|
App
|
IP
|
H
|
BB
|
SO
|
ER
|
ERA
|
W
|
L
|
S
|
CG
|
|
|
Breckow
|
2
|
9.1
|
10
|
7
|
7
|
4
|
3.01
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
|
Canale
|
11
|
29
|
32
|
31
|
24
|
16
|
3.86
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
1
|
|
Chandler
|
5
|
19.1
|
17
|
7
|
15
|
4
|
1.45
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
|
Fernandez
|
10
|
32.2
|
25
|
27
|
30
|
9
|
2.19
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
McBride
|
8
|
39.2
|
37
|
18
|
20
|
27
|
4.76
|
4
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
|
Rivera
|
2
|
9.1
|
5
|
2
|
9
|
1
|
0.75
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
|
Rogers
|
2
|
10.2
|
15
|
6
|
6
|
10
|
6.56
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
1
|
|
Forfeit
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Team
|
46
|
155
|
149
|
107
|
112
|
77
|
3.47
|
12
|
10
|
8
|
Archive for the ‘BullOxen’ Category
1990 PITCHING STATS
Posted: June 13, 2011 in 1990, Big Breck, BullOxen, Chandler, Chili, Hank, McBride, Rogers3
1990 STATS
Posted: June 13, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Chili, Frost, Hank, Rogers, Sammy, Spongy, Turner, Vic, Weapon1990 was a pretty damn good year. I like what we pulled off. I really enjoyed pulling the strings from the third base coaching box with this group because we had a lot of speed on this Team. Straight steals, hit-and-runs, delayed steals….taking an extra base….it all added up. Rogers hit .246, but he led the Team in stings (eight), sacrifices (six), and was right near the top in RBI. Rogers’ six sacrifices were an all-time Verdugo record. Rogers also played EVERY position on the diamond for us that season! Hank had 21 hits….20 of them singles! Martin led in average, slugging percentage and doubles, Weap and Canale led in RBI. Canale, a 16 year old in his rookie season led Verdugo with 27 hits! Canale struck out only ONE TIME!….an all-time contact percentage record that was never broken. And Martin’s 10 doubles was another Verdugo record that was never broken. Same with VIC’s 19 stolen bases…no one ever broke that record either. Vic also set an all-time record for walks in one season (18). Vic also led the squad that year in runs (18), triples (three), on-base percentage (.549), and times reached base (45). Sammy was one of two players we ever had in our history to steal more than 10 bases in one season (12) and NOT get caught stealing. Yep…12 for 12! Turner may have only hit .178…but he was 5th in on-base percentage. Turner also was second on the Team in walks with 15, and fourth on the Team in runs scored with 13. As you can also see….Chili had a great year for us at the plate. He had four doubles in nine games. And then there’s Frost. He didn’t play any ball his senior year in High School and look at what he did. I looked back in the scorebook and he started the season one for 12! So he had a nice year for us as well once he got back into the swing of things.
Our .865 contact-percentage as a Team in 1990 was also a record that was never broken. 1990 Also hit the most triples we ever had in a season with 11…..a record that was TIED by the ’91 Team.
Check out the Original Verdugo numbers…..pretty impressive indeed! Ahhh Original Verdugo Team!!!!
You know, through all four years…we only played TWO meaningless games. I’m talkin’ bout games where we had been officially eliminated from the Playoff picture. This was the first…and the second time was (ironically) the LAST game of the ’91 season. I think that’s a hell of an accomplishment. In both of our first two seasons…we took it down to the LAST GAME. We all know about how the floodgates opened up for us in ’92 and ’93. Those were very, very special summers. But the summers of ’90 and ’91 really laid the foundation. And I am extremely PROUD of all we did those first two seasons.
I was talking to Weap on the phone today. I pointed out to him that it was himself and Hank who were also right in the middle of that celebration in ’92 when we clinched our first playoff spot. Those guys were burning themselves with “Gars” as well. They hadn’t participated ON THE FIELD with what we did in ’92, but because of all the emotions and triumphs and “days we ruined” (of our opponents) in 1990…..what we did in all of the subsequent years was very special to them as well. Everything we ever did with that Team belonged to them as well. What a great gesture….guys who played for the original Team showing how happy they were for the guys on the Team in ’92. Hank and Weap were great coaches for us from 91-93. You see, once you’ve played for Verdugo…..even if you were “retired”…..it was always YOUR TEAM.
I don’t know if there are very many Legion Teams before or after Verdugo who can say they had that kind of history and tradition going on.
So we go into this game against Sun Valley. They certainly had put together a great season. I’m sure it’s safe to say that they didn’t want to go into the post season on a sour note, and they came to play that night. But so did we. I gave the ball to BullOxen. He was pretty much “The Future” of our ballclub as far as I was concerned. I’m not taking anything away from anyone else. But when I first saw him at that non-league game for CV before the 1990 High School season, when he was bouncing pitches, hitting batters and wild as hell I said to a friend of mine who was there with me “I’m building the fucking team around that guy.” I loved him. He was …….ALIVE!!!!!
Well, tonight we were gonna get a glimpse of how far he had developed that first season. Sure, he struggled with his control a little bit the first year with us. But he kept getting better. And this game against Sun Valley…a Playoff team…going against the pitcher who led the District in ERA…Bull went toe-to-toe the whole evening. We got beat 6-1. But it didn’t matter……
He threw only 82 pitches in six innings. He walked only ONE guy. FIVE of the six runs scored off of him were unearned. He only gave up five hits. He gave those guys fits that night and they knew we gave them the game. But like I said…it didn’t matter.
We scored only once on eight hits and left 10 guys on base. But it didn’t matter.
