Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Have You Seen This Man???

Posted: April 22, 2011 in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, General
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I finally touched base last night with THE GENERAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!  General confessed that (believe it or not) he STILL has not logged onto our BLOG here…but has promised to be making an appearance soon…signing in…and RSVP’ing for the Official Verdugo Bash!!!  The picture here was taken in 1993….and just a couple of hours before Thunder made his famous LEAP over the Crespi catcher for the walk-off, dogpile victory!!!!  Yes, even during the heat of a battle our players and coaches would have to stop for a moment and smile for the many camera-wielding fans who followed our every move back in those days!!!! 

The General told me to wish everyone well.  He also said that even to this very day….he still prefers the “Flatbill” look on his caps.  “Yeah,” he said….”there was just something about that flatbill I wore that just ANGERED our opponents…..so I stuck with it.”

So don’t even try to ask The General to “Hook that bill” at the Reunion……..”Old Flatbill” he shall remain!!!!!!

What Are All These Nicknames? (Part One)

Posted: April 9, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, General, Hank, Sammy, Spongy, Vic, Weapon
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There 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!!

Impromptu Bullpen Session

Posted: March 3, 2011 in 1990, Behind the Scenes, Chandler, General, No Way!
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I am going to write a story (probably in the next post) about one of the greatest games we ever played.  It was in our first season, The 1990 Team.  We beat Quartz Hill that day 13-12.  The game lasted FIVE HOURS and 45 minutes.  Add in an hour and a half drive EACH way and, well, you just might understand why General and I stopped off at the store to pick up a six-pack.  And NO…we were not drinking in the car.  Let me put it to you this way…..it was so frickin’ hot that day that the TIPS OF MY EARS had blisters on them for about a week from the sunburn!!!

General was driving and we decided to go down Angeles Crest on the way home.  There were three players who were in the back of Generals truck.  Ironically, they were all pitchers.  General’s truck had one of those cool sliding windows so we opened it up and were talking to the pitchers as we drove.  We were all laughing about how we had just ruined Quartz Hills’ day.  We got about half-way down the Crest and General needed to “go.”  So we pulled over on the side of the road, got out, and looked for a place to “go.”  Everybody got out of the Truck and was kind of milling around.  I took the opportunity to crack a beer.  Damn it tasted good after that long day!

I looked over off of the side of the road and saw a road sign.  One of those yellow signs that gives instructions to the drivers coming down the road. I can’t remember what the hell it said but it quickly evolved from a sign into a TARGET.  It was in a weird spot.  You could barely see it from the road.  It was about 10 feet BELOW us on the roadside.

“Hey I bet you guys I can hit that sign before you do”  I said to the pitchers.

“You’re on” one of them said.

These guys then started picking up these small rocks and throwing them at this sign that was about 45-50 feet away.  Remember, it was 45-50 feet away…but it was below us.

None of them hit it.  Everybody was missing above it.

“Stop!” I said.  “You guys aren’t throwing the right sized rocks.  Now before we start this competition let me check something out.”

The pitchers watched as I climbed down the embankment with a beer in my left hand, and a BIG BOULDER in my right hand.  I got up to about 10 feet from that sign and totally unloaded on it with that boulder.  CLANG!!!!!!  It sounded so awesome…it echoed out in the middle of nowhere.

Everybody was busting up.  “I win!” I announced.

“Bullshit!” they said.  “You cheated.” 

“Well, all I said was I was gonna hit it before you did….and that’s exactly what I did.  If you want to believe my bullshit about how I’m gonna ‘check something out’ on that sign just so I can walk up to it like that and unload on it…….then that’s on you!” 

We all got a kick out of the noise that sign made when we hit it and soon enough it turned into quite a competition.  Guys were cheating…everything….it was beautiful.

Then we moved back to about 50 feet.  Guys kept throwing OVER it.  They were missing high with everything…..kinda like what gets a pitcher in trouble in games….missing HIGH, getting the ball up in the strike zone.

So I started coaching ’em right there.  “Split your hands quicker!”….CLANG!!……….”Get that thing out in front of you!”….CLANG!!!……”shorten your stride up a little!”………….CLANG!!!………..”There it is!!!”

