We had four rookies in 1992. You say “all right now wait a minute here Gee….what about Calf? All you’ve been doing is raving about Vo, Fielder, Bir and Haggs!”
It’s true. And I’m gonna rave about all five of these dudes. But Calf wasn’t technically a “rookie” in ’92. He was 14 years old! Calf wouldn’t have even been a rookie for us until the ’94 season!
All said and done….playoffs included….Calf was 10 for 32 at the plate for us in ’92 (.313)….
Yeah…he hit .313 for us. He was 8-28 in the regular season (.286) and went 2-4 for us (.500) in the playoffs.
He’s in a different category. We’ll talk about that later. Maybe we put him in the “freak (?)” category….and when I say “freak”….I mean that in the very best of ways.
I’ve got nothing but good things to say about all five of these guys. These guys were monumental to our success. They ALL stepped up big time for us!
But what I’m Tawkin’ ’bout today is the four rookies we had in 1992. You know? The “traditional rookie” ….a 16-year old about to play his first year in Legion with a total of three years of eligibility.
No doubt about it at all….Verdugo had the best four rookies of 1992.
The two “original” rookies from 1990 were Turner and Bull Oxen. I still say if they had a “rookie-of-the-year” in Legion (which they should have had) I could have made one hell of a case when all the coaches would have gathered around to vote on it that it should have gone to Canale in 1990.
The “rookies” we had in 1991 were Workman, Cowsill, and Yves. Dang.
So that’s what we’re talking about here. The 16-year olds. And I’ve got so much to say that I can’t put it all into one story.
I’m gonna cover all of these guys individually with stories and go over what they did for us. I will do the same for every member of the Team before I start writing about the playoffs.
But I’m starting with the rookies of ’92.
And I’m starting with the two guys who handled the catching duties for us….a couple of fucking warriors that went by the names of Thunder and Haggs!!!!
It might take a while….but everybody deserves what’s about to be said and quite frankly….it needs to be said. I’m still going through the videos (a couple hours a day) and will get the appropriate highlights embedded into the games I’ve already written about.
This WordPress blog is pretty cool. It keeps track of everything. Stats…how many hits we get…etc. I’m talking everything!
I’ve probably written enough on here to cover a 500-600 page book at this point. Maybe more….who knows? After all that writing….I had still only used up 2% of the storage I have available here. I’ve added a few videos and it quickly jumped to 7%. And these were all short video clips.
So clearly I’m going to have to either buy more storage here or at some point create a website and transfer it all over there. I think having a website at some point would be pretty cool. We can really give this thing a much better look if and when I do that. And that way I can pay upfront for 20-30 years of hosting so it’s always there.
This blog has a very small audience. I started this thing ten years ago and I do want to finish it. For me….so I chronicle this whole thing. I don’t know of any coaches who have ever taken on something like this. To write about every single game in a Team’s history plus all the stuff that went on behind the scenes.
And also I want to finish this for the players. The further in time we move away from 1990-93 the more cool this thing becomes. At least to me it does.
We really turned up the dial the last couple of seasons. That was always the goal to me. To dominate.
Many coaches went into the season with this kind of vibe: “yeah we want to get the players some experience and work on their mechanics and blah blah blah blah blah.”
Fuck that.
I was there for one thing and one thing only. To fucking battle. And I wanted you guys to battle too. The Verdugo Legion Program was really about one thing and one thing only…..
To compete….
At the very least….I wanted to create the greatest group of battlers of all time. You guys already had that within you.
I wanted to create an environment where everyone could just be themselves and battle. I wanted us to truly have a sense of that it was us against the world.
And let’s face it….those last two seasons everybody was comin’ after us. And whoever came at us….we just kept throwin’ ’em to the ground.
And that’s why I’m still inspired to write about all this stuff.
So Stay tuned!!!!
verdugo288 