Tuesday, April 27, 2004 | 9:16 a.m.
Dissolving algae from the murky lakes and ponds of some of the region's finer country clubs has been easier for Rollie Fingers than getting a chance to fix what ails certain big league pitchers.
Substrates Technology, the enzyme firm that friends urged the Hall of Fame closer to join six months ago, has been a resounding success. Oasis Country Club in Mesquite now sparkles, which might spark a wave of calls to Substrates.
There have been no calls, however, from the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres or Milwaukee Brewers, for whom Fingers played during his 17-year career, to the Fingers household at the very south end of The Strip.
Fingers would like to offer his services in spring training, helping rough, young pitchers with their deliveries and mental approaches.
"I'm a little disappointed that (they) haven't called," Fingers said. "That has never happened, so I'm not going to call them up. I don't think it's my place to call them up. If they wanted to call me, I would probably say OK. I'd come down."
He nearly went down to Wilson Stadium to speak with UNLV's players, after having a pleasant lunch with then-coach Jim Schlossnagle last season, but Schlossnagle left for Texas Christian University.
"You can't help but learn from a guy with that much experience," Schlossnagle said Monday from Fort Worth, Texas. "You want to get your pitchers to learn how to trust their stuff, and when it comes from a guy who has as much credibility as he does ... "
Fingers hasn't heard from new UNLV coach Buddy Gouldsmith, but Gouldsmith said that's not by design. He doesn't have a phone number for one of the game's legendary relief figures.
Gouldsmith is not only open to having Fingers speak to his players, and perhaps teach his pitchers a thing or two, but he envisions an even grander occasion when Rebels assistant coach Chad Sutter's father is in town.
Bruce Sutter's nasty split-fingered fastball helped him earn the Cy Young Award, as a closer, in 1979, and he saved 300 games in a 12-year career.
Fingers, who earned 341 saves and was a prominent part of Oakland's string of World Series championships from 1972-74, became the first reliever to win the American League MVP Award in '81.
"Seflishly, because I know they haven't talked, when (Sutter) is in town I would love to hook those two guys up," Gouldsmith said. "I don't like to bother people ... but anytime you have someone like that in your community, who could have an impact, you want to befriend them."
A Las Vegas resident for seven years, Fingers, 57, still has his dapper handlebar mustache and a competitive drive, which he displays in about a dozen celebrity golf tournaments a year. He is a 5 handicap.
"The mental juices are always there," he said. "And people always want to know if I can still throw a baseball. I say, 'Yeah, I throw as hard. It just doesn't get there as fast.' "
Between his golfing endeavors, his limited partnership in the Trophies restaurant chain and his new family -- he has a 16-month-old boy and a new baby is on the way -- Fingers has little free time.
Plus, the Substrates enzyme, which Fingers and his partners import from South Africa, has had astonishing results. It eats algae as it oxygenates water, turning a non-aerobic environment into an aerobic one.
Big Horn in Palm Springs is interested, Fingers said, as is Shadow Creek, Bali Hai and Cascata in the Las Vegas area. At Oasis, Fingers said, a 4-million gallon lake is now crystal clear.
"You could almost walk across that lake on algae," he said. "Within six weeks, the algae was gone. They're looking at clubs and balls at the bottom of a lake they haven't seen in seven years.
"I can open doors at golf courses because a lot of people know who I am, and I work with the maintenance people at each course. It's a pretty neat product."
When he finally sat for a spell Saturday, at a Stardust autograph show sponsored by Rick Nara's memorabilia company Play Ball, Fingers did not temper his feelings about the state of the game in the majors.
"Right now," he said, "the pitching in the big leagues absolutely stinks."
Fingers said he has a tough time just watching an inning or two.
"I watch a couple of innings, then I'll see pitchers make so many mistakes that I just get upset and turn the TV set off," he said. "I just think they need to think a little bit more on the mound.
"You see the box scores and you see (earned-run averages) of 8, 9, 7 ... you know, 12. If I had a 3.00 ERA, I was worried about making the ballclub the next year."
Half of Monday morning's boxes revealed ERAs of 15, 13 and 12, a 9, two 7s and a half a dozen 6s. Over a 13-year stretch of his career, Fingers had an ERA below 3.00 in 12 seasons.
He had few dreams of baseball stardom at Upland High in Southern California, where he failed to make the team as a junior. Then, as a senior, he made the team and threw a shutout at Pasadena High.
A Minnesota Twins scout approached him afterward and asked Fingers if he ever thought about a career in baseball. "Not until you just said it," he said.
That summer, Fingers led his American Legion team, Post 73, to a national title in Little Rock, Ark. He went the distance for the victory in the finale, and he remembers 13 or 14 scouts talking to him in the ensuing days.
Three weeks later, a scout for flamboyant Oakland owner Charlie Finley watched Fingers throw. On Christmas Eve 1964, he signed with the A's for $13,000. He gave $3,000 to his father and surprised his mother with a new sewing machine.
"They were happy campers," Fingers said. "I bought myself a '56 Chevy and I was a happy camper, too."
He was in the big leagues four years later. And four years after that, he started growing his Salvador Dali-like mustache when Finley offered $300 bonuses to the players who could grow one by Father's Day.
Fingers wanted to be different, so he curled the ends of his mustache. The A's won the World Series that 1972 season. Then they won it again, and again.
"Baseball players are the most superstitious animals in the world, so after the world championship I had to keep it," he said. "That's the only reason why I kept it. My dad thought it was goofy looking, but he got used to it.
"I nearly had the razor to it a couple of times, but I couldn't cut it off. It takes a couple of seconds in the morning to put the wax on, and it comes right off with water at night. Any more difficult and I wouldn't do it."
Pitching with the Fingers name on the back of a uniform presents its own special challenges, which Jason, 25, and Koury, 18, have experienced.
Jason Fingers was drafted by the Kansas City Royals, but shoulder surgery ended his career in the minors. Koury Fingers, a senior at Coronado High, is not playing baseball this season because of academic problems.
"He has a chance to play summer ball and maybe someone will see him. He's 6-5 and throws pretty good," Fingers said. "Everyone expects, because your name is Fingers, you're supposed to be great. (Jason) had that stigma, but he handled it well.
"I drug him off to the side and said, 'Don't worry about the last name. Do your best and see how the cards lay. I don't expect you to go to the Hall of Fame.' "
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