These guys started bringing the ball down and beating the shit out of that sign.  They dented the crap out of it.  Every time someone would nail it we would start busting up.  It was so loud!!  CLANG!!!  CLANG!!!  Echoing through the canyon!!!  Big dents in that sign…paint coming off of it.  They were getting it.  By the time we were ready to leave that sign was only held up by one screw.  It was just dangling there…dented….most of the paint gone…………swinging in the wind.

“C’mon Gee….let’s knock it all the way off!!!!!!” 

“No…we gotta get outta here.”  I said.

Then a car drives by.  This guy pulls over and sees these kids throwing boulders at a sign….and me standing there drinking a BEER!!

“What the %$#$ are you doing?”  He asked.

“We’re working on our control.”  I said……..pointing to the destroyed sign.

The guy just shook his head and drove off.  We started laughing again.

“C’mon Gee, let’s knock it all the way off.”  The pitchers kept asking.

“No….we gotta get outta here……besides, that wouldn’t be very considerate of us to do that now would it?”  I smilingly asked them.

They got the joke……….

Coaching pitchers is a LOT easier when all you got laying around is some boulders and a metal sign…………..

I can’t remember which three pitchers were there that day with us.  I know for sure that one of them was Chandler.  Maybe you guys can help me out with who the other two guys were………….

“It was me….”

Posted: February 16, 2011 in 1993, BullOxen, Games, General, Hank, Rags/Trash Talk, Weapon
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It was no secret that I liked to run kind of a “loose ship” at Verdugo.  I was smoking cigarettes in the dugout.  We always had our official Gatorade cooler filled with some nice cold water.  Oranges were always in the dugout.   I allowed Jess Rogers to set up shop IN our dugout making snowcones for everyone.   Even though the league had very tough rules on tobacco use on the field and in the dugout, I never got caught by the umpires smoking.  The rule was simple if you were caught…immediate ejection from the game.

I even let our players chew tobacco.  Some of the guys had that thing going on where you get a chaw going and then wrap it in bubblegum.  I used to chew, but by the time I was managing our team my chewing days were long gone.  It had been at least 10 years since I had chewed.

In ’93 we were playing a game on a Saturday at Birmingham High.  Birmingham always had a weak team, but this season they were winning a few games here and there and were starting to get a little “uppity.”  Anyways, one of their guys came up in the first inning and bombed a home run off Garrett Lee, giving them  2-0 lead.  It was the bottom of the first inning and they were celebrating like they had just won the World Series.  We just kind of laughed at them and by the eighth inning we had opened up an 11-2 lead…and I had knocked their pitcher out of the game.  Wait a minute you say?  I knocked him out of the game?  Yes I did. 

We all know about the importance of “the short hop” but from the third base coaching box you can’t be short-hopping EVERYONE.  You gotta kind of pick your spots.  If I couldn’t do a blatant SHORT HOP at someone…I would usually toss back to the pitcher what I called my “Tough Knuckler.”   Well, a foul ball came over my way around the 5th inning after we had been knocking their starter around and I decided to fire that “Tough Knuckler” at the pitcher.  It was the mother of all knucklers.  I had screwed around with knucklers my whole life and this may have been the ONLY one that actually “knuckled.”  Well, it knuckled so well that he couldn’t catch it…it hit him in his right kneecap…and he had to come out of the game.  I really don’t think the knuckler hurt him as bad as the battering our hitters were giving this guy.  Let’s face it..he WANTED out of the game.  But put it down in the books…..I was the guy who delivered the official knockout punch. 

The boys at Birmingham were getting a little upset.  They had to find SOME WAY to win this game, and it wasn’t going to happen on the field.  So one of their coaches goes to the ump and tells him that we had guys chewing tobacco in the dugout.  Sure enough, the umpire comes over to our dugout to see if there was any “evidence” of chaw.  The whole dugout was filled with spit all over the ground.  Forensic tests were not needed on this one…we were BUSTED.  The ump said “who’s been chewing?”

“It was me”……….I said.

“You did all of this?” he asked.  “You could have been sitting here for two days and not spit that many times.”

“Well, I was doing it, too” ……….announced General.

Then Hank pipes up “Yeah, so did I.”

Weapon followed up with “Okay, you got me….I was doing it, too.”

BullOxen said…….”Yeah, it was me.”