And even though “it didn’t matter”….there was a LOT in this game that DID matter. What mattered to me was how far Bull had come that first year as a pitcher. And it mattered to me that I was RIGHT about the guy I wanted to “build the fucking team around.” And again, I’m not taking away anything from anyone else when I say this…..
I was extremely impressed with the way he threw that game and the way he carried himself. It was a glimpse of our future. And yes-sir-ree….our future was looking very, very bright indeed!!!!
Sure, we wanted to win that game. But this was one of the few times you ever would catch ‘Ol Gee smiling after a loss. I was thinking…imagine this kid in another year or two.
I’ll tell you something else. We had plenty of guys on our Team through the years who had stories written about them in the newspapers. Feature Stories. BullOxen never got one. He never got the ink he deserved. Never in High School, never in Legion. And he never ONCE complained about it. He just kept getting better and producing some staggering numbers for us. Well…..I’m not done writing about ‘Ol Bull. He’s gonna get the ink he rightfully deserved all of those years RIGHT HERE on this blog.
BullOxen…you had a GREAT fucking season for us. And this season was just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m gonna be posting a couple more stories about the 1990 squad PLUS the stats for that season soon. I hope to have it all done by this Sunday the 12th.
Verdugo finishes 12-10. A brilliant season. Now, if you stretch that winning percentage out over a 162-game Major League season…hell, we just went 89-73!!!! And you know what? I’ll take it…….
“The Saugus 500″……..(Part Three)
Posted: May 31, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Frost, McBride, Vic, WeaponI tweaked the schedule so that there were no games played while I honeymooned. I returned a week later, and now we had some BIG games to play. We were at the point now where we couldn’t lose anymore games if we wanted a shot at the Playoffs. But with Verdugo….you never know. We still hadn’t really “got hot” and rattled off three or four wins in a row so if anything…we were due.
If they had camera crews following around teams back in those days and televising the action, Verdugo would have definitely stolen the spotlight from some of the powerhouse teams around the League. Why? Because damn near every time we played, we put on a great show. And today was no exception.
We rolled out to Saugus to play the Newhall-Saugus team. For more information on the crazy shit that went down on our ride out that day…..please read my earlier posts “The Saugus 500…Parts One and Two.”
Newhall-Saugus was on track to take the last playoff spot so I told everyone “we gotta beat these guys.”
“Don’t worry Gee”………..was all I heard.
“We can’t lose any more games”………I said.
“Don’t worry Gee”………
God I loved this Team!
Depleted pitching staff? No problem! McBride goes ALL THE WAY in a nine-inning game. We win!!
Facing Erik Hiljus the Big Hard-throwing early-round draft pick? No problem! We lit him up!
Vic drew four walks, stole three bases and scored three runs.
Frost singled and scored twice.
Tex went three-for-four with two doubles and three RBI.
BullOxen Two hits and Two RBI.
Weapon Two hits and Two RBI.
McBride threw 134 pitches and went all the way for the win. It was a little shaky…but we pulled off another upset.
One thing I will never forget is the absolute SHOT one of the Newhall-Saugus players BOMBED for a homerun in the first inning off of McBride. This ball was probably the longest homerun I had ever seen hit in a Legion game. Of course, in 1991 we saw BullOxen hit one that we measured after the game at an estimated 510 feet (when it landed)…..but the ball this guy hit was probably just as far. It was hard to tell. There was that Big Blue Fence at Saugus High. Bull’s was hit at an open field up in LittleRock. Plus, Bull’s shot rolled at least another 50 feet in some pretty deep grass. So it’s hard to say which ball went further………..
This was one of those homeruns where the dugout gets real quiet. Usually, when we’d give up a homerun I’d never look at anyone in the dugout. I’d have to kind of put on my pokerface and pretend that it “didn’t hurt.” You know, just kind of keep looking out at the field and say nothing. No change in expression, that kind of thing. Stoneface it, if you will. As a manager you have to do shit like that, you know. Even if it DOES hurt.
But within a short time of this ball landing (about 30 seconds later), I couldn’t keep a straight face. I had to kind of shake my head at first. Then I kind of looked at people in the dugout with a little peripheral vision…just to see their reaction. Next thing you know I was making eye-contact with guys in the dugout and kind of saying “Fuck, did you see that SHOT?”
Then it escalated even further. Everybody in the dugout was now talking about that ball he hit and laughing about it. Then we looked out at the field. I could see from the dugout that some of our guys in the field were kind of looking at each other like “Fuck…did you see that?”
Finally, we looked at McBride. He couldn’t hold it in either….he started laughing too!!!!!
It didn’t matter…we all just kind of admired it. Guys in our dugout were needling McBride about it the rest of the game. We all had a good laugh about it. That SHOT that kid hit was no fluke. He led the District that summer in home runs with (I think) seven. Usually I would read the papers and follow the stats around the League so I at least had SOME clue as to who was putting up the big numbers, and at least try to warn the pitchers. But I didn’t do my homework on this guy. Somehow he came in under the radar. Well, after that SHOT he hit we knew EXACTLY who he was…..and pitched him very carefully the rest of the day. He also doubled and singled before the game was over, but he didn’t tag us again like that first at-bat of his.
This was another clutch victory for Verdugo. We were still “alive” mathematically in the playoff hunt at 8-7. I don’t know what was more fun on this day in Verdugo-lore….. beating up Newhall-Saugus like we did or the rides to and from the game.
