verdugo288

And once again…..they’ve done it!

That’s right.  We rolled into North Hollywood, punished them with another mercy-rule victory, and picked up our TWELFTH win of the year….assuring us a winning record.  This bumped us to 12-9, and for another couple of days we were still mathematically in the Playoff hunt.  That is, until we read the newspapers and learned that Newhall-Saugus had won their 15th game.  That ended any chances of us sneaking into that Big Party they call “The Playoffs.”

John Rogers picked up the win on the mound.  He threw a five-inning shutout. 

North Hollywood had a rough season.  They walked six guys, commited seven errors..and we racked up eight hits in the victory.  I remember doing the stats after this game and seeing that even if we got shut down in our last game…we were still going to hit .300 as a Team.  Pretty impressive.  Both times we played these guys we beat ’em 10-0.

I was extremely happy we had guaranteed a winning season with this win.  I was beaming.  We had fought hard all season.  The pitchers were tired.  It was pretty much against all odds, but once again……..they’ve done it!!!

Bull picked up two hits this game, Martin two hits, Vic doubled, Weap doubled, Turner singled…..and you guessed it…..HANK even chipped in to keep his end-of-the-season tear alive.  What a finish by Hank!!

Our last game was going to be against Sun Valley.  They had sewn up a playoff spot, but we all wanted to try and take them out and finish the year on a high note.  BullOxen was going to get the start.  I couldn’t wait………..

Now I’m down at Stengel Field.  “Hey wait a minute!” you say….”you said the next game was at North Hollywood High.”  That’s right!  I did.  And….it WAS scheduled to be the NEXT game.  I was down at Stengel Field coaching the OTHER Team I had that summer.  A Connie Mack Team comprised of players from CV and Burbank High.  We put this Team together to keep the rat-weasel from the Burbank Legion Team from coaching any of our underclassmen who would be returning to play for us the next season at Burbank High.  Except for ONE GUY.  Yeah, there was ONE GUY who was an underclassman who we let play on that Burbank Legion Team.  His name?  Jeff Kadis. 

Kadis was kind of “on the fence” about our Burbank High School Program.  He ultimately became LOYAL….but he was (I must admit) the LAST of the underclassmen we had to give their unbending loyalty to myself and Coach Johnson (The Head Coach).  So that summer Kadis played for ME on the Connie Mack Team and also played for the rat weasel on the Burbank Legion Team.  But deep down he was a good guy.  And at the field this night at Stengel…he pulled off one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a pregame drill.

Anyways…I’m talking to Kadis before the game.  “Hey how’s your Legion Team doing?” I asked him (like I even cared).  I was just making a little “small talk” with him.

“Yeah” we had a game last night.

“Did you win?”

“Yeah….we won on a forfeit” he said.

“Who was the other team” I asked.

He sat there for about ten seconds and then he says…”YOU!!”

I went WILD.  We didn’t have any god-damned game scheduled against Burbank.  Not for another week I told him.

“Bullshit” he said…..”The umps were there and everything.”

Soon enough I put two and two together.  That FUCKING LITTLE RAT WEASEL.  That fucking little rat weasel who refused to sign Chandler and Chili over to us was pulling some more SHIT!!!

I went straight to the payphone at Stengel.  I called the League Supervisor.  Got him on the phone.  And went WILD.

As I was walking to the payphone…I’m thinking…”Does it EVER stop with this guy?”

After about ten minutes of going off…..the Commissioner realized that the rat weasel had taken it upon himself to “reschedule” the Verdugo-Burbank game…….AND NOT TELL VERDUGO about it!!!

It was an easy fix.

“He’s been pulling this kind of shit all summer long”……..the commissioner said……..”this time I’m gonna make him pay.”

The final verdict:  FORFEIT.

AGAINST BURBANK!!!!!!

The winner?  VERDUGO!!!!!!!!

Why?

For trying to pull shit on Verdugo!!

Ahhhh Verdugo!!!

This post is NO joke.  This coach actually tried to pull this shit off and thought he was gonna get away with it.  I enjoyed every minute of returning to the field..hitting pregame…and telling Kadis….”yeah, it WAS a forfeit……….AND I WON!!!”

Kadis was a little bit overweight.  He was usually lethargic during day games.  And since most Baseball games are played during the daytime….well, I guess you could say Kadis was “lethargic.”  But on this night game at Stengel….he was ON FIRE!  Was it the cool weather?  What was it?  I’m telling you, he was ON FIRE!