The funny thing that was happening here was that NONE of the coaches had chewed.  Well, except for maybe BullOxen.  But we all stepped up to account for the mess in the dugout and to protect any players from getting tossed out of the game.  Totally unorchestrated, every coach instinctively took the bullet for the other guys.  Anyways, the ump BELIEVED our story and threw all five coaches out of the game.  Automatic forfeiture of the game.  No coaches left.  This set off an immediate dogpiling from the Birmingham team.  They had defeated us and now they were rubbing it in……

But wait a minute!!!!!!!  There JUST HAPPENED to be a couple of old codgers there from Post 288 who were there watching our team play that day.  In fact…ONE OF THEM was actually listed on the official paperwork of our team (that I just so happened to have with me that day) as the DE FACTO Manager of our team!!!  That’s right…’Ol Dave Haskell was there and had to come on the field for the final few innings to guide the team to victory.  The umps were really disappointed that Haskell was there.  And the boys from Birmingham had to break up their little dogpile and get back on the field and finish off the whoopin’ we were giving them.  And all five coaches who were thrown out of the game got to sit in the stands and take it all in.  The boys at Birmingham were now STARING DOWN Haskell.  They were not happy.  Hank said something to the Birmingham dugout like “we’ve got some bad news………HE DOESN’T CHEW!!!” 

Haskell knew nothing about baseball, and was the first to admit it.  This made it even more hilarious.  He was hamming it up down in the third base box…giving signs to our players that had no meaning.  Haskell, probably about 75 years old at the time, was rubbing it right back in Birmingham’s collective faces……and he was loving every minute of it.

Haskell was a drill sergeant in the Army.  After the game he went into full drill-sarge mode….which scared the hell out of a few of our players.  “Pay attention now I’m talking to you!!” he barked at the team.  I’ll never forget the look on Cowsill’s face!!  It was like…holy shit!!! 

“Now!!” Haskell said “I want you all to say right now WE’RE THE BEST!!!”

A few guys said “We’re the best”

It wasn’t loud enough for Haskell…….”I said I want to hear you say WE’RE THE BEST!!!”  He looked like a real drill sarge.  Scary…mouth open…sizing people up….daring someone to challenge his authority.  Moving in close on people acting like he was about to grab them and kick their ass if they didn’t do it.  Everyone got the message.

“WE’RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!”

“Say it again” he barked.

“WE’RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Haskell had everyone…including me, all jacked-up and screaming “WE’RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was so loud the Birmingham players and coaches were really starting to get pissed about it.

God that was a great day…………

Verdugo ALWAYS gets in the last word……….AND the last laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!

“The Saugus 500″…part one

Posted: December 26, 2010 in 1990, Behind the Scenes, Frost, Games, General, No Way!
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Out in the City of Saugus, California there is a racetrack.  I think they call it the “Saugus Speedway.”  While we were scheduled to play a baseball game in Saugus that day, the game  we played became a mere footnote to a much more monumental event.  An unplanned event of epic proportions.   An event where there was much more at stake than the outcome of a baseball game.  An event where winning was all that mattered.  An event where everyone DECLARED themselves the be the winner, yet no winner was ever officially DECLARED.  An event that to this day (20 years later) is still surrounded by a cloud of controversy.  An event we appropriately named “The Saugus 500.”

It was 1990, our first season, and we were playing a game that hot summer day against a team called Newhall-Saugus.  We had a ritual before every road game.  All of the players and coaches would meet at the same local park in our neighborhood and I would pass out hand-written directions to all of those who were driving.  That day we had about six cars loaded with players and coaches.  One of the kids named “Frost” showed up driving in his step-dad’s Maserati.  He said, “Don’t worry about the directions everybody,  just follow me.”  Like an idiot…I said “okay.”  He then grabbed ALL of the directions I had written out, stuck them in his pocket, hopped in his car and ripped out of the parking lot, leaving us all behind.   

Thanks to Frost, we now had NO directions to the field and he was about a quarter mile down the road.  Going about 60 in a 35.  “Shit!” I said……”Get in your cars and follow his ass!”

People were diving into their cars.  Scrambling!  All I know is that if we lost him, we didn’t know where the hell the field was.  We were a little late as it was, so we all had no choice but to put the pedal to the metal and catch Frost.  Shit I was pissed.  We left a trail of rubber when we left the parking lot.  General was driving.  A couple of the other cars got a little sideways leaving the parking lot.  We ripped to the freeway and we could barely see a speeding car off in the distance that looked like a dot.  I pointed, squinted my eyes and said to General………….”Frost!!!………..get him!!!!”