McBride chucking nine innings like that when we needed it was CLUTCH. But we still had another HUGE game coming up the next day (Sunday) against Woodland Hills East. If ever there was a game that should have been caught on film it would be the game that we were about to play. Woodand Hills East was 15-1 or something like that. We needed one more miracle……….and little did I know that I was about to experience one of my proudest moments EVER as a coach.
Landmines, Potholes, and Three Sheets of Paper…..
Posted: May 30, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Hank, McBride, Turner, Vic, WeaponNow we traveled out to San Fernando High School for a Sunday Doubleheader. I’ll never forget the condition of the field when we arrived. It was the most brutal war zone I have ever seen. Not only had the field not been dragged……..I don’t think it had EVER been dragged. No chalk lines…..nothing.
I was greeted by a smiling old man who was (I guess) coaching the San Fernando team. From the looks of the field…I knew he HAD to be the coach (the dress-shoes he was wearing gave it away).
“Are you gonna drag the field?” I asked.
“No, no, no it’s good” he told me.
I saw a couple of guys from his team now trying to dig into the ground to find the anchors for the bases. I gotta give him credit…he DID have some bases.
“Look” I said, “I will personally drag the field.”
“No, no it’s good” he said.
I then tore three empty pages out of our scorebook and handed them to him.
He then looked at me as if to say “what the hell is this?”
“Really…..you’ve gone to alot of trouble this morning here I can see……..why don’t we just use THESE as the bases today?”
THAT……… pissed him off! But I didn’t care. And I think I made my point with that guy. Somebody was gonna get hurt with the field like that…………jeez.
I’m not real picky…but the condition of this field was the worst I had EVER seen in my life. And it was a decent facility. All it needed was to be taken care of. Incredible.
I hit everybody HIGH CHOPPERS during Pre-game so no one got hurt.
We took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning of the first game and they rolled an eight on us. We dropped the opener 9-3. We only had three hits in the first game. Frost hit a two-out triple in the second inning but we couldn’t bring him in. Vic had a two-RBI Double in the third, and an RBI triple in the fifth. Apart from that we didn’t really get anything going in that first game.
The San Fernando team was pretty loose, and had a good squad. They were having fun out there on the field. Some of you guys may remember they had a pitcher on the mound named “Bobby.” All I remember is pretty much the whole game I had to listen to their team saying “Hey Bobby”…..”Hey Bobby”….it actually was kind of funny. Well, it wasn’t THAT funny. The way I saw it I just lost a game to a guy who was not only wearing DRESS SHOES, he didn’t even have enough respect for the game to drag the ‘effin field!! Fucker……..yeah, I was pissed!
The second game was a different story. We took a 2-0 lead on them after two innings keyed by RBI singles by BullOxen and Vic. McBride started BOTH games of the doubleheader on the mound. San Fernando then scored five unearned runs against us in the bottom of the third to take a 5-2 lead.
Tex wasn’t at the field that day………YET. He said he had some sort of commitment he had to be at and told me he would get to the field around 3 PM. Sure enough…around 3:00, in rolls TEX. I immediately got him into the lineup. Tex then stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning with that bow-legged stance of his and promptly ROPED a two-RBI double up the gap in left-center. All of a sudden, we were right back in it.
The Verdugo attitude was starting to kick in. Guys were getting pissed. Canale had thrown a couple of great innings of relief and was getting tired. I was reluctant to give the ball to Hank, because he had thrown about 90 pitches the day before at Chaminade. Vic stepped up….he didn’t ask for the ball, he DEMANDED the ball.
I asked Vic when the last time it was he had pitched. “Back in Babe Ruth” was his answer. That was NOT the right answer………now I was getting sick to my stomach. It was then that Vic uttered the phrase the players kept telling me all year…….”Don’t worry Gee.”
Vic went out and threw two innings of no-hit ball. The problem was…..he walked SEVEN guys in those two innings. But only ONE guy scored….and we now trailed 6-4.
The Verdugo attitiude was now in full effect. I kept hearing guys saying shit like “C’mon! NOBODY sweeps Verdugo!”
All of a sudden we were TOTALLY into the game. Frost led off the bottom of the sixth with a triple. Hank laced a base hit and it was 6-5. We tried a hit and run with Canale but the shortstop made a great play to nip the Bull at first. Hank got wild-pitched to third. Up came Weapon. Weapon grounded out, but Hank scored. It was 6-6 and closing in on 100 degrees. I was starting to get really worried about Turner….he had caught every inning of both games. I’d tell Turner “Look we gotta get Rogers in there you’re gonna die back there.” Turner just kept saying to me “Don’t worry Gee I got it.”
This is the type of shit I’m talkin’ bout! Total Verdugo!
Hank was getting really worked up. All he said was “Gimme the ball.” I told him “hell no”…. he had just thrown 90 pitches the day before. So what does Hank say? “Don’t worry Gee.” So we sent him out to pitch the top of the seventh. And he fucking struck out the side!!!!!!! AHHHH Hank!!!!
We started a little one-out rally in the bottom of the seventh. Tex drew a walk, and Vic singled. The centerfielder misplayed the ball allowing Vic to get to second base, but we had to hold Martin at third. They intentionally walked Frost to load the bases. Then the fiery Hank came up and hit into an inning-ending double play! Fuck was Hank pissed!
After hitting into that double-play (a 5-2-3 Double-play where he was out at first by a half a step), I was no longer worried about Hank. He was pissed now, and he wanted this win.
So we sent Hank out to pitch the top of the eighth. And sure enough, three up, three down. Ahhhhh Hank!!!
Hank was just about as pumped as I’ve ever seen him. BullOxen led off the bottom of the eighth with a walk.
Weapon then stepped up and CRUSHED a 1-0 fastball over everyone’s heads…..
