CSUN’s Adam Kennedy, a dynamic All-American shortstop who lives and breathes baseball, puts the team first, but this year the super Matador must be a ... : CAPED CRUSADER

NORTHRIDGE —  The game well in hand by the fifth inning, Adam Kennedy got a well-deserved breather. Cal State Northridge Coach Mike Batesole told his All-American shortstop to take the rest of the day off.

A couple of innings later, Batesole couldn’t find Kennedy in the dugout. Somebody said to take a look in the bullpen.

There was Kennedy in full catcher’s gear, warming up a pitcher.

“I would have been better off leaving him in the game, for God’s sake,” Batesole said.

Breather? None needed by a guy who lives and breathes baseball.

“I’ve never sat my whole life,” Kennedy said. “If I couldn’t be on the field contributing, I figured I’d help someone else.”

Kennedy views baseball through a lens wide enough to take in the entire Northridge team. He thinks in plural, always saying “us” and “we” rather than “I” and “me.”

On what it meant to try out for the U.S. Olympic team last summer, along with teammate Robert Fick: “It was good for our school. Guys from big programs saw that Northridge is for real.”

On the major league free-agent draft in June: “If the team does well, I’ll be drafted higher. Some people have told me that’s not true, but it’s how I want to look at it.”

Batesole hopes Kennedy’s outlook becomes infectious; he wants the junior third-year starter to be a team leader.

“When things need to be said, he’ll say them,” the coach said. “But really, all you have to do is watch him.”

Last season, Kennedy led by example, topping the nation in hits with 121 and leading all Division I leadoff hitters with 17 home runs and 81 runs batted in. He batted .393 and led Northridge with 308 at-bats, 94 runs and six triples.

The Matadors led the nation with 52 victories, won the Western Athletic Conference title and advanced to the West Regional final.

“Adam Kennedy is the best baseball player I’ve ever played with,” said Fick, Northridge’s All-American catcher last season and now a Detroit Tigers’ minor leaguer. “And there’s something about the way he goes about his business that makes him a great leader.”

Adjectives that often precede leadership, such as fiery or charismatic, don’t apply. Kennedy is quiet and serious, exuding a slow burn of intensity that can last the length of a season while rarely raging out of control.

The one time he blew up during a game last season, an apology came on its heels. Kennedy made a throwing error and Fick said, “We needed that out.” The runner stole second on the next pitch, and when Fick’s throw sailed into center field, Kennedy barked back, “We needed that out.”

The pair faced off in the dugout at the end of the inning, but it was for a quick hug.

The deep friendships Kennedy developed with Fick and Eric Gillespie, the Matadors’ All-American third baseman last season who is an Angels’ minor leaguer, is something he missed when practice began last fall.

The trio was almost inseparable on and off the field, challenging Matador basketball players to pickup games in the gym and playing video games well into the night. They also led Northridge from mediocrity in 1994 to the brink of the College World Series.

Only Kennedy (6 feet 1, 180 pounds) is left to continue the quest.

“Once we were into fall practice, I’d look around the field and my best friends weren’t there,” he said. “But I can’t think, ‘We don’t have Robert and Eric.’ I think about who we do have.”

And how much work needs to be done.

The weakest part of Kennedy’s game is his throwing, and he focused on strengthening his arm during the off-season. Most scouts project him as a second baseman in the professional ranks, although some believe he should play shortstop until he proves he can’t.

It’s clear that Kennedy, 21, is coveted. Baseball America magazine ranked him as the 47th-best professional prospect among college players in its most recent issue. However, he learned during his Olympic tryout not to believe everything he hears.

“I saw the highs and lows, guys who were first-round picks and guys who thought they were going to be, and weren’t,” he said. “I don’t want to be set on a particular round. I haven’t put that burden on myself.”

One scout compared him to Jeff Cirillo, the third baseman of the Milwaukee Brewers who played at USC and Providence High.

“Kennedy doesn’t overwhelm you with any outstanding tools you can put a plus on, but he is an outstanding baseball player, like a Cirillo or a Pete Rose-type,” the scout said. “There is a premium put on a middle infielder who can hit.

“He’s a guy who, wherever he goes, is going to be a winner.”

Kennedy played for his father, Tom, at J.W. North High in Riverside, and with his freshman brother Bryan at third base, led the team to the Southern Section Division II championship in 1994.

Months earlier, Kennedy, a high-scoring guard, helped J.W. North to the Division II basketball final at The Pond, where the team fell to Inglewood.

As a Northridge freshman he played left field and batted .360 with eight home runs. The following summer he was chosen most valuable player in the Alaskan Summer League.

Although he played left field in Alaska, during practice he took countless ground balls at shortstop with summer teammates Jack Jones of Cal State Fullerton and Ben Reynoso of Fresno State.

“I began to really learn the position,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy, who bats left-handed, drastically altered his batting stance, going from standing straight up to crouching with his weight back in order to generate greater power from his legs.

“I wasn’t getting anything into the ball standing up,” he said. “I needed a mechanism to load up.”

Scouts are amused at Kennedy’s short, whip-like practice swings, but he has power to the opposite field and is handcuffed only on live fastballs from a left-handers.

“People ask me, ‘What’s with that swing?,’ ” Batesole said. “But he’s got to be the best leadoff hitter in the country and I’m not messing with it.”

Kennedy reaches base every way possible. He is an accomplished bunter, and when facing a left-hander who throws curveballs, he’ll often turn into a pitch and take it on the shoulder. He was hit by pitches 18 times last season.

His reluctance to back off might have cost him during his Olympic tryout. A pitch during an intrasquad game by left-hander Eric DuBose of Mississippi State hit him on the right hand, breaking a bone beneath his pinkie finger.

He swore the team trainer to silence, however, and to this day the Team USA coaches don’t know Kennedy practiced for nearly three weeks with a throbbing hand.

“It affected my throwing and it hurt during batting practice, but I knew that if I sat out for even a few days I had no chance of making the team,” he said.

Kennedy was one of the last players cut, but the memories linger even though the pain is gone.

“I was facing a guy throwing 97 one day, then facing a left-hander throwing 94 the next,” he said. “There will be nobody I’ll face this year where I say, ‘I haven’t seen that before.’ ”

Actually, something new he might see are intentional walks. Because the Northridge lineup is missing four players--Fick, Gillespie, Kurt Airoso and Grant Hohman--who combined for 75 home runs and nearly 300 runs batted in last season, the coaches have tossed around the idea of dropping Kennedy to the No. 3 slot.

More likely, he will remain at leadoff off so opponents are less apt to pitch around him.

“I’d love to hit leadoff but I have no problem at all batting third,” he said.

Kennedy’s stance might change, his position might change, but his approach remains the same:

Whatever is best for the team.