UCLA’s Ace Won’t Get Call in the Draft

Once in a while, you run across a young ballplayer who is too unreal to be true. A whirlwind. A natural. A “phenom,� as they used to say. Someone with the sizzle of Sandy Koufax, the dazzle of Fernando Valenzuela and the ability to inspire complete and utter disbelief, like someone out of fiction, a Roy Hobbs, a Joe Hardy, a Sidd Finch.

Here is such a person.

A pitcher.

A pitcher worth a thousand words.

Twenty-one years old. Born and raised in California. Not terribly tall--5 feet 6. But fast. Plenty fast. With the numbers to prove it. Preposterous numbers. Numbers that would make a talent scout’s eyeballs spin like cherries in a Vegas slot machine. Numbers that would make Tom Lasorda burp up his chocolate milk shake. Numbers that would make Roger Clemens feel like a rag-arm.

High school numbers: 69 shutouts, 80 victories, 1,503 strikeouts, 12 perfect games, 37 no-hitters, 29 one-hitters. Not to mention an earned-run average that was more like James Bond’s license to kill: 0.07.

College numbers: This season alone, 29 victories, no defeats, 22 shutouts, 65 consecutive scoreless innings, ERA of 0.14, four runs given up in 196 innings, 220 strikeouts and 25 walks, two wild pitches, one no-hitter and six one-hitters. Oh, not to mention last season’s three no-hitters. Oh, not to mention a batting average of .401.

Wild, right?

I mean, we are talking about one wild pitcher here.

But with the College World Series in progress, don’t bother looking for this pitcher anywhere near Omaha. And when the major leagues conduct their amateur player draft Monday, do you know which team intends to draft this pitcher?

None of them. Not a one.

Which is OK with UCLA’s Lisa Fernandez, because hardball never was her game.

“Somebody was always urging me to try,� she says. “So, one day when I was in high school in Long Beach, one of the boys’ coaches took me out to throw me some.

“He starts throwing me fastballs, right across the plate. And I’m hitting them, no problem.

“But then he starts throwing these big looping curves, right at me. And I go bailing out. They break right across the plate and he’s yelling: ‘Stay in there! Stay in there!’

“So I dig in, and he throws another one right at me. And I stand right in there, and the thing smacks me right in the butt.

“I looked at him and said: ‘Forget this, man.’ �

It returned Fernandez to her true love, softball. She was 8 when she got started. Her father had played the game in Cuba, semi-professionally. And her mother played, too. In Long Beach, after school, Emilia Fernandez played catch with her daughter, same way fathers and sons traditionally do. Played catch for an hour or more. Watched her get faster and faster.

“She started out with a small mitt, then a bigger one, then a bigger one,� Lisa remembers. “The bigger the glove, the faster I got.�

Until?

“Pretty soon she added shinguards.�

By the time Lisa went to St. Joseph High in Lakewood, she was ready. All the hours she had spent practicing, watching other pitchers pitch, studying their deliveries, throwing at stationary targets, it all paid off. She did not make a high school All-American team; she made four of them. Four times, Fernandez was her league’s MVP. Four times, she was voted her school’s athlete of the year.

“Repetition,� she says. “Repetition is everything. If you can throw a ball over the plate nine times out of 10, you’ve got to keep trying for 10 out of 10.�

She went to UCLA. As a freshman, her team won the NCAA championship. Lisa led the Bruins in ERA and was eighth in the Pacific 10 in batting average, also playing third base. She pitched 49 consecutive innings without surrendering a run.

As a sophomore, she was the Pac-10’s player of the year. She won 23 consecutive games over two seasons, an NCAA record. Ran her scoreless-inning streak to 97. Placed second on the team in batting average, homers, doubles and hits. Handled 175 chances at third base without an error.

How to top that? Well, when Fernandez pitched UCLA past Arizona, 2-0, on Memorial Day, it gave her school another national championship. Lisa pitched eight of UCLA’s last 10 games. She won them all. The scores were 7-0, 1-0, 1-0, 7-2, 4-0, 10-0, 4-0 and 2-0.

You would think that by now, Fernandez would be soaking her arm in warm water and Epsom salts, but when we caught up to her Friday, she was in Stratford, Conn., preparing for her third summer season with the Brakettes, one of softball’s top teams. Fernandez is their youngest player and will tour America with them, as well as Japan and China.

And after one more year at UCLA?

“Softball won’t rule my life,� she says. “I’m not going to be 80 years old someday and still out there on the mound.�

But when someone is this good at something, you don’t simply give it up. Fernandez will keep playing for as long as she can, and when she isn’t playing, she intends to coach. Mona Lisa is only a picture. Lisa Fernandez is an artist.