And we were DOGPILING AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a win!!!!!!!!!! That ball Weapon hit was hit just as hard if not harder than the ball he hit at North Hollywood where he was robbed of a homerun. This one would have been an inside the park homer. So I guess Weap SHOULD HAVE had two homers in 1990 for Verdugo….he kind of got robbed twice.
Somehow……….we had found a way. Again. What a win!!!!!!!!!
That’s all I can really say………and I’m shaking my head and smiling as I write this (in a good way) WHAT A WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sometimes it was hard….and it usually defied logic…..but now, when the guys were telling me “Don’t worry Gee”…I was actually starting to BELIEVE them.
CHILI Mows ’em Down
Posted: April 22, 2011 in 1990, Big Breck, BullOxen, Chandler, Chili, Games, McBride, Rogers, Turner, WeaponOkay. Let’s get back to what was happening in the 1990 Season. We had just pulled off a miraculous victory against Quartz Hill and now we traveled out to North Hollywood High on a Sunday morning. This was our first of two games that we were scheduled to play that day. Our second game would be in the evening against Glendale. We came in to this game at 3-3-1 and overall I was very happy with the way we were playing. Alot of the guys came to the field that Sunday morning tired and about two skin shades darker (or redder in my case) than the day before after baking in the Quartz Hill sun for almost six hours….but by gametime, we were ready to go.
Chili got the start on the mound and came within one pitch from throwing a perfect game! He threw only 62 pitches, and gave up one base hit in the fifth inning. This win put us over .500 for the first time of the season. The Team had really come together at this point..and with Hank, BullOxen, McBride, Chili, Chandler, and Big Breck on the mound for us, I started to think that we could actually make a playoff run. And so did the players….
Chili struck out eight guys and we won 10-0. He also had two doubles at the plate.
Vic had two hits, including an absolute SHOT that went for a ground rule double. BullOxen doubled, and Robb Turner’s 2nd inning double drove in two runs for us.
But the highlight of this game was a SHOT hit by The Weapon. When we got to the field that morning we were eyeballing the homerun area in center field and right field. Left field was wide open… there was no fence. There was a locker room area in right-center that was considered a homerun if you hit the roof of that building. There was a small area out there maybe five feet wide where there was no roof…and if you hit it in there the ball was still in play.
As we have written in earlier posts…The Weapon was always looking to hurt the opponent, and he had a little flair for the dramatic as well. Weap came up in the fourth inning with a couple of guys on base and hit a ball that (as soon as he hit it) EVERYONE in the park knew was GONE!!! One of those balls where the outfielders kind of start to make a move on it and then just kind of stop and admire it as it leaves the facility……….
We were all admiring it…..Including The Weapon!!! As soon as he hit it….he just flipped the bat towards our on-deck circle and he started WALKING….just like the guys on TV used to do! It was an awesome sight! However, there was just one problem…..it landed in that little five foot area that was STILL IN PLAY and rattled around in there and spit itself back onto the field. SHIT!! Although he had hit it beyond any boundary at the field that day for a homerun….Weap had the unfortunate luck of it landing in that little five-foot porch area….NO HOMERUN!!!
When it landed back on the field….Weapon was MAYBE halfway to first base and was still in his Homerun “walk.” The centerfielder was now chasing it down and Weap was running full bore. To this day I still don’t know HOW he turned that thing into a triple. Talk about going zero-to sixty! Weap did his signature pop-up head-first slide into third base………..even though there was no play at third. I don’t know what was more awesome…the SHOT he hit or the fact that he turned it into a triple!
Most coaches would be all bent out of shape for a guy going into a homerun “walk” like that. Not me. I loved it! I also loved the look on the faces of the North Hollywood players that basically said “Okay…we give up” after that play happened. A couple of their guys just kind of looked at him and said “damn.”
There was one other player for us who went into a homerun walk…but it happened in 1990 in a Connie Mack League game. John Rogers did it. He hit a mammoth SHOT to dead-center one night at Stengel Field…and went into his walk. I’ll never forget the look on Rogers’ face when it STUCK in the top of the ivy. And I’ll never forget looking over at him and laughing when they held him to a SINGLE on that BOMB he it!!! But it was worth it….I used to let our players have that swagger….it’s risky, yes indeed….and if you let the players do that then you gotta take the bad with the good. And like I’ve said before…I wouldn’t have changed a thing about how I let the players be themselves.
This was a great win. And I was REALLY looking forward to our match in a few hours against Glendale. Here’s what the Newspaper said about this win………
What Are All These Nicknames? (Part One)
Posted: April 9, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, General, Hank, Sammy, Spongy, Vic, WeaponThere are plenty of folks out there who are “checking out” our Blog here (some on a daily basis) who know nothing about US or our PROGRAM. We are now averaging about 50 hits every day and should go over 2,000 hits today or tomorrow. So this story is to you strangers out there who have become fans over the last couple of months. We, here at Verdugo Hills certainly can understand why you have become fans. The only thing we DON’T understand here at Verdugo Headquarters is why we aren’t getting 50,000 hits every day!!! Well, we’re sure it will happen soon enough!! After all, we ARE The Kings of American Legion Baseball. So we just wanted to send one very important message to all of you out there who love us as much as we love ourselves. And the message is this: “Get a Life!!!”
No…all kidding aside…..we are actually humbled that you “identify” with us…and I figured it would be only fitting to let you strangers out there know what all of these nicknames mean, and the jersey numbers they wore. So hopefully, by the end of this post you will understand things a little better. I will begin with “The Founding Fathers” of our four years of glory….the original members of the Motley-Crew, Rag-Tag Group called Verdugo Hills 1990!!!!!!!!!!! The brilliant nicknames of 91-93 will be posted soon for all of you fans out there!!!
General: We named him “General” after Gene Mauch. Didn’t they call Gene Mauch “The Little General” or something like that? Mauch was the former Manager of the Minnesota Twins and later the California Angels. We first started calling him “The General”…then it kind of evolved into “General”….later, it became “Gen”….and even later, some other derivatives we CANNOT PRINT HERE! ‘Ol General, yes-sir-ree….Number 49 on his jersey!!!
Hank: His Real Name is Henry…but we also called him “Double-Ott” (his uniform Number was “00”). The opposition had ALOT more nicknames for him than we ever did, and I certainly can’t PRINT any of them here. Due to the things he did on the field and SAID on the field, he was for sure the most HATED player to ever wear a Verdugo Uniform, and I’m sure no one is prouder of that than ‘Ol Hank himself!!!
The Weapon: For those of you who don’t know what a weapon is…..I don’t know what to tell you. There are lots of different kinds of weapons. This guy was not a tire that you light on fire and roll down the street at somebody…..no, no. He wasn’t a broken bottle you drunkenly swing at someone when you’re in the middle of a bar room brawl. No, this guy was a very sophisticated piece of human machinery that was designed to deliver the final knockout punch. The bomb that WHEN it gets dropped on the opposition ENDS the war if you know what I mean. Within a short time of “Weapon” delivering……. the opposition would quickly begin to hoist their tattered white flags!!!!!!!!!! ‘Ol Weapon…Number 22!!!
BullOxen: Well, we all know what a Bull is. And an Oxen is slightly larger than a Bull. Both are “pulling” animals. First, he was “Canale”….then for a short while he was “Bull”…but he was STILL GROWING you know? After a while, he was bigger than a Bull. We certainly couldn’t change the name…so we added “Oxen” to the end of it. The two names MUST run together and the “O” in Oxen MUST be capitalized! Got it? BullOxen was a perfect name for this guy….because there were many games where he single-handedly “PULLED us through.” BullOxen….Number 19!!!!
C’mon Vic!!: This guy was such a great player that General and I came to the conclusion that there was really NOTHING we could teach him. But we needed to say SOMETHING to him when he was out on the field, right? We wanted everyone to believe we were actually COACHING HIM so we just kind of started saying “C’mon Vic!!!” every chance we could!!! Sometimes I liked to fuck with the other coaches and say “this guy has never played Baseball before in his life until this season!” They’d say “really?”…and I’d say “Oh yeah, he’s coming along just fine, but he’s still learning.” Then, just before he’s step in the batter’s box I’d say something like “make sure you run to first after you hit it Vic!”……And ‘Ol Vic would give me that smile as if to say “shut the fuck up Gee!” Yes-sir-ree….”C’mon Vic”….Number 28!!!!! And once Vic was on base……you could hear ‘Ol General over in the first base coaching box saying something like “Allright now Vic…don’t forget to BREATHE!!!” SEE??….we actually WERE coaching Vic!!!!
Spongy: He had this thing going on with his hair that led everyone to name him “Spongy.” Number 4!!!!!! Before he played for us, everyone called him “Spongy.” I always called him by his first or last name. It’s hard to call a guy by his nickname when you didn’t have anything to do with the creation of it……..to me, he was “Martin”….to everyone else….he was Spongy!!! To the opposition, he was a MAJOR pain-in-the-ass….because he was either reaching base, driving in runs, or scoring runs!!! Update: It has been brought to our attention by “Spongy” himself that his REAL nickname was TEX!!! So for all of you true fans out there….we may call him “Spongy” on this Blog….or we may call him “TEX.” Unfortunately we don’t have any footage of him at the plate with his signature, slightly bowlegged, wide-stance. But we did find a picture of BullOxen with a towel on his head! So anyone out there with any footage of ‘Ol TEX in his signature stance….please, please send it in to us!!!
Sammy: This was his REAL first name. But it stuck. In fact, if you saw him walking down the street, probably the first name that would pop in your head would be “Sammy.” You see, a guy named “Sam” is a slow guy who is a power hitter. The name “Sam” wouldn’t have worked for Sammy. Sammy was a quick guy. Could steal a base for you. Great speed. Great Defense. Great Hustle. In fact, Sammy was FIFTH in the 20th District with 12 stolen bases!! Sammy!!! Number 2!!!!!!!
Part Two (and the other seven notorious nicknames from the 1990 squad) will be coming soon!!
“Hey 2-3 Your BARN’S ON FIRE!!!”
Posted: March 21, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Chili, Games, Rags/Trash Talk, Rogers, Sammy, SpongySo we picked up our first win against Burbank after losing a heartbreaker in the Season’s Opener to Panorama City. Then we got blown-out by Glendale 13-2, and had played Notre Dame to a 3-3 tie. The following week we traveled for our first time up into Antelope Valley where we split a double-header with another team that ultimately reached the playoffs: Lancaster. I wasn’t happy we split. I felt we were better than they were. We should have swept ’em.
Remember, the 1990 Team played ALL 22 games that season ON THE ROAD. And the weekend of June 16th and 17th we had THREE games to play in two days. A Saturday trip to Quartz Hill, a Sunday trip to North Hollywood, and another game against the Glendale team Sunday night at Stengel Field. We came into that weekend 2-3-1, but the TIE game was the Notre Dame game that would ultimately be decided in a couple of weeks. This was a huge weekend for us, to say the least.
