[ BASEBALL ]
Bronson Sardinha has played professional baseball for two summers and soon will have his second championship ring. That is no surprise because the Kamehameha graduate is in the New York Yankees organization. Second-year pros
shake off slumps, bumps
By Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comHawaii's other second-year pro players, Jeff Coleman, Rodney Choy Foo, Dane Sardinha, Rex Rundgren, Kaulana Kuhaulua, Patrick McNair and Bryce Uegawachi, completed their seasons with the usual slumps and bumps along the way.
Bronson Sardinha started with the Greensboro (N.C.) Bats in the Class-A South Atlantic League (SAL). He was hitting .263 and experiencing defensive problems when the Yankees made two moves.
"I made too many errors. It started getting into my head and it affected my hitting," he said. "The Yankees are more worried about my hitting than my defense, so they sent me to the outfield and sent me to Staten Island."
With the Staten Island Yankees involved in the New York-Penn League McNamara Division race, Sardinha was transferred to the Big Apple on July 26. The change of scenery was beneficial. He proceeded to hit .323, helping Staten Island win the division title by one game, then take the league championship.
He liked the move to the outfield, where he felt there was less pressure and his hitting improved.
"It's fun out there. I can get used to that a lot. The word is they might try to make me a center fielder or use me as a power-hitting outfielder in left or right. They canceled instructional league so I'm sure I'll be on all three spots come spring training," Bronson Sardinha said.
Signed as a shortstop a year ago, Sardinha played 64 games there for the Bats, moved to left field for 17 and played all 31 games in left for Staten Island. His two-team totals included 23 doubles and 16 home runs.
He also found the new stadium at Staten Island to be like a mini major-league park.
"It was totally different from Greensboro," he said. "The locker room was great. The fan base was excellent. We drew 7,000 to 8,000 every game and you got a lot of attention. It made you excited to go out and perform.
"This year was more of a learning experience, how to handle myself on and off the field and how to deal with frustration."
Rodney Choy Foo enjoyed an injury-free season playing mostly second base for the Columbus (Ga.) RedStixx of the SAL. The Kailua graduate also played third base for nine games and shortstop three times.
The Cleveland Indians' 26th-round pick in 2000, Choy Foo hit .264 with 14 doubles, eight triples and eight homers. He led the RedStixx with 102 hits.
He notched everything up in the SAL playoffs with a .344 batting average as the RedStixx reached the championship series, but lost the fifth and deciding game to Hickory 3-2.
"I thought I did pretty good this year. The coaches told me I had a great season, but I thought I could have done better," Choy Foo said. "I was surprised at how good I did. I improved on offense and defense."
Playing his first full season, Choy Foo dropped about 10 pounds, but will concentrate on putting that back on as muscle in the offseason.
Kaulana Kuhaulua (Waianae, Long Beach State) was on the disabled list the month of July with a fractured left jaw, his second stint on the DL, but returned wearing a special face guard to get another 62 at-bats in the final weeks. He finished with a .231 batting average for the Quad City (Davenport, Iowa) River Bandits.
"It wasn't the best season I've had; also, it wasn't the worst. I still learned lot. I got used to situational hitting and the pitchers," Kuhaulua said. "The pitchers don't throw any harder the higher you go, but they are smarter and they locate better."
Kuhaulua lost about 15 pounds while recovering from the fractured jaw, and has put some pounds back on. His offseason goal is to get stronger.
Coleman was strictly a set-up man for Visalia in the Class-A California League, appearing in 45 games and finishing with a 5-1 record and a 3.99 earned run average. The former Hawaii right-hander has mixed feelings.
"I like the role when it's a close game. It's fun when the pressure is on," said Coleman, who divided his season into three parts. "The first third went really well. In the middle I had a little bit of a dead arm, but ended the season really strong."
He thinks he will be back in the California league next year because of the talent in the Oakland Athletics' organization.
"Maybe I'm what they are looking for, maybe not, but overall I was happy with my season," Coleman said.
Dane Sardinha (Kamehameha, Pepperdine) struggled at the plate but not behind the plate for the Chattanooga Lookouts, Cincinnati's Class-AA team in the Southern League.
He flirted with the .300 mark early in the season, settled in around .265 for a time, then watched his average slowly slide in the second half until it hit bottom at .206.
"I wasn't seeing the ball as well as I did in the beginning of the season," Dane Sardinha said. "We tried a lot of different stances and I'm not sure if it was a good thing to change as much as I did or a bad thing."
The Reds are sending him to the Arizona Fall League to try and correct his offensive woes.
"My hitting coach in Arizona will be our Triple-A hitting coach (Brook Jacoby) and I'm sure we'll find something that works," he said.
Rex Rundgren, the regular shortstop for the Kane County (Geneva, Ill.) Cougars in the Class-A Midwest League, had the opposite kind of season.
The Mid-Pacific Institute product did not crack the .200 barrier until the middle of July. From then until the end of the season he was a solid .278 at the plate for the Florida Marlins' farm team.
Patrick McNair developed into an accomplished reliever with the SAL's Lexington (Ky.) Legends, a Houston farm team.
The right-hander, who started his college career at Hawaii and finished at Virginia Commonwealth, struggled the first 12 games with an ERA of 6.00, but steadily lowered it the final three months to 3.21. McNair finished 18 of the 37 games he pitched and recorded five saves.
Bryce Uegawachi was a reserve infielder for the Mahoning Valley (Niles, Ohio) Scrappers. He played in 34 games at shortstop and nine at second base. In 88 at-bats, the former Kaiser and Hawaii Pacific standout hit .261.
"This season was a lot better than last year because we were in a pennant race. It was a lot of fun, even though I wasn't playing that much," Uegawachi said.
"If I'm going to continue in pro ball I'm going to have to learn how to be a role player with my position (shortstop) and my size (5-foot-6, 150 pounds) and come off the bench and produce."
