Americans in Paris Plan to Teach National Pastime to the French

In the best tradition of (Swordless) Marquis de Lafayette, (Lefty) Mitterrand and Napoleon (Pee Wee) Bonaparte, the French are playing baseball, and a Valley-area-based team has gone to Paris to help them do it better.

The West Coast Baseball School, located in Agoura Hills, is one of the sponsors of a squad that left Thursday for a two-week trip to Paris. The team will help the French senior national team prepare for the upcoming European championships, which will be held in Paris the first 10 days of September.

According to comedian Steve Martin, the French language has a different word for everything, but the French word for baseball is, not surprisingly, baseball. The U. S. players will try not to lose anything in the translation.

While coaches and players spout the standard pre-international competition lines about “cultural experiences,” “educational opportunities” and “mutual understanding,” outfielder Doug Rich of Thousand Oaks spoke for his teammates when he said: “They kind of feel we’re going to overpower them. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”

With baseball due to become an official Olympic sport in the 1992 Games, interest has been rising throughout the world. The French, who did not compete in either the 1984 or 1988 Olympic baseball exhibitions, are looking for a little Yankee ingenuity to help them in the European championships.

Much of what the U. S. players will be doing, though, will be on the order of teaching the French the difference between a two-bagger and a baguette.

“We’re going to go there and teach them the manners and the etiquette,” said Manager Bryan Maloney, a coach at the baseball school and a Thousand Oaks resident. “We’re just going over there with a few plays that they may be behind in doing.”

The U. S. team has been formed under the aegis of International Sports Group, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that fosters international athletic competition. The 16-player U. S. roster is composed mainly of high school seniors and college freshmen and sophomores, many of whom have Valley-area connections.

Two Westlake High players, second baseman Tim Falsken and pitcher Joe Orlando, and Crescenta Valley High first baseman Eric Berger are among the four high school players on the squad. Cal State Northridge third baseman Denny Vigo, Camarillo’s Chris Sorich, who plays for Ventura College, and Mike Kissick of Thousand Oaks, who pitched for Santa Barbara College, also will be taking round-trippers to Paris.

The U. S. and French teams likely will scrimmage and drill together, although the exact composition of the workouts will be at the French team’s discretion. The U. S. players will be looking to impress not only the French but also their coaches, Maloney and Mitch Miller, both of whom are scouts for the Kansas City Royals.

“We have a few players that are very intense about going over there and doing well,” Maloney said. “Some are using it for experience and others are looking at it as a vacation before going back to school.”

Maloney and Miller recruited the players in the course of their scouting duties, and in some ways the trip is an extended professional tryout.

“It’s an opportunity for them to get familiar with us and among each other,” Maloney said. “The players that are going over there we’re really going to bear down on next year.”

Of course, all play and no sightseeing makes Jacques a dull boy, and the players also plan to sample the enticements of Paris. It is the first trip to the City of Light for most. They’ll be singing “Take me out to the Louvre” and soaking up the nascent French baseball tradition.

Chances are, though, they probably won’t hear about Marie (The Splendid Splinter) Antoinette.