General did a brilliant job of closing the gap on Frost and all of the other cars were right behind us.  I realized about five miles down the freeway that this was turning into a frickin’ race!!  Everybody was going about 100 mph.  One car would pull up alongside another…the guys in that car would flip-off the guys in the other car.  People were rolling down their windows and yelling shit at each other, making faces and shit.  One of the guys in one car threw something at one of the other cars.  He missed.  Now everybody was laughing.  I hate going fast!!!…..but everybody was determined to win the race.  It was insane!  I asked myself  “What am I doing here?”

Frost knew it was a race now but had a little advantage…he knew where the field was, and he was driving a Maserati.  He signaled to get off at a couple of off-ramps….we got behind him and signaled to get off as well.  Then at the last second he ripped back onto the freeway.  He ‘s toying with us!!  “Fucker!”………I yelled….. “Catch him General!”  Then all of a sudden General says “I think I know where we are…..the field is gonna be on the next off-ramp.”

We had actually pulled ahead of him, then Frost made a crazy move to take the lead as we got off the freeway but he screwed up and got in the wrong lane.  Some of the cars had followed Frost, and some had followed General.  Now we had six cars all stuck at a RED LIGHT….guys flipping each other off….revving their motors.  The chess game began.  Everybody was boxed in.  Frost was ahead of us, but he was in the left lane and pinned in.   We were in the right lane.  Somebody had to make a move.  We had JUST enough room to make something happen.  I said “Do it Gen”………..laughing all the way General drove right up the curb and onto the sidewalk,  just missing a bus bench by less than a foot and a light pole by the same margin.  We had made a clean right turn and escaped the traffic-jam!  We rolled down our windows and started waving goodbye to all the losers that were stuck at that red light!  We saw their faces…they were pissed!  

One of the players in our car yelled “There it is!”   The field was in sight.  General gunned it and we were the first to enter the parking lot.  Then we looked behind….”Oh Shit…it’s Frost!…here he comes!”  And he was bringing it in that Maserati.  And the cars behind Frost were right on him.  Bad news.  The parking lot was totally DIRT!!!  Every car came flying into that parking lot!!  Dust was flying  everywhere….cars were driving in circles , doing brodies.  It looked like a mushroom cloud.  General brought it to a stop.  I got out and quickly drew a line in the dirt behind us.  All of the cars came to skidding halts.  Half a mile away it probably looked like a fire had started.   

“We won!” I yelled.

“Bullshit” said the guys from one of the other cars.

I pointed to the line I had drawn in the dirt.  Smiling, I said “we crossed the finish line!….we win!!!”

“Bullshit!!” another group of guys said..”we saw you draw that line!”

“Bullshit that line was already there”………I said.

“No way!!!” said some of the guys from another car.

Everybody was yelling at each other at this point.   I yelled “Allright quit fucking around we got a game to play….and me and The General won!  And Frost what the hell are you thinking!?!?!?”

We all started getting our gear out of the cars.  Everybody was silent for about a minute.  Then as we’re all walking towards the field Hank pipes up “That’s bullshit driving up the sidewalk General!”

Now everybody started arguing again.  Everybody was saying that they won now.  We didn’t know how to get onto the field.  Gates were locked.  It was starting to get a little heated.  Each driver of each car was telling everybody else why THEY had won the race.  Hank started saying “we’ve done it….we’ve won the Saugus 500!”  We all got ready to hop the left field fence to get onto the field.  This was no chain link fence. It was solid wood, we couldn’t see what was on the other side. Guys were throwing their bags and equipment over the fence.  We all scaled it pretty fast.  By the time we got over the fence and onto the field there was just one problem:  Our opponents were all sitting in left field with their coaches going through stretching exercises.  Half the shit we had thrown over the fence almost hit one of their players or coaches.

We didn’t care.  We just kept on arguing about who had won “The Saugus 500.”   We didn’t even acknowledge their presence.  We just grabbed our stuff off the ground and walked right through their stretching-session and continued over to our dugout arguing all the way. While I kind of wondered what the boys from Newhall-Saugus were thinking at this point…..the beauty of it was I DIDN’T CARE.

……….to be continued