ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130169
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BASEBALL
SOURCE: RAY COX
Texas, vast and beautiful as it is, presents unique problems.
The armadillos are so suicidal and messy. Tornados are liable to take a spin down a Main Street near you at the drop of a cowboy hat. A herd of longhorns could tie up traffic.
If you are a baseball player in the Texas League, there are other challenges.
Dust storms always seem to blow up just when you've stepped into the batter's box to face a guy who throws 90 mph. Games from June on are played when it is so hot during working hours that you could bake a loaf of bread in any dugout on the circuit. And those bus rides ...
``Sixteen hours from Little Rock to El Paso,'' said Dee Dalton, a third baseman from Roanoke who recently took the ride with his fellow employees of the Class AA Arkansas Travelers.
``We left Little Rock at 8 p.m. and drove all night,'' he said by telephone from a motel room in El Paso, Texas. ``Then we played that day. We got into town in time to rest a couple of hours, then go to the ballpark.''
From a ballplayer's perspective, there's a lot to dislike about the Texas League, if you know where to look.
You won't hear any of that from Dalton, though. If it has anything to do with baseball, you can bet your Cal Ripken rookie card the former slugging shortstop from Virginia Tech is going to love it.
That is, he loves everything in baseball but a slump. A slump was what he was in last year with St. Petersburg of the Class A Florida State League.
``Horrible,'' he said.
Really, there was no other way to put it. Dalton wheezed along with a .205 batting average and a team-leading 81 strikeouts.
Dalton, the owner of the sweetest swing in Roanoke County in his day, never had to put up with anything like it. The bat was the main pain, too. Playing third base after all those years at shortstop for Cave Spring High School and Tech has been no problem for Dalton.
``Third's fine,'' he said. ``I don't have any control over where they're going to play me. I'll play anywhere they want.''
And go anywhere. The past three years, the St.Louis Louis Cardinals, the organization for which he works, has invited Dalton to fall Instructional League. After having started the year in spring training, it tends to make for a long year. The good part about it is, organizations don't usually invite players they don't like to fall workouts.
The extra tutoring has helped.
``I had a good fall,'' Dalton said.
The current season started slowly for the Travelers and Dalton, but things have picked up nicely. Arkansas had won five consecutive games during the past week, and Dalton had edged his batting average up to .320 to go with three home runs and 14 runs batted in. He usually bats seventh in the lineup.
That is, when he isn't looking at the world through the window of a rolling bus.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB