CHS grad takes his hardball to Chico
By Steve Ames
Special to The Acorn

Josh Goldfield

Josh Goldfield, 23-year-old, 6-foot-1, 195-pound catcher, has found his place in the sun, a place in which he hopes he’ll shine this summer.

He’s playing for the Chico Heat, an independent team in the Western Baseball League.

Once again the 1997 Calabasas High School graduate from Thousand Oaks is wearing a "C" on his cap, but now the design includes a fire-blowing dragon inside the C.

However, playing for the team in Butte County this season wasn’t in Goldfield’s plans for 2002.

"About in January I started calling teams and I ended up hooking on with Albany (the Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs) of the independent Northern League," he said last week while sitting in the 98-degree mid-afternoon warmth at Nettleton Stadium on the Cal State Chico campus.

Goldfield signed a contract to play for Albany-Colonie in March and played nearly a month there before being released. That’s when Chico Heat manager Charlie Kerfeld called him.

"It was funny. I was at home. I had just played in a Sunday league game with the Tinseltown Tear, the team I always played for at home. I get a call after the game from Charlie.

"He asked me if I’d like to come up and play for the Heat. I was just delighted. I said I’d love to come up and play. I wasn’t expecting it at all. It came out of nowhere.

"He said that someone had given him my information and recommended me to him. I had never met him. I knew the name Chico Heat. I had looked them up at the beginning of the season and saw that they were a winning ball club."

When he’s not playing at Nettleton Stadium, where a WBL-leading average of 2,300 fans watch the Heat games, Goldfield’s bus travels include trips to play the Yuba-Sutter (Marysville) Gold Sox and as far south as the Yuma, Ariz. Bullfrogs.

In between he travels to play the Sonoma County (Rohnert Park) Crushers, the Solano (Vacaville) Steelheads and the Long Beach Breakers, the closest to Calabasas and Thousand Oaks that he plays. The Chico Heat plays at Blair Field in Long Beach on Aug. 16 and 17 at 6:30 p.m. and Aug. 18 at 5 p.m.

Goldfield began his high school baseball as a freshman at Westlake High where his dad, Matt Goldfield, was the junior varsity coach.

Because of his father coaching at Westlake, he transferred to Calabasas, where he played for the Coyotes the next three seasons. "They had a good baseball program," Goldfield said.

After graduating from CHS, he attended the University of San Francisco where he played for the Dons the 1998 season as a freshman, then transferred to Moorpark College for the 1999 Raiders season.

In 1999, he entered the Baseball Amateur Draft and was a 41st-round pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He signed his first professional contract on June 7.

Goldfield was assigned to the Tucson D’backs rookie team and played two games there before being called up to the High Desert Mavericks, California League high Class A team, where he played five games. He then was sent to play on the Missoula, Mont. Osprey, a team that won the Pioneer (rookie) League championship.

After spring training in 2000, the Diamondbacks kept Goldfield for an extended spring and then assigned him to High Desert where he won the starting catcher’s job.

He was a prospect until midseason when he was run over at home plate in a game against San Bernardino. A Stampede player hit Goldfield in the right shoulder and he had to have surgery later in the season.

Last year, he returned to the D’backs minor league spring training.

"My arm was still a little sore from surgery, so they kind of rushed me along a little bit and I kept rehabbing and making my way up to Lancaster."

The JetHawks had become the Cal League Diamondbacks affiliate that year. "They ended up letting me go," Goldfield said. "They didn’t think my arm was going to come back. I was a prospect with them (the D’backs). They’d had a lot of good things planned for me, I guess, but I was released and sat out the rest of the season."

Playing for the Heat, he said, is an opportunity to work on his game while hoping to be seen by a major league scout and possibly signing a contract for 2003.

"I’m just out here trying to show anyone out there looking for a player that my career is not over," Goldfield said. "I’m still out here giving it all I got and I can still play this game, even though I had the arm injury. I’m back and I’m healthy, and hopefully someone will see it out there."

He’ll keep performing behind the plate, giving 100 percent every day, he said. Goldfield’s dedication includes, he said, commitments to constantly do the early work, the hitting, the arm strengthening, gym workouts and to get and stay healthy.

Even so, Goldfield hasn’t been gazing in the stands, checking for scouts.

"I have just been going out and playing," he said. "Hopefully if someone comes out Charlie (Kerfeld) and (pitching coach) Pico and all the guys have some good connections. If they see a guy who can go on, I’m sure they’ll help us out."

And if he lands a contract for next season, he anticipates that it will be for more than the $1,000 a month he’s making this year. As he plays this season and like previous ones, his dad Matt will continue to be a major baseball influence, Goldfield said.

"He’s been the main guy since I was born," the Chico catcher said. "When I was 5 years old, he had me in the backyard in the batting cage every day working."

Whenever Goldfield came home from school he either worked on blocking balls, playing catch in the street or hitting in the batting cage under the watchful eye of his dad.

"He’s been there throughout everything, driving me out to the valley to play in different leagues. He’s been the main influence through it all."

Several others have encouraged Goldfield in his development as a person and as an athlete, he said. One is his mother, Linda. "My mom was right there just as much as dad (when I was) growing up," he said. Two others are the late Gerald Goldfield, his grandfather, and Rick Nathanson, the CHS head baseball coach.

Speaking about Nathanson, Goldfield said that "he taught me a lot. He had a talk with me in my senior year about being a good player and what you’ve got to do to go on and play college ball or in the professional leagues.

"He helped me out through a lot, just a lot of personal issues I’d had and on and off the field he was always there to really help me out. He taught me a lot about the game."

Goldfield said he especially enjoys playing catcher. "My dad was a catcher and my grandpa was a catcher," he said. "I just kind of followed in their footsteps."

He’s also enjoying his summer in Chico.

"Playing here is a pleasure," he said. "I get to work with a lot of guys who are experienced, a lot of guys who have been up to Triple-A, Double-A. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can from them because they’re all really experienced guys.

"Everyone out here loves to play. In affiliated ball, they kind of throw you all together. Some guys get a lot of money and there’s egos here and there. It’s okay. But everyone who’s here is here because they love to play. We’re all just playing hard what we love."