HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK : Gordon Hits for Power in a Flash

Mike Scyphers sat in the home dugout during practice early this week and watched a batter launch booming fly balls into the stormy sky.

“Now that is a power hitter,” the Simi Valley High baseball coach said as he pointed toward Jeff Sommer.

Hold that long-distance call, coach. What about Joe Gordon? Didn’t he hit five home runs in a three-game span last week?

Yes, it was Gordon who went deep more often than Jacques Cousteau. But Scyphers isn’t considering moving his No. 2 hitter to the cleanup position.

“I still don’t think he has tremendous power,” Scyphers said. “He’s a line-drive hitter and I don’t think that will change. He gets his pitches and he drives them.”

Gordon, a 6-foot, 160-pound senior third baseman, blasted four homers in two days--including a grand slam that broke a 4-4 tie in a 10-5 win over Westminster on Wednesday. His fifth, a solo shot, came in a 9-3 loss to Millikan on Friday.

In addition, Gordon hit two homers in a scrimmage against Rio Mesa last month and added two long drives Saturday at Palos Verdes that Scyphers said would have cleared the fence at Simi Valley.

Gordon, a right-handed batter who had not hit a home run in his first three seasons of high school baseball, is batting .476 with five home runs and 10 runs batted in in 21 at-bats. He credits his success to an off-season weight-training program. He also uses a hitting device at his home that consists of a baseball suspended in front of a net--for bashing purposes.

“I practice until my hands hurt,” Gordon said. “It’s helpful because it gives you something to swing at.”

As does Simi Valley’s fence. But Gordon tries to avoid the tempting dimensions.

“If the home runs come, they come, but I don’t want to be up there trying to hit them,” Gordon said. “I try not to think about home runs, just as I try not to think about strikeouts. I just try to concentrate on my next at-bat.”

Gordon is not the first to benefit from the Wiffle ball dimensions of Simi Valley’s field, where it is 295 feet down the left-field line, 340 to the power alleys, and 375 to center field. Scott Sharts set a Southern Section record with 32 home runs from 1986-1988.

But not even Sharts, now at Cal State Northridge, hit more than three home runs in one week.

“I’m just trying to hit the ball hard,” Gordon said. “If they go out, they go out. I’m just trying to get base hits.”