Fast Track to Success : Calabasas High senior Brian Fatur has set the pace for the Coyotes by batting .533, stealing 37 bases and patrolling center field.

CALABASAS — Some athletes increase their skills in tiny amounts. Others improve by leaps and bounds.

Then there is Brian Fatur of Calabasas High, who has completely jumped off the scale.

Take a look at his progress:

He joined the varsity baseball team as a sophomore and was the fastest player on the team. While his play in center field was solid, his hitting wasn’t, and he was often replaced by a designated hitter.

He got the chance to hit his junior season and responded by leading the Coyotes with a .453 batting average and leading the region with 36 stolen bases.

This year, Fatur batted .533 in the regular season--third among large-school Southern Section players in the region--and leads the team in almost every offensive category. He also led the region with 37 stolen bases.

Most surprising is his increased strength. After hitting one home run in the past two years, Fatur has nine.

Even the 5-foot-10, 160-pound leadoff hitter is at a loss to explain his dramatic transformation into a power hitter.”I have absolutely no idea,” Fatur said. “It wasn’t anything I planned to do. I wanted to hit with more power but I didn’t expect this much.

“I’ve never lifted a weight in my life. I’ve gone to the gym I joined maybe three times.”

Not surprisingly, Fatur’s rapid ascent has coincided with Calabasas’ rise as a regional power the past few seasons.

In 1995, the Coyotes were 25-1 and won the Westside tournament, which included two victories over Chatsworth. They have a 48-0-1 record in the Frontier League the past three seasons.

Calabasas (25-2) also has become a force outside the league, losing only one game on the field this season and winning the Birmingham tournament. This season, the Coyotes have defeated El Camino Real, North Hollywood and half of the Marmonte League, although Calabasas had to forfeit the victory over the Huskies because a pitcher threw more than 10 innings in one week.

Fatur, who hit safely in every game but one, this season set a school career record with 96 hits. He leads the Coyotes in every offensive category except runs batted in.

“We want to give Brian as many at-bats as possible,” Coach Rick Nathanson said. “He’s too good to be hitting lower in the lineup even if it means he gets less RBI chances.”

The only thing missing is playoff success. The past two years, the Coyotes--always highly seeded--have been eliminated by the second round of the Division IV playoffs.

And even after playoff realignment based on enrollment, the division is still stocked this year with traditional powers such as La Quinta and El Segundo.

The Coyotes are seeded third and will play Dos Pueblos in a second-round playoff game Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. Calabasas beat Fillmore, 5-4, in its playoff opener on Friday.

Calabasas wouldn’t have been nearly as successful had Fatur stuck to his original plan when he entered high school.

Although Fatur had played youth baseball for several years, he elected to try out for the golf team as a freshman.

Nathanson wanted Fatur to also play baseball.

“I had all the spring athletes for one period,” Nathanson said. “I knew how fast he was, and I knew he had a baseball background.”

Fatur was willing but the golf coach was not. So Fatur stuck to golf--at least until his sophomore year.

That winter, he literally walked off the street and back into baseball. As the Coyotes were being timed in 60-yard dashes, Fatur, dressed in street clothes, asked if he could be clocked. He was fastest on the team.

“I don’t even play golf much anymore,” Fatur said. “I haven’t picked up a club in months.”

Fatur, whose family moved to the U.S. from Argentina shortly before his birth, dabbled in soccer before starting to play baseball.

“We didn’t know much about baseball when we got here,” said Oscar Fatur, Brian’s father. “Now we know by watching Brian.”