We had a new fungo also for the ’92 season. In the past, I had always hit pre-game with whatever bat I could grab ahold of. It never really mattered to me. So it was cool to actually have our own fungo now. I am not sure if the area of the fungo where the ball meets the bat was taped-up on opening day in ’92 or if it was taped-up at a practice we may have had before the season…..
I do remember that the ’92 and ’93 fungoes were both taped up by David Fielder. As I mentioned in a post here many years ago I still have both fungoes….I’m looking at them right now and the tape on both of them is still holding up pretty well….(great job on the taping Dave!)
I was happy to finally have a fungo. But I felt this fungo needed a purpose. I didn’t want it to be “just a fungo”…..
So I started bringing a cigar to every game starting in ’92….
I thought it would be cool to light up a victory cigar when we would win and whoever was the winning pitcher could take the lit cigar and “brand” our fungo with a nice big fat burn mark to signify and celebrate our victory. You know….kind of like “notches in a belt”….. It was a pretty cool ritual. And for the next two seasons that’s exactly what we did…..
The Los Angeles Times even picked up on it and wrote a small story about it in the paper during the ’92 season….the link to this story they ran is at the bottom of this post….
My other ritual just kind of happened due to time constraints. I had my uniform with me on opening day 1992. In my car. I didn’t want to get it all dirty doing field prep before the game (which I didn’t end up having to do anyways thankfully)….
So I arrived at the field opening day wearing a Russell Athletic set of “sleeves” that were going to end up being worn under my jersey. You know….”sleeves”….basically a white shirt with some long sleeves attached to it that are a different color….and they go under your jersey. The sleeves I was wearing that day were navy-blue.
I was wearing my baseball pants but to keep them from getting dirty (I was planning on doing field prep) I wore some long baggy navy-blue nylon basketball warm-up pants over them. I had the Verdugo cap on, and I wore high-top basketball shoes (with the laces untied)…..
When I had made the long walk and gone to my car earlier to get several things we needed before the game (including my uniform) I got back to the field and realized I had left my jersey and cleats in the car.
Game time was getting close (time constraints)…..I wasn’t in the mood to walk all the way back to my car to get my jersey and cleats…..and so I decided to coach my first Legion game ever without a uniform. I wore the Verdugo cap, sleeves, big baggy basketball warm-up pants, and high tops with the laces untied….kind of a half-baseball, half-basketball vibe. My thinking was “ok if we win yeah I am going to have to wear this again but it won’t last long…I can just wear this until we play a lousy game”
Well, over the next two seasons we never played a lousy enough game for me to change that look! The anchor of this new “uniform” I had devised for myself was the baggy navy-blue basketball pants! That and the cap and the high tops. I mixed-in different shirts here and there depending on how hot it was during the season….but that was what I wore for two seasons!
I actually liked the half-basketball/half-baseball vibe. It was unassuming. I am sure many teams we played over the next couple of years read or heard about our success….and when they played us and met us for the first time probably thought to themselves “THAT GUY is the ring-leader of this outfit?”
I think they all eventually learned to not judge a book by its cover….
As only we know, there just may be reasons, or rituals, or even superstitions that help create the cover of the book that is being looked at so hard under the microscope.
I do remember a few people asking me in 92 and 93 why I didn’t wear a uniform…I just tried to say as politely as I could “it’s a long story” or I would say “you’d probably never understand” and leave it at that.
I also had another ritual I did in the scorebook before every game. Wherever Lance Evans was in the lineup I would always simply write the name “Evan”…..removing the “s” from his last name. It just sounded better….right? “Lance Evan” ….I even called him “Evan” ….
I would hand the scorebook to Nancy Canale before every game and when the game ended and I had gone home to start in on the stats I always noticed Nancy would add in the “s” at the end of his last name. I think she was thinking “c’mon Kelly don’t you even know his name?” So she was (in her own way) “educating” ‘Ol Gee as to how to spell his last name.
Gotta give credit to Nancy for never actually saying to me “uhhh hey his last name is E-V-A-N-S” but I must admit I did enjoy the little cat-and-mouse interplay that was going on between her and I regarding the scorebook and Lance’s last name.
I did see your correction(s) Nancy every time but chose to ignore it…haha he’s always “Lance Evan” as far as I’m concerned simply because it sounds better!
I have included some pics of the scorebook (including one game when Nancy may not have been there to keep score) and as you can see the name “Evan” remains in the book as I originally wrote it in…..
The other two shots I’ve included show the “s” that Nancy added in when she was handling the scorekeeping duties for us…
Pretty funny in my book…..
I still have the baggy navy-blue basketball warm-up pants too by the way and still wear them when I go on power walks! I will post a pic of them soon.
June 6, 1992 ended up being quite a day for new rituals!
Los Angeles Times link http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-08/sports/sp-1447_1_verdugo-hills
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