verdugo288

Indeed that’s what we were. Even starting back in 1990. But we weren’t much of a threat to the status quo back then. We almost were in 1991….but not enough to warrant any full-blown investigations….

Sure we always had guys getting launched from games. We had a reputation of being a little “vocal” at times. We didn’t take any shit from anybody. Many consider that to be “controversial”…. right?

Well…. I learned in 1992 that the most “controversial” thing you could do in American Legion Baseball (at least in the 20th District) is to dominate.

I won’t go into too much detail about it now. But right around the time we swept Glendale my phone was ringing. All of a sudden there were “questions” everyone had regarding the “legality” of my team. All those questions were being funneled through the Commissioner of the 20th District Mel Swerdling.

All of a sudden everyone and their brother was combing through our paperwork. They wanted to see birth certificates…. which they already had….they called schools to verify the enrollment numbers I had submitted.

Everything was being verified. And to their utter chagrin ….all of our paperwork was clean. It was clean in ’93 when they burned us, too….but that’s another story.

And that’s fine, because I knew the rule book like the back of my hand. We had no illegal players. Everything checked out.

If everything hadn’t checked out….we would have been denied the playoffs and been forced to forfeit every game any illegal players played in for the entire season. That was the rule.

That didn’t happen did it?

And that is the rule. If they determine you have “illegal players” …..then you forfeit every game they played in.

But that didn’t happen. Can you believe what these dogs were trying to do to our miraculous team in 1992?

I still shake my head when I think about it.

So why in ’93 were three of our players determined to be “illegal” and subsequently removed from our roster….and yet we didn’t have to forfeit any games they had played in? (Which was all the games we had played in ’93)

Why did they allow us to participate in the playoffs in ’93 after it was determined that for the first 17 games of the regular season that we had “illegal players?”

They should have made us forfeit all of our games at that point and made us 0-17…instead of leaving us at 15-2. They didn’t do that.

Why?

Well….That will be another story as well…but towards the end of this blog….way in the future.

This is what I mean when I say the most controversial thing you could do in the 20th District is to dominate.

But in ’92 they tried. Ohhhh did they try.

So while we were doing our thing and rising and dominating I had this “struggle” going on behind the scenes. I didn’t mention it really to anyone. It was between myself and the League.

I didn’t mention it to any of the players because I felt it would be a distraction and what was funny was ….I never even mentioned it to the one guy on our team they were targeting.

Because we hadn’t….and he hadn’t ….done anything illegal.

This was a plain and simple case of the cronies in the 20th District putting together a posse to “get Verdugo” and I “got it”…I understood….they should verify everything. But this was a little over the top as you’ll end up seeing.

I ended up getting Dave Haskell involved from Post 288. He was helpful, but I could have fought these guys off without him. It was more of the time element that was taxing me.

I had enough on my plate as it was with just managing the ball club.

But expect me to embellish upon this at some point on the blog. Everything in the end worked out for us….but we had to fight for our lives to get one guy cleared. And I think eventually they may have even had to make a change in their rule book because of it.

Because in the end….we had a guy who was targeted, but I kept telling Mel “he’s untouchable”

Fuck that pissed him off.

In fact….I told Mel he was “untouchable” so many times that I even gave this player a nickname. I stopped even referring to him by his real name when Mel was trying to pull him from our Roster.

I started calling him “The Golden Child”

Fuck that really pissed him off.

“Cmon Mel are we gonna have another conversation about The Golden Child? Don’t waste your time Mel…he’s untouchable” I would tell him.

Swerdling would be seething on the other end of the phone. I knew it and I loved it because I was right and I knew in the end I would be proven right.

While all of this was still up in the air, I would call in games to tell him we had won and I’d tell him “you should have seen the Golden Child out on the field today Mel….he dominated again”

Just to turn his screws!!!! Fuck that pissed him off.

He was fucking with me….and I fucked with him right back!!!! Verdugo-style!!!!

We had the League Commissioner threatening to yank a guy from my team. He could have. We would have got him back on the roster but he could have at least temporarily caused some damage. It wouldn’t have lasted more than a day or two because he would have been overruled. I just kept telling him “he’s untouchable”….

I was daring him to….but he couldn’t.

In the end….,The Powers-that-be ruled in favor of Verdugo!!!!

Is their anywhere Verdugo doesn’t leave their mark????