I even told him…”Dude, you’re ACTIVE tonight.  I’ve never seen you this ACTIVE.”  Kadis was usually a catcher or first baseman….and he was ALWAYS begging to pitch.

I stuck him in left.  Kadis was crow-hoppin’….putting on a clinic out there during pre-game.  I couldn’t believe the way he was hustling that night.

“Now I know what you’re capable of”….you dogged it the whole season”….. I told him….”and Coach Johnson’s gonna hear about this!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I was elated!  Kadis was ALIVE!!!  I was loving it!!!

At least until we started making throws from the outfield to third base.  Our opponents had gathered just outside the third base dugout at Stengel and their coach was going over something with his players while we hit pre-game.  The coach had his back to the field.

I hit it to Kadis…..”Three” we yelled.  Kadis came up with it cleanly……put on a textbook crow-hop….and promptly FIRED one to the third baseman….about fifteen feet OVER HIS HEAD.

Everybody in the park saw it coming…..except the coach…he had his back turned to the field.

RIGHT IN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kadis and I were “Bro’s” after that one………

Every time I saw Kadis from that night forward…I couldn’t stop laughing.

Finally, after all of the B.S……..Kadis and I were Bro’s.  And Kadis (who was kind of a Babe Ruth look-alike) hit a titanic BLAST deep into the wash at Stengel that night.  DAMN he was ACTIVE that night!!!!!! 

Yes-sir-ree…..but all that mattered to me was the fact that Verdugo had officially swept Burbank that season……no matter what the rat weasel tried to do.  Hey rat weasel…THANKS for the FREEBIE!!!!!!!  And thanks for pushing us to 11-9 on the year!!!  AHHHHHHHH Verdugo!!!!

I said it in an earlier post and I’ll say it again……….Good ALWAYS triumphs over evil!!!!!!!!!!

Time for a little double-header action against a team called “Valley ET.”  The “ET” stood for Encino-Tarzana.  They were having a rough year.  The kind of year everyone had predicted US to have.  But Verdugo always “beats the spread”…in Vegas, or anywhere else for that matter.  And if there WAS a line in Vegas for this game…it was nice to be FINALLY playing a couple of games where we were actually FAVORED to win.

By this time of the year, the Team and I had an interesting relationship going on.  It was an “open door” policy…everyone could kind of speak their mind.  Guys knew I didn’t take myself TOO seriously, they knew all I cared about was kicking as much ass as we could.  So it worked.  I was about 12-14 years older than the players.  Not old enough to be looked at like a parent…too old to be looked at like an older brother.  I don’t really know what I was.  But it must have been fun for onlookers to watch us “go back and forth” on certain things.  We’d argue, rag on each other…it was all good. 

The cool thing was this…I can’t even tell you how many people came up to me that season and told me how hard you guys played.  And that’s about ALL I cared about.  People telling me I had the “Team from Hell”….or “it’s like a mix of the WWF and Baseball”…..one guy told me “no brick wall is thick enough for those guys to run through.”  Yeah, that was cool.  It was parents, coaches, umpires, everybody.  They always had something to say about Verdugo Hills.  Sometimes the things they said weren’t real nice, either.  But make no mistake about this….we had carved out quite a name for ourselves that first season.

McBride started the first game of the twin bill.  All I told him before the game was “just pitch the whole game!”

Hey, what else could I say?  McBride would always battle for us….so I started pushing the envelope with him as much as I could.  There’s an old saying…”when you get a good horse, YOU RIDE IT.”  I’d make sure there were plenty of people listening when I’d say to him “anything short of a complete-game-victory is unacceptable.”

McBride just laughed.  He knew I was toying with him. But that’s exactly what he did in the opening game. We won 5-3.

We made the most of four hits in the win.  Hank singled to lead off the third inning.  Sammy singled him to third and ‘Ol Hank scored on Vic’s sacrifice fly to give us a 1-0 lead.   

In the fifth, Hank led off again with a base-hit and stole second.  He moved to third on a wild-pitch and Sammy squeezed him in.  One of their infielders threw the ball into the right field corner on Sammy’s bunt and he ended up at third on the play.  Vic and Tex drew walks………and BullOxen came up and broke the game open with a three RBI double. 5-0 just like that.

