I’ll never forget this trip up the 14 Freeway on a Wednesday night to play Lancaster. Everything was rolling beautifully. We left early, everybody showed up at CV park to get directions….we had all of the horses we needed……and promptly got THUMPED. We had planned to get to the field about an hour early. As it turned out….we got there about 15 minutes before the game started. Fuck I was pissed.
I just remember this bumper-to-bumper traffic jam up at the top of the 14. How bad was it? Well, let me put it to you this way. There was a time span of about fifteen minutes where the car I was in had moved about a total of TWO FEET. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was like a parking lot. We actually GOT OUT of our cars and started walking around the 14 Freeway and bullshitting with people.
Finally, the traffic jam broke. It’s a good thing we left so early that day or we would have forfeited the game. We hurriedly tried to get loose and went through a hasty pre-game. I’ll explain how late we were…..there were guys still playing catch and stretching on the sideline trying to get loose as we were hitting in the top-of-the-first inning. We just didn’t have enough time to get ready that day.
We weren’t ready to go. I gave the ball to JR. He had only thrown 46 pitches on Sunday. They came out and rolled nine on us in the first inning. Six of the runs were unearned.
God damn that traffic.
After the first inning we beat ’em 6-1. But that nine in the first killed us and they prevailed 10-6.
We out hit them 11-9. It was a tough loss. We always had trouble at that park. And yeah…..it was still there that evening. A year later. About a 300 pound sheep in the left field “bullpen” area. It looked like it hadn’t moved an inch since we had been there a year earlier. I hated that place………That stupid looking sheep or goat or whatever it was….just standing there…existing. What a bizarre place that was. And in the summer of ’92…we saw that damn thing again. Hell, it’s probably STILL standing there today as I write this.
Yves went 3-4. BullOxen doubled and singled, and had 2 RBI. Moose, Rogers, Cowsill, Brett Miller, and Sammy all had base hits.
I also remember after this game getting into it with the Editor at the Glendale News Press. All the writers down there were cool and we all got along. But this guy was a little unreasonable. He called me that night about 10:00 and wanted to know what happened at the game. I told him if he wanted to know what was happening at ANY of our games then he needs to send a reporter to the game. I was the Coach of the Team…not a reporter for him. I set the guy straight. He didn’t like me much after that….but I didn’t give a shit. Oh…and by the way………the Glendale News Press/Foothill Leader ALWAYS sent a reporter to every game after I went off on that guy. Ahhhh! Verdugo!!!
I told the guy that I reserved the right to have “no comment” after any game we play. I explained to him that if he had sent a reporter to the game he would have had a story to write for the paper. And I would have declined the interview after the game…because I was PISSED!
He got the message. He didn’t like it, but he got the message.
It’s all good. Here it is like 20 years later and I’m finally commenting on it. And if he’s reading this Post….he still has plenty of time to get it into tomorrow’s Newspaper!
Have I got that guy’s back or what?
verdugo288 