These were the guys from the 1992 Team. The first year we broke-through and reached the playoffs. But before I list the names….Here is What they DID:
1.) Had the second-best Regular Season won-loss record in the 20th District for 1992 at 20-3.
2.) Hit .342 as a TEAM.
3.) Hit 15 Home Runs. This Team hit more Home Runs than the 90, 91, and 93 Teams combined.
4.) Came within two outs of advancing OUT of the 20th District Playoffs and INTO the Area 6 Playoffs. The Team who ultimately won the World Series in 1992 was AT the Area 6 Playoff Tournament. They Beat Notre Dame 7-6. We BEAT Notre Dame two out of three in 1992, including a 9-8 come-from-behind Playoff victory. I think it’s safe to say we could have played toe-to-toe with that Team….possibly even BEATING them. Notre Dame was kind of like a gnat to us that year, but we always swatted them away….
5.) Cracked out 235 hits as a Team for the Season. The only Team we had who was even close to that was the 1990 Team, with 191 Hits for the season.
6.) Had a Team ERA of 2.41.
7.) Was without a doubt….THE MOST FEARED TEAM in the 20th District.
These guys put together one of the most incredible efforts I have ever seen in my life!!!! I will be going through “what they did” game-by-game over the next month or so. It’s obvious I won’t be able to chronicle it all before The Bash. So we need to acknowledge “what they did”….front and center….right NOW.
Here They Are Alphabetically:
Dan Bir – Yves Brancheau – Josh Canale – Kasey Canale – Brendan Cowsill – Lance Evans – Dave Fielder – John Gabrielson – Kirk Hagge – Jon Jackson – Yvan Moreno – Robb Turner – VO – John Workman.
14 Guys. Probably the Greatest Summer in our four-year history. There was more of the same in ’93 (18-2), but there was a bitter ending to it all. Funny, though….18 years later The League admitted to making a mistake about a ruling AGAINST our Team in 1993. I will talk about that as well down the road. In the end….Verdugo ALWAYS WINS!!!! Even if it’s 18 years later!!!!
So before we start writing about each game of the ’92 season….I wanted all of you readers out there to know “WHAT THEY DID.”
But none of this would have happened without the warriors of ’90 and ’91. Make no mistake about it. Every game, every player, every story told about the first two years of our Team’s existence had a hand in this. And it made the results of the ’92 season that much sweeter. This was something we all could enjoy. Everyone who ever played for us could enjoy this. The ’92 Team avenged a LOT of losses we had the first two years.
As far as I’m concerned….the Story of the ’92 Team is a story about the most powerful force there is in this world. The Power of the human spirit. The story of fourteen guys on the same page. The story of what WILL happen if you EVER underestimate us at VERDUGO!!!!
Maybe it was timing. Maybe it was all of the planets aligning. But if that was true….it wouldn’t have happened AGAIN like it did in ’93. No, there was something special going on here. And we ALL had created it.
And I want to thank the members of this Team for allowing me to go on that ride with them….
It was the greatest ride of my life!!!!
I still shake my head and smile as I think about “what they did” all of these years later!!!!!
There were plenty of people who thought I had lost my mind when I trimmed the Roster from 18 down to 14. And speaking of the number 14, there were even MORE people who thought I was out of my mind putting a 14-year-old on our Roster. Still others thought I had lost my mind when I decided to leadoff Workman. But ‘Ol Gee showed all of the naysayers that he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. And you know what was so great about my little scheme I like to call “1992”? That I was RIGHT!!!!
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