LAST HURRAH LEAGUE

Catcher Carl Nichols blocks the ball in front of the plate, chases it down and flings it wildly past first base in an ill-advised pickoff attempt. Reno scores its fifth unearned run of the game, and it’s only the third inning.

Mission Viejo Vigilante Manager Buck Rodgers slumps in his folding chair in the corner of the dugout at Saddleback College stadium and stares up into a cloudless twilight through the netting that serves as the dugout’s roof.

“At this level, you’ve got your unnecessary throws and your frustration throws,” says Rodgers, whose starting catcher recently quit the team to take a job as a mortgage banker. “That was one of your frustration throws.

“Now it’s follow the bouncing ball and where it stops, nobody knows.”

This level is the independent (no major league affiliation) Western Baseball League. Officials like to say it’s comparable to double-A ball, but critics say if any of these guys could play at a double-A level, they’d be in double A. In any case, it’s a whole different ballgame.

Rodgers has won manager-of-the-year honors in the minors (1977 with El Paso and 1984 with Indianapolis) and in the majors (1987 with the Montreal Expos). The Expos finished .500 or better in five of his six full seasons as manager, and every year he had to rebuild a team ravaged by free agency in its bid to maintain baseball’s lowest payroll. He also paid his dues in the Angel manager’s office, which has seldom been a comfortable place to sit.

But his current position requires a number of skills he never had to call on before. At the moment, he needs to get someone warming up in the bullpen. Can’t reach out and grab a phone here, so Rodgers stands, screams and waves his right arm.

Rodgers the manager isn’t happy right now, but Rodgers the director of baseball operations is. The previous night, just before the midnight trading deadline, General Manager Rodgers made it so Manager Rodgers can scream and wave his left arm.

Dion Beck, a 33-year-old who played in Oakland’s organization, has just been signed for a nine-game home stand that could decide the Vigilantes’ chances of making the playoffs. Beck, the only left-hander in the bullpen, can’t afford to leave his car-detailing business for team trips, so he’s only an option at home.

“I’ve never dealt with anything like this before,” Rodgers said. “No, I take that back. I had Pedro Borbon on a winter league team in the Dominican [Republic] and he only pitched at home, but that was my choice. He caused a riot everywhere we went. He was always going into the stands after fans.

“One time he got drunk on the bus and we got stopped at one of those military checkpoints. Pedro starts mouthing off to a trigger-happy 15-year-old with a submachine gun and we all ended up on the road spread-eagled. I left him home after that.”

Rodgers doesn’t have to fear for his life in Mission Viejo, but he must pine for those days when all he had to do was bring out the best in his players. In the course of one afternoon, Rodgers has negotiated with sporting goods salesmen, broken the news to a kid hoping for a tryout that it wasn’t going to happen, worried about the league’s $24,000-a-month salary cap and given investment advice to a secretary.

Sitting at a cramped desk in the cramped trainer’s office in the Saddleback College football team’s locker room before the game, Rodgers wonders where his office will be when football practice begins. On his desk are workers’ compensation forms for outfielder Dustin Martin, who stepped in a hole during batting practice at Gray’s Harbor (Aberdeen, Wash.) and suffered a hairline fracture in his foot. (Workers’ compensation is the league’s form of the disabled list, except the team doesn’t have to pay a player’s salary.)

Still, the experience has its moments.

“There’s always a couple of players who have fallen through the cracks and have potential and desire and are excited to succeed,” Rodgers said. “If you can help them, that makes it worthwhile. This year we had one kid [infielder Jesse Zepeda] who signed with the Blue Jays and another [pitcher Mark Tranberg from Buena Park] who went to Taiwan and is making about $9,000 a month with all expenses paid.”

Rodgers calls the WBL a “last-hurrah” league, which is especially appropriate in his case, since this season very likely will be his first and last as Vigilante manager. The regular season ends Aug. 31. If Mission Viejo doesn’t make the playoffs, Rodgers, who missed 28 games this summer after a car accident took his mother’s life and left his father in critical condition, will return to Ohio to help his father convalesce.

Rodgers owns homes in Yorba Linda and Corona del Mar, so he will return to Southern California at some point, but apparently he won’t be back in this dugout.

“If I stay in the league, it would be more as a part owner or something,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d want to manage. When Bobby [Grich, Vigilantes’ assistant general manager] and I first started talking, I was more interested in the team as an investment. Then I figured, how better to understand the league’s strengths and weaknesses than as a manager?”

Now, Manager Rodgers must teach. He’s pleading with his right-handed batters to make the Reno pitcher throw sliders in the strike zone instead of chasing balls in the dirt. Then he asks, “You guys know what a Chukar [Reno’s nickname] is? It’s a bird, kind of like a quail. Bake ‘em with a little lemon pepper. Hmmmm.”

“Skip likes everything with lemon pepper,” says pitching coach Brad Lesley, who pitched with the Reds and Brewers in the mid-’80s before going to Japan, where he became a cult hero of sorts, appearing in a number of films and releasing two CDs. “Spend 10 minutes with this guy and you immediately understand how he was able to do what he did in Montreal. I was in the league four years and the guys I dealt with were idiots compared to him. You won’t find a better baseball mind.”

Somebody in the Angel front office thought differently in May 1994 and Rodgers was fired after 2 1/2 seasons. General Manager Bill Bavasi insists it was his decision alone, but Rodgers still believes former team president Richard Brown, whom he once called a “cancer” in the organization, was the driving force.

“I still root for the Angels,” says Rodgers, a catcher for the original Angel expansion team who still has a Big-A-with-halo logo peeking out of his uniform from the collar of his turtleneck. “I feel like I had a hand in the development of guys like [Gary] DiSarcina and [Tim] Salmon and [Jim] Edmonds. My experience with the Angels was 99% good. It just didn’t work out.”

Rodgers is standing in front of the Vigilantes’ dugout chatting with fans before the game when a guy waves his tickets and yells, “Hey, Buck, where’s Section 1? There’s no ushers.”

“And you thought I looked like one?” Rodgers says, pretending to frown. “I think it’s behind home plate.”

The fan sets off in one direction only to return. “Section 1 is down the left-field line,” he says dejectedly.

Buck Rodgers, who first played professionally in 1956, celebrated his 59th birthday Saturday . . . and still he has so much to learn about the game.