DATE: Saturday, June 21, 1997               TAG: 9706210568

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson 

                                            LENGTH:   71 lines

THIS SCOUT GETS PLENTY OF BANGS, BUT NO BUCKS

CHESAPEAKE - There is something just right about the relationship; Les Bangs, who has played, coached and scouted local baseball for half a century, and the fledgling Tampa Bay Devil Rays, one of two expansion teams that begins major league play next season.

A guy who's seen it all, scouting for a club that's yet to draw a breath. A man who, at 74, is still in it for the kids, with a team that hopes to build its foundation with the kind of kids Bangs values: long on character and love for baseball.

Also, it would be good if they could run.

``I like speed, and a quick bat,'' Bangs said Thursday morning as he helped conduct Tampa Bay's tryout camp for about 60 hopefuls at Greenbrier Christian Academy, where Bangs has assisted coach Gary Lavelle for five years.

``And I don't care if a guy throws 100 mph. If you can put the ball where you want to, that's what I like to see in a pitcher.''

Bangs, Maury High Class of '43, has spent most of his life forming that opinion. After two stints in the Navy, one during high school and one after, Bangs played four years in the minors with the Chicago Cubs before returning to local adult-league coaching.

The years since have found Bangs coaching adults, kids in American Legion ball and assisting at various high schools, while also scouting for the Major League Scouting Bureau and the New York Mets in the '70s.

Bangs was then, and is now, a bird dog, a scout who tips off those higher in a team's scouting chain about talent in his area.

It is an unpaid job, but not a thankless one. Bangs gets nothing for driving sometimes as far as Richmond or the Eastern Shore to check out a prospect. That's fine, he says. ``I can take care of that.''

Fact is, since he retired from his civil service job with the Navy a decade ago, he's considered trying to become a full-time scout, something he never did as a younger man.

``No sir-ee. Wasn't enough money in it,'' Bangs says. ``I didn't want to lose my retirement. ... I've thought about it, but at my age, I don't think so. I don't think I want to do all the traveling.''

Should someone he recommends be signed and move up the minor league ladder, a bird dog gets thrown a monetary bone. So if you said Bangs scouts, hits infield practice every day, works with the outfielders and coaches first base for Greenbrier for his health, you'd be about right.

The satisfaction that comes from giving a kid a chance to be seen by someone like the Devil Rays' area supervisor, Paul Faulk, who ran Thursday's camp, is what Bangs banks on.

``He'll be with me as long as he wants to do it,'' Lavelle says. ``He's been a tremendous asset to us.''

Bangs only returned to official bird-dogging this year when Ducky Davis, a local Florida Marlins bird dog, put his name before the Devil Rays. A couple of phone calls later, Bangs was back in business.

``I quit before because I was young enough to be involved in the game physically instead of just looking,'' Bangs says.

The irony is, for a guy so involved, Bangs has seen precious little big league baseball in person. By his count, Bangs has attended 11 major league games, all at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. Incredibly, he didn't go to his first game until he was nearly 60.

``I was like a little kid,'' Bangs says.

Funny. That's the same impression you get watching Bangs flit around a baseball field, the black-and-purple cap of a new club proudly perched on his head.

``It's the greatest game in the world,'' Bangs says. ``The greatest.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MARK MITCHELL/The Virginian-Pilot

Les Bangs, 74, gets nothing for driving sometimes as far as Richmond

or the Eastern Shore to check out a young baseball prospect. Sure,

it may be an unpaid job, but it's not a thankless one.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu