This was the weekend that was about to define us. A Saturday twin-bill against Glendale at Stengel, a nine-inning Sunday night game against Sun Valley, and Fat Jody on Wednesday.
We had juggled the pitchers so we had Bull in game one against Glendale. My plan was to go with Hack in game two regardless of what happened in game one. I felt that the hitters from Glendale/Hoover may have seen Hack in some Babe Ruth Tournament games in the past (?) but apart from that they probably hadn’t seen much of him since he was at Saint Francis.
I didn’t want to give Spiro the opportunity to get in Lance’s head either while he pitched for us. Not that anyone could get in his head….but if anyone could….it would be Spiro. Spiro had a way with words didn’t he?
Evans would get the ball Sunday night against Sun Valley….and the Fat Jody game could have been a committee or Cowsill or even Vo….who knows? It’s one of those bridges you cross when you get there.
What mattered now is Glendale. Coming into this one Glendale was 9-3 and we were 10-2.
And the build-up to this one was pretty heavy….at least until everybody finally got to the field. Many players from both teams ran into one another at a party the night before this game. Some “good-natured” trash-talk exchanged from what I heard.
Hopefully you guys out there reading this will pitch-in on your recollections of this weekend….
Both teams seemed confident that they were going to ruin the other teams’ Fourth-of-July….
Canale and Turner arrived in style. Turner getting out of the car bare-footed and wearing only a pair of Levi’s.
A beer can fell out of the car landing near Turner’s feet.
Just looking at these two guys …. I could FEEL their hangovers. I didn’t have to say anything.
They both started saying as they smiled “Don’t worry Gee ….we got this”
Whew….
But ya know around this time some guys from Glendale were arriving as well. They weren’t moving too quick either.
I was like….”okay they’ve been partying too”
I got out on the field and who is gonna do the field prep? I saw Spiro and Marcel standing around and we just kinda all pitched in. Players, coaches.
I remember standing around the mound for a bit while somebody was raking it.
Not much was said. Spiro was chattering away…..doing some comedy radio play-by-play calling a horse race he had recently seen that had a few people chuckling.
I didn’t wait for anyone to tell us what dugout was for who. We just laid our stuff down on the first base side. I actually WANTED that dugout. I honestly didn’t give a shit.
Slowly but surely….one-by-one ….everyone from both sides arrived. No trash talking …pretty laid back. We went through our rituals and they went through theirs.
We had all FOURTEEN of our guys there. One of our guys was 14 years old! I was counting the Glendale bodies….they had all Eighteen there.
BIG GAME? you better believe it! Nice crowd on hand too for this one.
But remember ….Verdugo? Yeah ….they’re good….but they never won the BIG GAMES…..
Right?
The umpires arrived….Marcel and I swapped our line-up cards….made a couple of small jokes and said our “good-lucks” to one-another, and before we knew it….it was time to play ball.
verdugo288 