|
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 ‘Hank’ 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!!!!
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.
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!!
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.
Some of you know I’m a Golf Pro now. I turned Pro on April the 21st, 2009 at the ripe-old age of 49. I had to take a 36-hole test with the PGA of America called the PAT (Playing Ability Test). I took it up in San Jose. The Test has about an 80% failure rate…so passing that test on my first try was a big thrill for me. Still, I make my money working at a Law Firm during the week. I’m like a really, really part-time Golf Pro now.
So I was out at Hansen Dam one day during the week in July of ’09. I like to go out as a single and play with whoever. It doesn’t matter much to me who I end up playing with. I just love The Game of Golf. You run into all kinds of interesting folks out there, and this day was no exception.
I was paired with an OLD guy about 60 years old and a younger guy around 35-40. I say the guy around 60 was OLD because I’m now 50…..(in fact 51 here in just a few days) and I’m always now looking to call someone else OLD so I feel a bit younger. Anyways, they were nice guys and we were having a good time out there.
The younger kid was just flat-out BOMBING the ball. I mean, this guy could hit it! He didn’t have much of a short game but I was cracking up at how far he could hit a golf ball. The second hole was a LONG par five and his second shot went OVER the green! Damn..I’m thinking. But that’s what I love about Golf. I don’t ever get into this thing where I’m playing AGAINST someone in the group…I just play against the course. The course gives me plenty to handle.
Then around the third hole I was thinking that this kid that was bombing the hell out of the ball looked REALLY familiar. He had already told me his first name. I kept thinking “who is this guy?”….it was driving me crazy!
Then after my approach shot on the fourth hole I figured it out. It’s MILLIGAN!!! I couldn’t stop laughing to myself. The guy Hank had slap-tagged the shit out of 19 years ago!! It brought back so many great memories. So what should I do? Should I tell him who I was? Should I dare mention the name Verdugo to the guy? What if he went ballistic and clubbed me to death with a nine-iron? This made it even more interesting…and I still couldn’t stop laughing to myself…at least when I had a chance. I certainly didn’t want him putting me on the spot and saying…”okay…what’s so funny?” So I had to be cool when I was laughing/smiling and thinking of ‘Ol Hank’s slap tags.
Finally, on the sixth hole…(another long par five) I decided to say something. I said “Hey, is your last name MILLIGAN?”
“Yeah” he said. “How did you know that?”
“I used to coach a little baseball a few years ago and I remember you.” I said.
“What team did you coach?” he asked.
I just kind of smiled and said to him “Does the name Verdugo Hills mean anything to you?”
He looked at the ground. He was searching his memory bank. He looked back at me. Then he looked back at the ground. Then his face started to kind of contort a little bit. He got a big frown on his face. He looked back at me. I thought he was going to kill me.
“You guys had that fucking first baseman who wore the goggles and his jersey number was zero.” he said.
“Oh fuck”…he said. “what a fucking rivalry we had.”
He went on. “It took everything we had in us to not brawl you guys that day. We were SO close to brawling you guys.”
Over the next 12 holes we talked about everything. Hank. Jody. American Legion. And yes, even the slap-tagging incident. It was 19 years later, probably almost to the day. He said something very cool. He said “we hated you guys, but we respected you.”
I spent an afternoon with Milligan on the Golf Course. It was a great day. I realized that bad blood and bad feelings don’t have to last. We had a great time. And you know what? Milligan would have fit right in with our Program as well. He was and IS a good guy. He turned out well. Other than wearing a different uniform than we wore and playing for Jody….he was just like the rest of us. I have to say…I liked him.
Still….you know ‘Ol Milligan and I were doing a “little” scorekeeping of our own that day on the course. Even though we were getting along and exchanging pleasantries…it was STILL (in our minds) VERDUGO against Notre Dame. And I shot a 73 that afternoon and beat him by about 10 shots………………
This is a continuation of our last two posts. Yeah, Notre Dame beat us up pretty good in the second game of the double-header that day, but like I said we STOLE a game from them. Even though we got beat…we still got in a few shots Verdugo-style. And we got our shots in on the big-gun cleanup hitter they had with the last name Milligan.
Milligan looked like what you’d expect a guy named Milligan to look like. Fair skinned, reddish hair. But he was a stout dude and he was strong. He had big forearms and with his hat on kind of reminded me of Popeye. He had that step haircut thing going on. Nobody gave this guy any shit I noticed…and he didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He came from a Baseball family. He was pretty much all business out there on the field and I must admit he did hit the shit out of the ball.
He reached base on a fielder’s choice in the second inning. This is when the fun began.
