Irish Bats Are Smiling -- Peppery O'dea Stalks Metro AA Baseball Crown

The O'Dea baseball team has concocted its own brand of pepper. It's called ``Kingpin.''

Baseball's version of calisthenics has a life of its own on the red clay of O'Dea's inner-city baseball diamond. Kingpin Pepper is played with two batters, not one. And everybody gets in line.

``They're weird. They get into it,'' O'Dea baseball Coach Mark Zender said. ``Most people use it as a time-killer. We've been going a half-hour now. They're pretty loosey-goosey about it.''

There are a few extra rules to Kingpin Pepper. Catch the ball, and the batter is out. Swing and miss, and he's out. Foul it back, and he's out. He goes to the end of the line. Misfield a ball and the fielder goes to the end of the line.

Any way you look at it, you don't want to go to the end of the line. You want to be the Kingpin.

``Pepper's pretty fun,'' senior shortstop Matt Sly said. ``We've been playing this game for a long time.''

The mood is apparent. Wisecracks are being flipped as often as gloves.

The only game that beats Kingpin is dunk-hoops at Zender's house.

``We eat hot dogs and play two-on-two on this short hoop,'' Sly said. ``That's one of the highlights of the season.''

The Fighting Irish seem to have a good thing going. Following a somewhat maladjusted season of less-than-average morale and some in-fighting, the Irish are smiling.

``There were guys who didn't want to play together last year,'' Sly said. ``There was a lot of selfish play. We lost a couple games that way. This year we're much more of a team.''

This year the Irish are on a belated quest to win back the Metro AA league championship they won two years ago, when today's seniors were sophomores. When they were juniors, last season, O'Dea finished third with a 16-6 record.

``I think there are a lot of people wondering how hungry we are, whether we really want it,'' senior outfielder Kevin Palmore said. ``We got the football and basketball teams, it's easy to think, `Who cares about baseball . . . it's spring and it's nice outside.' But we want to win the Metro season. We want it back.''

Last year the Irish, who open their season Monday against Hale, lost their first two games, one of them to Hale. O'Dea eventually hit a win streak of 12 games, but finished the season with a loss to Seattle Prep in the Metro AA playoffs.

``We kind of expected to win,'' Palmore said. ``We really didn't work as hard.''

Most of the coaches are predicting this season's title will go to either Seattle Prep or O'Dea. Zender prefers Prep.

``If I had to pick any one team, it has to be Prep by far,'' Zender said.

What the Irish have is experience. Seven starters and three part-time starters return, including their ace pitcher, Joe Kulgren. The right-handed senior was 10-1 as a sophomore and 7-3 as a junior, a dropoff due largely to the fact that he was used in all the big games.

Kulgren will head a rotation that likely will include sophomore Nathan Hacker (who shut out West Seattle 6-0 in a two-inning jamboree earlier this month) and junior David Klinkenberg.

Kulgren was the only senior who declined an interview, which surprised even his coach.

``He doesn't like to be in the limelight,'' said Sly, his best friend. ``I do the screaming and the yelling, but Joe's the one everybody looks up to.''

Said Palmore: ``He just likes to get on the baseball field. He wants to be on the mound in the bottom of the ninth, in a 3-2 game, with a man on first and the No. 4 hitter up.''

Kulgren will be the key for the Irish, whose best finish ever was a semifinal appearance in the 1987 state tournament. Last year, Prep beat O'Dea 6-2 in the league playoffs, preventing the Irish from going to district.

Of all the players questioned, that is the game they all want back. Prep also won a regular-season game, 2-1. Led by Joe Trippy, the Panthers have become O'Dea's nemesis lately. Ironically many of the O'Dea players and Seattle Prep players are teammates during the summer.

Zender said the team's strength will be its defense. Sly anchors the infield. Senior Jason McGinn plays first, sophomore Daren Masanda second and junior Marc Bailly third.

Masanda, whom Sly called the best hitter on the team, will bat leadoff. Sly will hit second. Who will man the next two spots is unclear. Palmore, McGinn and seniors Pete Agostino and Grant Kummerow are all capable.

What stands out about O'Dea is that nobody stands out.

``We'd like to send three or four guys up to the plate, and just let them hit, without bunting or pulling tricks,'' Zender said. ``But I don't know if we can do that.

``We're not a big offensive team. What we have are a bunch of good hitters who can do well on any given day, but can also not do well on any given day.''