Beware of flying objects

LANCASTER, Calif. -- "Who pays for that?" Bubba Bell asks, in all seriousness, considering the financial ramifications of hitting a car on Highway 14 with a baseball. "Whose fault is that?"

It seems a true concern. And it is. With wind speeds routinely north of 30 miles per hour, hitting a ball onto the onramp maybe 100 or 150 feet beyond the right-field fence seems more like an eventual certainty than a flight of fancy.

You didn't know, while driving that stretch of highway, the danger you were in. It's only later, sitting in the dugout at Clear Channel Stadium, the mite of a ballpark rising in all its taupe glory out of the flatness of the desert, that your peril becomes apparent.

Because Bell, then slugger extraordinaire of the Lancaster JetHawks, whose home is Clear Channel and who are the Red Sox' entry in the California League, is aiming for you.

OK, not you in particular. But, still, he's looking toward Highway 14.

And right field is not a poke in a Little League ballpark. It's a smash in a vast outfield that measures 350 feet down the lines and 410 to center field.

It's just that the stadium sits 2,500 feet above sea level. And there's that wind. Jet stream, more like it. All day. Every day. Or at least most days. It blows straight out to right field. Almost never varies. Not very forgiving for righthanded pull hitters. For lefties, though?

Paradise.

Rumor has it that Ken Griffey Jr., during an exhibition game, hit Highway 14, which sits about 200 feet beyond the onramp. Sure, that would be a titanic blast. But Griffey? And the wind? It almost makes you believe.

"Call my insurance, find out about it," says Bell, who was called up Wednesday to Double A Portland. "Before I start just trying to launch balls in [batting practice]."

Because for a 42d-round draft pick, paying for a four-car pileup just isn't in the budget.

Aaron Bates has lost his cap. It flutters behind him as he stands at first base. He turns, goes to get it, but the wind has it. Bates tracks it down as it hits the outfield grass, picks it up, and turns. He's greeted with a face full of dirt.

Batting practice, here in the land of the wind, is a joke. So, too, are infield drills.

To watch Lancaster manager Chad Epperson try to hit popups to his catchers is a combination of futility and hilarity. Futility for him. Hilarity for everyone else. He throws a ball up, only to have it come down behind him, causing a flailing swing. He tries again. It ends up in the stands. He tries once more. It drops between two befuddled infielders.

"Can't hit popups here in this ballpark," Epperson said. "No matter how you do it. Trying to hit catchers popups and can't do it. They go the wrong way. I haven't figured it out yet."

It's only just past the All-Star break. There's time.

Though Lancaster piqued interest by sustaining a 30-0 loss to Lake Elsinore on May 18, that's not the norm. Try 18-15 or, on this night, a 15-9 win over High Desert.

"No lead's secure," Bell said. "Somebody was asking why somebody [on the JetHawks] was stealing when we were up like five or six runs in the sixth or seventh inning. They were like, 'Why'd he run?' There's no lead that's safe here. I promise you."

All three of the flags at Clear Channel Stadium, at 3:30 p.m. as the team heads out to meet with Epperson, stand straight out. Every detail of each flag is visible, unfurled with the day's 28-m.p.h. winds. Since it's Thursday, it doesn't much matter to the fans exactly how hard the wind is blowing. They know, simply, the harder it blows, the higher the score.

Were it Tuesday, however, it would matter. On Tumbleweed Tuesdays, tickets are 10 cents per mile per hour of wind speed.

"It's unbelievable," said Michael Bowden, the pitcher whose dominance in Lancaster brought him a quick promotion to Double A. "I don't know. It's weird. It's not even baseball. You see little fly balls, guys on their front foot, and it just . . . they go out. It's ridiculous."

Fly-ball pitchers must rip their hair out. (Former Lancaster pitcher Justin Masterson, who was also called up to Portland this week, is bald, though it dates back seven years and has no relation to Clear Channel Stadium.) Ground-ball pitchers must be in high demand.

But it's not that easy.