The Saturday game against Quartz Hill was one of the greatest dogfights in our history. It was over 100 degrees that day. There were 368 pitches thrown in that game. Six pitching changes. A wind that got as high as 40 MPH. A FIRE broke out in the middle of the game. Yes, a FIRE broke out in the middle of the game. The lead exchanged hands six times. We made 10 errors that game. They stole 15 bases off of us. We turned three double plays that day…one was a 5-2-5-4 DP….one of the craziest plays I’ve ever seen. But somehow we just kept battling. We pounded out 18 hits and in the end prevailed 13-12 in extra innings. Oh, and by the way…..the game lasted FIVE hours and 45 minutes. Although we made the drive all the way up there….we were the home team that day and DOGPILED again on someone else’s field.
It started out simple enough. I’m out there hitting pre-game drill. Canale is shagging for me while I hit to the outfielders. There was a plastic/rubber lid about five feet behind the mound that was about a foot wide and two feet long. It was there to cover up the water tap so the grounds crew could water down the field. But the damn thing wouldn’t sit flush. Canale was trying to fix it so no one would trip over it. He’d step on the left side of it…and the right side would pop up. He’d step on the right side of it…and the left side of it would pop up. He tried a few times to fix it and then we heard a couple of guys from their bench say “Just leave it alone!”…….
Canale was a rookie….he was sixteen years old. And he had a chaw going. It was our seventh game. And you know what he did? He looked right into their dugout and said to all of ’em “Fuck You!!!”
I loved it! I’m thinking………..”we’re gonna be just fine today”……….
But this was the amazing thing about the 1990 Team. They would always quickly acclimate themselves to wherever they were playing. This was a world up here in the Antelope Valley that most of us didn’t even know existed. I mean, this was a 150 mile round-trip into the middle of NOWHERE. Just about every field we went to that year none of our guys had ever even SEEN, let alone play on. And some of the time, the fields were not very well maintained by the opposing team’s coaching staff. Some of the conditions were brutal. But to the great Warriors we had playing for us…it didn’t matter. That Team was truly a bunch of animals who had been let out of their cages (as Nance said)…………and we were ALWAYS looking for an opportunity to “mark our territory.”
Quartz Hill had a great team that season…finishing 19-4 and reaching the Playoffs. And we dogpiled right there on their field. I remember late in the game as I was walking off the field from the third base coaching box towards our dugout on the first base side their Head Coach said to me “where are you guys from?”……
He didn’t ask that question to me trying to find out where we were from geographically…..he KNEW where we came from. He wasn’t expecting the kind of dogfight we put him through that day. The way he asked me was almost in disbelief……maybe he thought we were something “otherwordly”…or “from hell”…….I don’t know what he was thinking. I just kept on walking. I didn’t answer him. I just kept walking towards the dugout. Cold-eyed stare. Never even LOOKED at him. That was kind of my way of saying to him “No matter how hard you hit us….we’re gonna keep getting up….and when the dust settles….we’re gonna be the ones standing.”
And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. We trailed 9-8 going into the bottom of the seventh. Sammy Vaquera had a clutch base hit to tie it 9-9. Damon Martin came up with two out. And promptly BOMBED a two-run shot to left. As soon as Damon hit that thing I was barking at it to “GET OUTTA HERE!!” I left the third base box and was on the outfield grass talking to that thing when it finally cleared the fence. Fuck I was FIRED UP!!!
They took a 12-11 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Vic Ramirez walked and stole second. Again, Martin came up and delivered a CLUTCH base-hit to bring in Vic. That tied it up and sent the game into extra innings.
Canale went out to the mound and threw one of the most impressive innings he had thrown all season. And they had their 2-3-4 holes in their lineup coming up. It was exactly the type of thing I knew he was capable of. He struck out their leadoff hitter on three pitches. He snapped off the nastiest curveball I may have ever seen for strike one…..threw him a fork-pitch that dropped about a foot and a half for a called strike two…….and then just flat out threw it right by the guy for the called third strike. He walked the next guy on four pitches….retired their clean-up hitter on a 4-3 groundout…and blew a fastball for strike three to another one of their big guns to end the top of the tenth.
Chili Rivera led off the bottom of the tenth for us with a hard hit double up the gap in left center. It was Chili’s fourth hit of the game. John Rogers came up and blasted a 2-1 fastball over their right fielders head and we were dogpiling again!!! It was Rogers’ third double of the game. I remember lumbering down the third base line following Chili towards home plate. Chili ran out to congratulate Rogers with everyone else. I just kept going towards our dugout. I tried to do one of those “forward-roll” front flips and ate shit. But it didn’t matter. I lied there on the ground on my back…..looking up into the smoke-filled sky…..two arms extended up towards that sky with clenched fists and thinking to myself “this is gonna be a fun ride home!”
As the game had gone on we realized which one of the Quartz Hill guys had yelled at Canale to “Leave it alone!!” when Josh was trying to fix that rubber lid before the game. In 1990 he was still “Canale”…he didn’t become “BullOxen” until 1991. Well, it was number 23 who had said it. He was one of the two guys Canale mowed down on strikes in the tenth inning. Canale…being Canale….couldn’t resist saying to the guy “Hey 2-3 your BARN’S ON FIRE” when that fire broke out in the middle of the game.
It was time to drive back down the hill. We left a trail of carnage that day and it was only fitting that as we drove home….and looked back…the skies of Antelope Valley were blackened with smoke.
