedeaux and Munoz himself -- wonder.
"I've talked to Anthony about baseball and what it meant to him, if anything, in football," Alonso said. "He told me the quick hand movements required at third base, and the athleticism required of a shortstop -- which was his position up until he got to high school -- made him a better football player. Let's face it: nobody had better footwork or better hands as an offensive lineman than Anthony, and hands and footwork is very important in baseball. It had to help.
"One thing you have to say about Anthony as a football player is that he was in tune with his body. . . . He was strong, but he had technique. And he had great balance. He knew the importance of balance as a hitter, and he knowed the importance of getting guys off balance as a pitcher."
What might have been if Munoz wasn't so good at football?
"I probably wouldn't have as many scars on my body if I made it in baseball," said Munoz, laughing. ŒI think about (what might have been) at times, sure. But I'm happy with what I did."
Good as he was at baseball, he probably wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer. Playing baseball at USC gave him a taste of that.
"I'll never forget the first home run I gave up to some guy from Cal-Berkeley," Munoz said. "It went out so fast. I had never experienced that sensation. It was like the first time in the NFL and Selmon or Dean is running around you so fast."
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