"We're playing in a parking lot as far as the dirt goes," Epperson said. "It's not a very good surface. And I'm not bad-mouthing the grounds crew here. It's just with the wind and no rain, it's going to be hard. So you're talking about hits that get through on the ground and routine fly balls that are leaving the yard. It's easy in those situations to go, 'Oh my God, I can't do it.' "

And, if the ball doesn't skip through the infield on a surface that looks natural and plays like AstroTurf, pitchers don't want to see the result when the ball is hit in the air.

Imagine the damage to the psyche of a young pitcher when he induces a popup, a result that normally draws relief. Not so in Lancaster. Because a popup that starts in foul territory down the left-field line, the third baseman racing to the edge of the stands to catch it, often drops untouched in right field.

"You get that popup and you don't even look," Masterson said. "You kind of put your head down and, all of a sudden, they catch it at the warning track and you're like, 'Whew. Saved me there.' It wasn't a bad pitch; the guy didn't necessarily hit it well. But it just sometimes loves to go."

The hitters learn quickly that taking one's time out of the batter's box on a normally routine popup to the left side often results in the loss of a gift double. So the JetHawks are trained to just go. Opposing players? Sometimes it takes time for them to learn.

"Other guys are standing there at home plate going, 'What happened? What happened?' " Epperson said. "You have sympathy, but also you've got to chuckle. You can chuckle and I think you can laugh at things when it has happened to you.

"And it has happened to us."

For all the laughs, all the amusement the players get out of their situation, there are bigger concerns. Not only is Lancaster a difficult environment for pitchers, but there are worries about hitters developing bad habits -- hitting solely to right field, for one.

It's more than that, though. There's little going on in Lancaster, a desert city situated a little more than an hour northeast of Los Angeles. It's brutally hot in the daytime, the winds cutting the dry heat only slightly. Night brings on the chill. And the most notable places in town according to the players, outside of Clear Channel itself, remain the Chili's and the state prison.

There's humor about the place, sure. How could there not be? But there's also an unhappiness that leads most involved to wonder how long the relationship between the Red Sox and JetHawks will last. Especially because every other affiliate in the California League belongs to a team from the American League West or National League West.

"There's just really not a lot we can do about it," Sox director of player development Mike Hazen said, after praising Lancaster, specifically the ownership group. "This is where we are right now. It's where we have to play. We signed a contract for two years. We need to fulfill that contract. We'll see what happens two years from now."

But questions remain. Should a team on the East Coast need an extra player, especially if it's only for a short time, would those playing in high Single A Lancaster get passed over for logistical reasons for someone playing in low Single A? Hazen says no.

"It's more challenging, but I don't think we can skip that level," Hazen said. " People are just not going to make that jump, Low A and Double A. Guys are going through Lancaster. They're going through High A."

He turns his face away from the flying grit. By now the reaction is rote: Feel the wind intensify, know that an eddy of dirt is following closely behind, and, for the safety of eyes and mouth, turn away quickly.

It doesn't stop Masterson for long.

"Usually the theory is just get it on the ground and go, maybe make something happen," Masterson said. "Here, it's you put it in the air, see what can happen. Maybe it could go out. Maybe it could start at the pitcher's mound and end up at the warning track. You never know."

It's one of the secrets to pitching here. To playing here, for that matter, in a place so extreme that the game May 4 was postponed because of high winds. Understanding that, in the end, you just never know what's going to happen. Offensively, defensively, from the pitcher's mound. Could be anything.

Except, in some ways, it's different this year. While Lancaster has been a Single A affiliate since 1996, this season has been one of shattered expectations -- not to mention shattered records.

No one had ever hit four home runs in a game in the history of the California League, until this season. The JetHawks (Bates and independent league pickup Brad Correll) have done it twice.

So, amid the mixed feelings and mixed blessings that have surfaced here, no lesson has been more important than this one: Learn to survive in Lancaster, as a pitcher or a hitter, and Portland might not seem so bad.

"I think it takes a special breed to be out here," Masterson said. "Our pitching staff out here, they're just special. The thing is, if you're not mentally tough, you're going to be mentally tough in no time because you're going to realize the first pitch you throw -- whether it be a popup home run or a popup that just happens to float over an infielder's head or something like that -- it's like, 'Welcome to Lancaster, my friend. Welcome to Lancaster.' "

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.