Back in the Swing : Canyons’ Glantz Returns to Baseball After Injury Checks Hockey Career

For a guy who spent many of his formative years being chased out of towns all over North America, John Glantz has surprisingly fond memories of his mercurial days as a high-scoring and highly intimidating junior hockey player.

His reputation was such that, even before the games had started and their sons had yet to be bloodied, parents of opposing players denounced him as a goon. Damned him as a gorilla. No stage in the line of evolution was excluded from reference when the Encino native was on the ice.

“Some of the things that were shouted at him from the stands were unmerciful,” said his father, Fred, who often watched from a corner of the arena so he would be out of earshot. “Once I made the mistake of going to one of his games wearing a jacket with my name on it. I’d never do that again.”

Once, after a tournament in Denver eight years ago, Fred Glantz said that his then 12-year-old son required a police escort from the locker room to the team van after an unruly mob threatened violence.

“They were waiting for him,” Fred Glantz said. “This was not an uncommon occurrence.”

Things are a lot slower and less volatile for John Glantz these days. It’s the nature of baseball, the other sport at which he excelled as a youngster and the one he now plays for College of the Canyons.

Glantz, 20, is a first baseman. And the new position is just one of the changes the former catcher has made since he graduated from Birmingham High in 1986, traded in his skates for spikes and accepted a scholarship to play baseball at Pepperdine.

Two years later, after a less-than-sunny experience in Malibu and an unsuccessful attempt to overcome a knee injury and recapture his form on the ice at Northeastern University in Boston, Glantz feels good again. He has a new, enjoy-the-sport-for-what-it’s-worth attitude and has emerged as a leader on a Cougar team that is 15-3 overall and 10-0 in the Western State Conference.

When Glantz showed up at Canyons in November, Coach Len Mohney didn’t know what to make of the brawny character who was asking for a chance to jump from the penalty box to the batter’s box.

“He’d been away from baseball for quite a while but he has earned his spot,” Mohney said. “He’s not doing that great statistically, but he has a lot of intangible leadership qualities that keep him in the lineup.”

Said Glantz, who is batting .280: “I’m having fun. I’m just now getting back in the groove after two years of not swinging.”

Not swinging a bat, anyway.

Suffice to say, after Glantz gave up hockey the first time, the battles he fought were not solely internal.

“I never got in a fight outside of hockey while I played hockey,” he said. “You come home from a hockey game and you don’t want to look at anybody else. When I quit hockey for two years, I must have had five or 10 fights. You have no where else to expel your aggressions.”

It’s obvious Glantz misses his days as a blade runner. Slapping a tag on baserunners just doesn’t compare with whizzing a slap shot past a goaltender’s ear. In the apartment Glantz shares with pitcher Tim Nedin, the Hockey News is the publication that sits atop a pile of magazines on the coffee table.

“I miss the physical aspect of hockey,” said Glantz, who is a burly 6 feet, 200 pounds. “Running into bodies. Being able to bleed and cut people. It’s hard to explain, but that’s how I play first base. I’m constantly trying to run into somebody.”

From the time he was 4 years old and laced on his first pair of skates, Glantz never went long without finding someone to bounce into. Wearing special ankle supports to keep his big frame balanced, Glantz followed his brother Rob, who is two years older, through junior hockey leagues and on various traveling all-star teams.

“John is one of the best players I have ever coached,” said Russ Wyluda, who has coached a Culver City-based hockey team for 21 years. “He had the physical and mental ability to completely take over a game. He wasn’t fast, but he was quick and he could control the puck with the stick in one hand and fend guys off with his other arm.

“He was big and strong and he was pretty good at intimidating other guys.”

Glantz’s reputation as a scorer and enforcer grew as he moved up through various levels. “Everyone hated us because we were from California,” Glantz said. “They tended to hate me the most. They’d be at the boards during warmups, screaming, ‘Glantz, you’re a goon. You stink.’ Hockey fans are not real pleasant.”

At 15, Glantz took part in a Western Regional Olympic tryout camp in Colorado Springs, Colo. It was becoming apparent that he could pursue a college career in hockey after he graduated from high school.

After his junior year at Birmingham, Glantz accompanied Wyluda and other players to New England for a 10-day tour, during which the players played against teams from eight different prep schools and two universities. The purpose of the annual trip is to expose the players to East Coast prep schools, where they can spend a year honing their skills for the jump to college.

Upon his return, Glantz sent a deposit to a prep school in New Hampshire. “I was going,” he said.

During all the years Glantz was developing his hockey skills, he also played in youth baseball leagues and was becoming a proficient catcher and hitter.

Shortly before he was supposed to depart for prep school in New Hampshire, Glantz saw the light--specifically, those rays generated by the sun. “I’m looking out here at the sunshine,” he said, “and I’m going ‘If I can play college baseball out here, I’ll give up hockey.’ ”

With his skates in the closet, Glantz went on to earn all-league honors in baseball at Birmingham. A hoped-for scholarship to UCLA never materialized, so when Pepperdine offered him a grant, Glantz headed for the beach.

He didn’t stay long enough to get a tan.

“It just wasn’t the right program for me and I think everybody knew it,” said Glantz, who left after a few months. “It was just a matter of not being happy in school. I had to be somewhere else. I don’t know if Boston was the place to go, but I had to go away somewhere and get my head together.”

Before transferring to Northeastern, however, Glantz played on a summer league Palomino team and injured his right knee sliding into third during a playoff game in San Diego. Despite the injury, Glantz arrived at Northeastern prepared to start anew. He played junior varsity hockey, took criminal justice classes and attended Bruin and Red Sox games before returning home to work as an assistant coach for the Palomino team and rest his knee.

When he returned to Boston last fall, however, it was apparent that he wasn’t going to recapture any speed.

“He was a real rugged, tough kid,” Northeastern Coach Fern Flaman said. “He was one step away from being able to play Division I hockey.”

He may, however, be able to play Division I baseball. Glantz said he will think about that once the season has ended.

But like any good hockey player, he’s still looking to score.

“The state title,” Glantz said. “That’s my goal.”