Exorcising The Demons…….Our First Win
Posted: March 13, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Chandler, Chili, Games, Hank, Spongy, VicSounds pretty heavy. “Exorcising the Demons.” Well, to me …it was. That’s about the only way I could describe it. I mentioned in my last post that I was a paid assistant coach at Burbank High in 1990. You know, when I got that job it was one of the proudest moments in my Baseball life. My friend, Dave Johnson had been hired for the Head Coaching position after a lengthy and bitter interviewing process. There were ALOT of people that wanted that job, but Dave got it. We were both hired as walk-on coaches who were not members of the faculty. We were really, really excited about working there. Little did we know about the scumbags that were lurking in the shadows, lying in wait, seeking out every opportunity to undermine and discredit us behind our backs.
While my Grandfather Harry Leroy Magee had taught me the love of the game….Coach Johnson TAUGHT ME THE GAME. Working with him that one season was an incredible opportunity to watch one of the greatest coaches I have ever been around in action. He had hired me to assist him, and he probably knew that about the only thing I brought to the table was fire, and a love of the game. But he brought me on board, and like I said before…we were REALLY excited about working with the players.
Unfortunately, there were SEVERAL people who were extremely bitter about us getting hired. Two of them, one guy who called himself “Pops” and another guy I’ll just call “Weasel” did everything they could that first season we had there to make our lives miserable. They knew all of the players and really went to some mind-boggling lengths to get the players to turn on us. But there’s an old saying….Good ALWAYS triumphs over evil. And that’s exactly what happened.
Out first season at Burbank was a disaster. We went 3-12. BUT….. by the end of the season, the UNDERCLASSMEN were on our side. Halfway through the year we pretty much wrote off the seniors on that team. So Dave and I were worried about what would happen during summer-league. We REALLY didn’t want those two guys undoing all we had done with the players that season. One summer with those two guys would have wrecked everything we had tried to accomplish. That’s why in the summer of 1990…I coached TWO TEAMS. We put together another Team in Connie Mack League that had players from both CV and Burbank. All we knew is that we DID NOT want those two guys talking to our kids, and if I had to coach TWO Teams that summer to protect our guys from being poisoned by them…then so be it.
While I might not have contributed much to the Burbank Program, you gotta give me credit for ONE THING. Being a HUMAN SHIELD between our players at Burbank and Pops/Weasel.
I really had NO IDEA that I would end up getting hired at CV in 1991. But the summer of 1990 was instrumental for the Burbank program. Why? Because we shielded our players from Pops and Weasel and those players got to hang around some of the kids up here from La Crescenta. I’ll tell you…WINNING and the way you carry yourself is contagious. And after Jason Chandler and Chili Rivera had spent most of the summer around our Legion Team…I began to see a BIG difference in the way they carried themselves. They evolved into WINNERS. Chandler and Rivera were NEVER losers….they were ALWAYS awesome in my mind…..but after our disatrous first season at Burbank a change in scenery was needed, and THE PLAYERS of Verdugo Post 288 seemed to be just what the doctor ordered. I personally CANNOT take any credit for it, but it was a wonderful thing to see everyone from both schools get along so well.
Yes, I went on to get hired at CV in 1991 and we had a pretty good season and made the playoffs. But you know what happened in Burbank? They WON the League TITLE OUTRIGHT. You know who was in their League? HART. Yes, that’s right………..HART. The accomplishments of the 1991 Burbank High School Baseball Team are absolutely incredible. Coach Johnson did a masterful job, and I was happy for him and REALLY proud of the kids over there. Chandler and Rivera dominated that season. Awesome!!
Our 1990 Legion Team lost the first game in our history to a team from Panorama City that ultimately went 18-5 and made the playoffs. We took a 4-1 lead into the eighth inning….they tied us and we ended up losing in the 10th inning 6-4. I thought we had played a great game. Certainly we had played well enough to win. I was wondering how our Ballclub would respond to such a devastating defeat. Alot of teams would have just thrown in the towel right there……..but not Verdugo.
So now here we were…the Verdugo Hills American Legion Team…playing the SECOND GAME of our existence. And guess who we were playing? That’s right…Burbank. And guess who I was coaching against? That’s right…Pops and Weasel. Plus several of the guys I had coached that season at Burbank High were on that team. Most of them were seniors who had graduated, the guys who we had pretty much written off as insubordinates. Coach Johnson and I pretty much had realized that any instructions we tried to give these guys in particular was like asking them to eat a plate full of HAIR. They all had “season tickets” in the second-guessing section, if you know what I mean. So there was plenty of bitterness going into this game.
Pretty much EVERYBODY on the other side of the Diamond that day HATED ME or RESENTED ME. And they knew I was going TOTALLY out of my way to keep Chandler and Rivera away from them. And the coaches of the Burbank team now were going to get their chance to teach me a lesson. They had fantasized their whole lives about coaching the kids at that school….and myself and Coach Johnson had “taken” that from them. I could hear their petty comments from the moment I arrived at the field…………
So you know who I gave the ball to that day? Jason Chandler. The hot-headed and wild-throwing Chandler. And you know what he did? He beat ’em. We never led until the FINAL PITCH of the game. And we had our first dogpile. And we dogpiled right on THEIR field…..right in front of the guys who HATED ME.
They threw Mark/Mike? Rossiter at us that day. Probably the best local pitcher that was drafted in 1991. Canale came up in the second inning. My old third baseman Jeremy Sparks and I were making a little small talk with each other in the early part of the game. When Canale came up I told Sparks “See this guy here? He’s only a sophmore”….
Sparks, being the arrogant guy he is who had the listening skills of Helen Keller then said as Rossiter dealt to Canale “Hey what do you say FROSH?”
Canale then hit a ball then went about 450 feet. It was great to watch one of those bitches from the Burbank team who never listened to a word from myself or Coach Johnson have to go and fetch that ball. We all know about BullOxen’s lack of speed. It would have been a home run if there was a FENCE there but Canale ended up with a triple. He scored on a wild pitch.
