June 18, 2007

Still learning how to pitch
Fullerton's Jeff Kaplan's move to the mound has paid off.
By JANIS CARR
The Orange County Register

OMAHA , Neb. As a child, Jeff Kaplan never dreamed of the day he might pitch a crucial game at the College World Series.

Playing basketball, golf or making a winning play in the outfield filled his youthful dreams.

As years went by, though, Kaplan's goals changed. He put away his basketball, the clubs were saved for weekends, and his outfield glove was set aside the day Cal State Fullerton assistant coach Rick Vanderhook suggested he try pitching.

The rest is a very short story.

Fresh out of high school, Kaplan was participating in a baseball camp when Vanderhook saw him throw from center field and planted an idea in the young player's head.

"He told me that if I wanted to make it in baseball, I should be a pitcher," said Kaplan, a graduate of Dana Hills High.
Vanderhook knew talent when he saw it. Raw talent, though.

Kaplan needed two years at Irvine Valley College to develop his fastball and smooth his herky-jerky delivery, but he has exceeded Vanderhook's and Coach George Horton's expectations in his first season at Cal State Fullerton.

The junior, who is 11-3 with a 3.16 ERA, will be on the mound today as the ninth-ranked Titans (38-24) face fourth-ranked UC Irvine (45-16-1) in a College World Series elimination game at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Kaplan, with plenty of run support, defeated the Anteaters, 10-2, earlier this year at Goodwin Field.

"It's going to be a good thing to face them again because we know what we're up against," Kaplan said after Sunday's practice. "Plus, we know them so well."

Kaplan, who models his game after that of Rich Harden of the Oakland A's, said he looks forward to the pressure that accompanies an elimination game.

"That's going to help me because pressure doesn't bother me so much," he said.

Perhaps that's because he hasn't been in many of these situations. This is just Kaplan's second full season throwing after sitting out the 2005 season at Irvine Valley because of an arm injury. Last season, he posted a 5-5 record with a 2.56 ERA and 100 strikeouts.

"Kaplan has great deception because of how he throws," Horton said. "He is mechanically sound, but he stretches across this body, a kind of El Duqué (New York Mets' Orlando Hernandez) movement. … He throws around the corner, so hitters don't see the ball coming.

"He has a one- and two-seamer fastball that is tremendous, something that 'Hook (Vanderhook) and (assistant coach Bill) Kernen taught him."

Kaplan said pitching never entered his mind during all those long days in Little League and high school. He preferred to hit, recording a .340 batting average and 11 home runs his final two seasons at Dana Hills.

Yet baseball as a whole got to be a drag for Kaplan when he 11 or 12, he said. So he quit and played basketball and golf. Soon spring came around and Kaplan realized something was not there.

"I missed baseball," he said.

Two years later, Kaplan said he began to grow and soon he and baseball were inseparable. Now, he dreams of starting on a bigger stage, something the size of a major-league ballpark.

"My goal is to play pro baseball, but as the years go by I realize I can't rely on that," he said. "I understand how difficult it is to make it."

That is why he politely told scouts this spring "thanks, but no thanks" to draft overtures.

"I still want to finish school because I'm so close," said Kaplan, a communications major. "Besides, I'm still learning

how to pitch. I'm just starting to come into my own. I'm learning something every day."