Columnist Dean Juipe: Sanders back to old self with Stars

Dean Juipe

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 9:26 a.m.

HE'S A flamethrower. He's 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds and as the ball travels from his hand to the catcher's mitt it makes a whizzing sound.

It's just that simple: He's a fastball pitcher. It's what Scott Sanders does best.

Yet here he is back in Las Vegas after parts of three seasons in the major leagues. He's back with the triple-A Stars, where he played in 1992, '93 and some of '95, back in front of the fans who saw him set a single-season franchise record with 161 strikeouts five years ago.

"If I had to go back to the minors, I'm glad it's here," he said Thursday. "But I really don't want to stay here too long."

What's he doing here anyway? How is it that a guy with his ability has been traded or released by three major-league teams in as many years, most recently by the Detroit Tigers earlier this month?

Sparky Anderson, the former manager who now serves as a TV analyst for the Anaheim Angels, said Sanders has a simple problem: "He throws the ball over the middle of the plate." The implication: No one, no matter his velocity, can get away with feeding the ball right down the pipe to the world's greatest hitters.

"Yeah, I left a lot of mistakes over the middle of the plate," Sanders agreed. "I'd make bad pitches at bad times."

He's 27-37 in the majors with a 4.77 ERA. His strikeouts-to-innings-pitched ratio is an excellent 517 to 546, yet he also surrendered 529 hits. The Tigers cut him when he opened the season 0-2 with 24 hits allowed in only 11 innings.

But here's the catch: Aside from wanting to keep the ball on the black part of the plate, Sanders just wants to be himself, which is something, he says, he wasn't permitted to do in Detroit.

"They wanted me to be like (Atlanta's) Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine," he said. "I bet I've spent three-quarters of the last year and a half working on mechanical changes that were designed to make me something I'm not.

"I'm a guy with a high leg kick who throws the ball hard. They wanted me to be something else."

He's not a nibbler. While he doesn't want to throw the ball precisely over the center of the plate, he doesn't understand all the tinkering that resulted in him becoming temporarily unemployed.

For better or worse, he wants to "bring it" and the San Diego Padres -- who re-signed him and sent him to Las Vegas -- say they'll let him.

"I feel like I've come home," Sanders said. "I called (San Diego general manager) Kevin Towers the day the Tigers released me and told him 'You know me. You know what I can do.' I told him I lost my job because there were people who tried to change me, and I paid the price trying to make them happy."

Towers was sold on the appeal and Sanders is led to believe if things go well in Las Vegas he'll be summoned by the Padres.

There are two types of pitchers who can count on innumerable second chances: Lefties and hard throwers. While Sanders may not be a southpaw, he qualifies for another look on the strength of his captivating quickness.

If you see him at Cashman Field, don't expect anything fancy -- aside, that is, from the neat trick of making a ball hum after it leaves his hand.