Chandler kept his poise the entire game. He threw only 99 pitches. His only walk was a hit-batter. Was it an intentional DOSE? I’ll never say……….
All I know was that when we rallied to win in the bottom-of-the-seventh inning……when that ball Martin hit fell in….I had to hold back tears. The newspaper didn’t get all of the facts straight…the guy who got his glove on it and dropped it was one of my former players at Burbank high who we threw off of the Team for failing to call/show at a carwash fund-raiser we had. That made it even SWEETER. Yeah, we kind of burst their bubble(s) that day…..I guess you could say “‘Pop’ goes the ‘Weasel'” after this win………….
Yeah…we exorcized the demons that day. And we had our first win. If you’d like to read the story in the papers Click Here
The Collective CHIP on our 1990 Shoulders….
Posted: March 8, 2011 in 1990, Behind the Scenes, BullOxen, Chandler, Chili, Frost, Hank, McBride, Rogers, Sammy, Spongy, Turner, Vic, WeaponWhen we started this thing in 1990 I went in to the Post and somehow got them to sponsor our Team…something Verdugo Hills Post 288 had not done in about 30 years. For more info on how that came about read my earlier Post titled “From $1000.00 to a Team Bus?” While I was excited to have been “hired” to coach Post 288 (for no pay)…….I had just ONE PROBLEM. I didn’t have any players……
I had just finished up my first year as a PAID coach at Burbank High. So I was planning on taking a couple of pitchers with me from that school……our tough little right-hander Chili Rivera and left-hander Jason “White” Chandler. But that’s really all I had. I knew some of the kids from CV and had coached many of them in Colt League in ’88 and ’89. Alot of those guys had already verbally committed to joining us but I still had many slots on the Roster to fill.
So I started picking the brain of one of the players from my 1989 Colt Team..John Rogers. Rogers was smart, funny, and most importantly…he could SELL. In reality, Rogers was the GM for our Team the first year of our existence. He kind of bridged the gap with a lot of these players we wanted to recruit for the Team and he really opened up the lines of communication with these players. Rogers had already played for me for a couple of years and had a feel for how I liked to run a program and I think he did an unbelieveable job SELLING this to the players who ultimately ended up on our Roster. But being the new guy, I still had ALOT of selling of my own to do.
Glendale had a powerful program going on, and I am sure many of the guys who played with us that first year (if given the choice) would have played for them instead of us. But there was something going on behind the scenes that worked in our favor. Glendale was trying to recruit the guys who ended up on our Roster as “Filler” players. They wanted them on their team, but they wouldn’t make any commitments to these players as to how much (or little) playing time they were going to get.
Most of our guys probably felt (and rightfully so) that they could be STARTING for the Glendale team. As I spoke more and more with these players that we ended up with, I realized that they were pretty pissed about the whole thing. This kind of worked to our advantage. And in the end, they decided that PLAYING for us was better than SITTING for anybody. I started to realize that this was a great group of guys….they all kind of had a CHIP on their shoulders and wanted to prove Glendale (and the rest of the world) that they were WRONG. And I think that our guys more than accomplished this.
Glendale wanted all of the BIG NAME players. The marquee players, if you will. Hell, I’ve always said just give me nine guys who want to play hard and I’ll do fine with whoever it is. Even if we play the entire season ON THE ROAD like we did.
One of those Marquee players was Vic Ramirez. The Glendale team was trying to get me to sign off on a waiver sheet and effectively “release” Vic over to them. I had two words for the Glendale team when that was proposed to me…..those two words were “Hell NO.” It looked like Vic might not even play that season at all. But thanks to Hank, BullOxen, and some of the other guys doing a little behind the scenes “selling” Vic ended up playing for us and having a great season. This is the reason the Glendale team had it in for us and wouldn’t let us use Stengel Field at all in our first season. And I’ll bet you if they did acquire Vic from us they would have won the District. So Glendale may have ruined our plans of having a home field…but we ruined their season……….
You know what I say? Canale is a marquee player. Damon Martin is a marquee player. Weapon is a marquee player. Hank is a marquee player. Rogers is a marquee player. Same with the pitchers we brought over from Burbank. And the guys we filled out our Roster with were great players, too. At least this is how I SAW IT. And as far as I’m concerned, I SAW IT and the guys running the Glendale program missed it. This is why Verdugo Hills had the greatest players….we had the guys who had HEART. We had the guys who ate, lived and breathed the game. So from our inception we had this great group of kids who felt they had kind of been OVERLOOKED. They had a nice, big, fat CHIP on their shoulders. And over the next several posts…I’m gonna tell you all about it! I’m getting fired up right now just writing about it!!
It kind of goes without saying the chip I had on MY SHOULDER. It was the perfect union…a coach who wanted to prove he could win at this level and a bunch of players who felt like they had been overlooked and wanted to prove that they could PLAY at this level. Well, I think we proved our critics WRONG by the end of that first season. Take a look at the stats from the 1990 Team when I post them here and try to tell me these guys were not players. Canale as a 16 year-old made the ALL-STAR TEAM. He had 88 Plate Appearances that season…..and he struck out ONE time!!!
Yeah…..we all had a one big, fat, CHIP on our shoulder. And I frickin’ LOVED IT. While the rest of the league certainly didn’t label us as the new bully in the block…. I will say this….after just a few games they all were paying VERY CLOSE attention to US……….and there was a LOT of whispering going on behind the scenes about this New Team in the 20th District called Verdugo Hills……a Motley Crew of no-names who didn’t back down to ANYBODY.
verdugo288 