McBride threw a great game…walking three and striking out three.  They mounted a little threat in the bottom of the sixth, but Vic made a diving catch in center and back-picked to first base to double-off a runner who had wandered too far towards second.  And of course…Hank was rubbing it in all the way!  We were back on track.

The second game we had BIG BRECK.  Big Breck had gotten out of some kind of Basketball commitment he had and got the start.  Big Breck’s numbers?  Five Innings…three hits…three walks…a tight little shutout.  We win 11-0.  Mercy Rule.  AHHH Big Breck!!!  Big Breck was locked in with Basketball the rest of the season so it was his last appearance for us that season.  But it gave Hank and Bull some rest.

I gotta say this.  HANK had really caught fire at the plate.  He was on a 7-12 tear over the last four games.  Hank hit .339 in the summer of 1990.  Yeah, some of those were chinkers, some were dunkers….some were “routine” ground balls that ended up being base hits when one of the middle infielders would vacate when we’d hit and run….but .339 is .339.  Who would have thought ‘Ol Hank with that sweepin’ swing of his would hit .339?  Great job HANK!

Hank was three for three in the second game, Rogers doubled in two runs, and we had base hits by Tex, Bull, Frost, and Turner.

Shit…Hank was hitting the ball so well I hit him in the three hole…….BOTH GAMES! 

Even better…we were back over .500 at 10-9.  Most importantly, we got through both games and didn’t have to pitch Hank or Bull.  Now it was time for another little trip to North Hollywood High.  The “Traveling Salesmen” were back on a roll….riding high….having fun….and closing deals!!!

It was difficult to get ready for our next ballgame.  We were kind of looking in the rear view mirror going into this one.  We definitely had a little emotional letdown after the tough loss to Woodland Hills East.  So we took our ten-man show out to Valley College for a game against Encino-Crespi.  On the mound for Crespi?  Jeff Suppan.  We all are aware today of Suppan’s brilliant High School career at Crespi High.  But this was just his beginning.  He was coming off his Freshman season (where he played all season for the varsity), but was still technically a ninth-grader when we faced him.

Has was only 15 years old.  And he beat us. 

He had a great curveball and he threw strikes.  But make no mistake about this……BullOxen had a nastier curveball than Jeff Suppan.

It wasn’t like he was untouchable or anything.  Both teams had six hits.  He only struck out six guys.  The difference in this game was our pitching staff walking eight guys.  In fact…Crespi had scored SIX times on us by the third inning….on ONE HIT.

This loss dropped us to 8-9.  So what does Verdugo do when our record drops to 8-9?  Well….we rattle off FOUR wins in a row to get back in the Playoff hunt.  I’ll be covering those four wins as well.

Vic tripled, Martin and Weap doubled, and Frost, BullOxen, and Rogers all singled.  Rogers drove in two runs and Vic had an RBI as well.

I don’t know if I would have predicted Suppan to make it to the Big Leagues after watching this game.  Over the years, we got to see a few other guys who also made it.  Randy Wolf, Brad Fulmer, Russ Ortiz to name a few.  That’s what was so great about Legion Ball.  It really WAS (in the early to mid 1990’s) the best summer-league Baseball competition out there.  All the scouts were there, and it gave the kids some great exposure for Professional or even College Baseball. 

Sure, we ALWAYS wanted to win.  And I was certainly trying from the first game I managed to build the most feared Team in the 20th District.  And ultimately, we did that. But at the very least…I was also there to make sure OUR GUYS got as much exposure as we could possibly get.  That’s why I always got the stats called in to the Newspapers.  And it definitely paid off.  The Scouts started coming around to watch us in ’91.  Once we started really kicking some ass….there was pretty much at least ONE scout at every game we played from the middle of the ’92 season forward.

Yeah….”Soup” beat us.  But if you were to sit him down today and ask him if he remembers a Team from his Legion Ball days called Verdugo Hills, I’m sure he would be able to tell you EXACTLY who we were.  The Verdugo-Crespi “rivalry” continued on in ’92 and ’93.  I liked their program.  I liked their coach.  And I liked their kids.  The coach and I never got into it too much.  But there was a respect we had for one another.  And when we went toe-to-toe on the field, Coach Muckey and I were both looking to kick each others’ ass.  I have to say, overall…..he was a good guy.  And he’s probably about the ONLY guy I coached against in that League that I would say that about.

Now…let’s talk about these FOUR IN A ROW we rattled off!!!!!!!

Ahhhh Verdugo!