Ok gentleman now that I’ve said my peace about Verdugo and how we handled the BIG GAMES….let’s take a sneak preview here about what was coming up.
We had a double-header next in Rosamond, CA. Notice how I noted the “CA”….
That’s because this field was so far away we may as well have been playing in Arizona or Nevada…..
It was about an 80 mile trip….EACH WAY.
I was concerned….
Then we had two games against North Hollywood on the schedule. Not a double-header, but back-to-back. I wasn’t too worried about these guys. In fact, the Commissioner of the League, Mel Swerdling actually managed that team.
Mel was quite a character. I could go on and on about my dealings with him and someday will on this blog.
In a nutshell….Mel and I had some shouting matches with each other over the phone through the years (and even face-to-face) and then in 1993…he made me (and he gave me this Title) the “Mini Commissioner of the 20th District”
Yeah we kinda loved and hated each other. But it’s true. And in the 1993 pre-season managers meeting….he announced and introduced me as “The Mini Commissioner of the 20th District” to all the coaches and I went to the podium and addressed everyone at the meeting from the podium. Laying out about a five minute speech for all the coaches. You gotta know Ol Fat Jody was hating that!!!!
From 1990 to pretty much being 2nd in command…..not too bad!!!!
But it was what was up on our schedule AFTER these four games that was going to be the test.
Double Header versus Glendale. (Tough team we had never beat)
Sun Valley for nine innings at Stengel. (Tough team we had never beat)
Notre Dame weekday game at their yard (huge rivalry)
Burbank nine inning Saturday game on the road (they had already beat us this season)
Notre Dame again at their yard weekday game (huge rivalry)
Lancaster South (who we beat earlier this year in our second game) but still a ROAD GAME IN LANCASTER.
Sun Valley weekday game at Glendale High
This was going to be the test gentleman. And even after this stretch….we still would have have the final three games of the season to play!!!
You can start to see that a 23 game season is long enough to wear you down…but short enough to make every game a BIG GAME.
I just kinda kept telling myself when I looked at the road ahead we had ….”on any given Sunday……”
So in the next four games versus Lancaster North and North Hollywood…..I felt we needed to sweep these games. Sweep them and remain focused and stay in the moment and not get caught looking ahead to that vicious stretch of the schedule we had coming up.
I figured ok if we can sweep the next four games…then we can head into that Fourth of July double-header against Glendale at 11-1. That was the plan….and the other plan was to juggle the pitching staff so Bull would get the ball in the first game of that twin bill.
Even though that first game of the double-header against Glendale was going to be at around 11am on a Saturday morning (bringing the hangover-factor majorly into play) I still wanted Bull on the mound for that game.
Lots of interesting stuff came about.
These next few weeks coming up defined us. And it was absolutely magnificent to watch!
verdugo288 