Royster pleased with Stars’ season

Monday, Sept. 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

In his first season as manager of the Las Vegas Stars, Jerry Royster often stated that sending players to the major leagues was his top priority; winning games and minor-league championships was secondary, at best.

Royster succeeded in getting 10 players prepared to join the parent San Diego Padres during the course of the season and, on that count, his inaugural campaign in Las Vegas was a successful one.

But the veteran-laden team that the Padres put in Las Vegas fell woefully short of expectations. After struggling to a disappointing 31-37 mark in a weak division in the first half, the Stars turned it around and won the second half with a 42-30 record. But the team that was favored to win the Pacific Coast League title as the postseason began was unceremoniously dismissed from the playoffs -- in three games, no less -- by the Phoenix Firebirds.

From the beginning of the season, the Stars belied their veteran stature by repeatedly committing sophomoric fundamental mistakes and failing to advance runners on offense. Las Vegas hit only .258 with runners in scoring position and a paltry .224 in the same situation with two outs.

"Our execution on offense hurt us all year," Royster conceded of a Stars team that was last in the league in hitting (.264) and runs scored (654). "We've been doing it on pitching and defense all year."

It speaks volumes that the Stars' Most Valuable Player, as voted by the fans and media, was shortstop Rico Rossy -- who hit .252 and drove in 35 runs.

Although Royster was once quoted as saying his team "overachieved" in winning 73 games this season, the Stars had plenty of underachievers. After leading the PCL in hitting last season with a .348 average, outfielder Riccardo Ingram struggled to keep his average above .200 for most of the season before finishing at .249. Rossy, a .300 hitter in 1995, flirted with the .220 mark before a strong finish.

Despite posting one of the best earned-run averages (4.62) in franchise history, the Stars' pitching staff was not without its share of disappointments. Andres Berumen, who spent the majority of last season in the major leagues with the Padres, struggled with his control all year. The right-handed reliever finished with a 4-7 mark, a 6.11 ERA and walked 58 batters and allowed 73 hits in 70 2/3 innings.

Left-handed starter Glenn Dishman, who dominated PCL hitters last season (6-3, 2.55) before being promoted to San Diego, struggled during the first half of this season and finished with a 6-8 mark and a 5.57 ERA. Veterans Scott Lewis (3-9, 5.34, 22 home runs allowed) and Russ Swan (5-6, 5.08, 17 home runs allowed) also fell short of preseason expectations.

Nevertheless, Royster had nothing but praise for his players, whom he credited with sticking together after the May 26 death of third baseman and team leader Mike Sharperson in a single-car traffic accident the night he was called up by the Padres.

"We weren't the best pitching team, we weren't the best hitting team, we weren't the best fielding team, but the one thing we did do was we pulled together all the time and it made it easy for me," Royster said.

"The character of the team stands out more than any I've ever been associated with -- it's easily the top of the line. I usually don't associate character to a team, except for what this team went through early in the season and had to overcome and -- without overcoming it -- were able to go out and do the things that they did. It's a tribute to the kind of players that the Padres put on the field here."

Royster also was full of praise for first baseman Jason Thompson and catcher Sean Mulligan -- two young players who made strides during the season and received September promotions to the Padres -- and veterans such as Doug Dascenzo, Mike Oquist, Pete Walker, Al Osuna and Jim Tatum, who revitalized their careers with the Stars.

"That was huge for me," Royster said of the players he helped return to the major leagues or get there for the first time. "Winning is for the fans and the playoffs are for the fans. We had some big victories and some bad losses, but these guys' futures are way, way up on my list of priorities."

Not even a surprising three-game sweep by a young Phoenix team in the Southern Division Championship Series could diminish, in Royster's eyes, what he said the Stars accomplished this season.

"This has nothing really to do with the season we had," Royster said of the first-round playoff loss. "I would like to have won the Pacific Coast League championship, but it's irrelevant to what this team has accomplished -- very irrelevant.

"If we had not even gotten in the playoffs, this team accomplished an awful lot and was able to do some things that I don't think a lot of teams would be able to do."