Columnist Ron Kantowski: Talkin’ baseball in Las Vegas

Thursday, June 5, 2003 | 10:20 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If this keeps up, the chamber of commerce is going to have to add "peanuts and Crackerjack" to the many things for which Las Vegas is known.

Perhaps a little tobacco juice has gotten into our water system, because the way things have been going on the baseball diamond around here, you would think ol' Abner Doubleday drew up the game on a cocktail napkin during a lounge act.

After all, most historians agree that Doubleday was nowhere near Cooperstown, N.Y., when the game was said to be invented in 1839, and places like the Horseshoe and the Castaways sure smell like they've been around at least that long.

In reality, Las Vegas' reputation as a burgeoning baseball city is a recent development, but it sure received a boost over the weekend when still newborn Community College of Southern Nevada stormed through the losers' bracket (which should now be renamed) to win the national junior college championship in Colorado.

In their four-year existence, the Coyotes are 196-46, and now that they've beaten up on the best teams in the nation, any asterisks about the strength of their schedule have to be ignored like an 0-2 waste pitch.

Not only has CCSN won and won big, it has done it with local players. Sixteen of the 25 on this year's roster played high school ball right here in Southern Nevada.

While the Coyotes certainly deserve top billing, theirs isn't the only name on the marquee around here. To wit:

Who knows? If starting pitcher Matt Luca's tendinitis doesn't flare up in the first inning the night before and had the NCAA baseball committee been introduced to the novel concept of a postseason "off" day, perhaps the Rebels only lose 6-1 to the Sun Devils instead of 16-1.

Regardless, UNLV is making huge strides under Jim Schlossnagle, its enthusiastic second-year coach, who also has discovered the value of having local players. Exactly half of the Rebels' postseason roster -- 15 of 30 players -- was homegrown.

Granted, former Rebels star Matt Williams was cut by the Diamondbacks over the weekend. But he's 37. Although so is Las Vegas-bred Greg Maddux, and he's still getting guys out with that sneaky changeup on his way to the Hall of Fame.

"Per capita, we've had a lot of kids come out of here and play professionally," said longtime 51s president and general manager Don Logan, who, no surprise, also learned the fundamentals here (actually, near here, as he grew up in Tonopah).

Logan said big league stars such as Maddux and Williams helped put Las Vegas on the baseball map.

"Then you've got the weather, and guys like (former Las Vegas Stars) Mike Martin and Jerry DeSimone, who started the Las Vegas Baseball Academy. Then there's (CCSN coach Tim) Chambers, who has done a great job, Nick Garritano, who does a great job over at Green Valley and Schlossnagle -- he's gonna get it done, you can tell."

Logan also mentioned their predecessors, men such as former UNLV coach Fred Dallimore; Rodger Fairless, who coached Maddux and former first-round draft pick Tyler Houston at Valley High; and Guy Hansen, the pitching guru whose clinic in Las Vegas attracts participants from all over the country.

It's a cliche, but Logan said you can't underestimate the generous act of "giving back to the community," as those guys have done.

Of course, a few more titles like the one CCSN earned over the weekend will only confirm what baseball men like Logan have maintained all along:

That when it comes to hitting the cutoff man, Las Vegas is getting pretty darn good.