Milligan was getting a little too big of a lead off of first base. So we picked over. Hank was playing first base. He took the throw from the pitcher and made a sweeping slap-tag that caught the diving Milligan right in his face. Milligan’s helmet was all out of whack from the impact. It was down over his eyes when he got up and he tried to look cool while he readjusted it. He wasn’t looking too cool, either.
So he then got off of the bag and took an even bigger leadoff. So we picked over again. Hank did the exact same thing. Sweeping slap tag to his head…making sure that the ball was in the not-so-padded area of his glove. Hank was making sure that when he slap-tagged him that the BALL was involved with that slap-tag as well as his glove. The second one caught him in the nose/cheekbone area. Milligan was NOT happy.
So he got an even bigger lead….
And we picked over again. Hank slapped him real good in the face again. Now Milligan was flat-out pissed.
As he was taking his lead off of the bag you could hear him say in a gravelly voice “You slap-tag me again like that and I’m gonna rip your head off.”
Then he got an even BIGGER lead.
So we picked over. And Hank slapped-tagged him again…harder than the first three. This went on another couple of times. Each time Milligan getting slap-tagged harder than the last, and Milligan insisting on taking a bigger lead-off from the bag. Hank never even made an effort to tag his arm or hand! Every time, right in the head/face!! Milligan finally realized after about five slap-tags to his dome that it might be a good idea to STOP taking such a big lead. Hell, this guy could hit but he wasn’t any threat to steal a base. Milligan finally backed down and took a normal lead-off from the bag and all the bullshit ended.
The beautiful thing about all of this was that Hank was slap-tagging a pretty big dude. If they went at it…I’m sure most people would have put their money on Milligan. Hank never said a word to the guy. He just kept slap-tagging him as hard as he could until he backed off. And if they did go at it, I’m sure Hank would have more than stood his ground. This was just a little old-fashioned power-struggle that was going on between Milligan and Hank. And I gotta give the “W” to Hank. Milligan warned him..but Hank came right back and slap-tagged him again….TWICE!!!
Yes-sir-ree. ‘Ol Hank. The heart and soul of that 1990 Team. His jersey number was “00.” “Double-Ott” we called him. And while we lost ONE of the battles that day, we WON the other battle…but the slap-tagging incident was the ‘tie-breaker.” And the way we served notice on Milligan…Verdugo had CLEARLY won the war that day!!!!!!!!
The Double That Shook The Earth…..
Posted: February 27, 2011 in 1990, BullOxen, Frost, Games, Hank, McBride, Rogers, WeaponIt was June 27, 1990. We traveled out to Notre Dame high school on a Wednesday afternoon to pick up where we had left off three weeks earlier, bad blood and all. The game we had started three weeks ago was tied 3-3, and called off due to darkness. So the plan today was to finish the first game, and then play another seven inning game before it got dark. So it was “Kind of” a doubleheader. In the back of our minds we were all thinking about what went down between Fat Jody and McBride. I am sure that all of the parents of both teams had heard about the drama….because by the time we got this thing started, the stands were FULL on both sides of the diamond. It had the atmosphere of a playoff game. So I was looking forward to see how we handled the spotlight that day.
We had played well over the last few weeks since McBride went off on Jody and came into the game with a 6-5 record. All I knew was we needed to win ONE of these games…I didn’t want to drive home with a 6-7 record if they swept us. So this was another huge game for us.
Finally, the game started. Both teams went quietly in the eighth inning. And I don’t even have to tell you who was pitching for us………..
Weapon came up in the top of the ninth inning and grounded out. Up came Bull Oxen. Walk. Up came Hank. Walk. Rogers flew out to the center. Two down.
Cal Frost stepped up. Frost looked at strike one. The next pitch he drilled a two-iron over the shortstop’s head and up the left-center gap. I knew Bull would score from second but I wanted to make sure Hank got in from first. And Hank was all over it. Hank was moving so fast he almost caught up to Bull. I was halfway down the line windmilling when I realized there wasn’t even going to be a play at the plate. Frost’s double had cleared the bases and given us a 5-3 lead.
When Hank stepped on the plate he damn near split it in half. I don’t think I had ever seen Hank this fired up and emotional as he got. And no one…and I mean NO ONE wants to win more than Hank. When Hank scored he continued to sprint towards the chain link fence on the first base side. He leaped in the air about three feet and his momentum carried him right into the fence, where he clung to it…Spiderman-style.
As he was up in the air, clinging to that fence, he started shaking it with his hands and feet. He made sure every single person in the Notre Dame stands was watching him while he shook the fence and yelled out “Fuck Yeah!!!!!!” for about 10 seconds. They were shocked! Every mouth in that stands dropped about a foot! And ‘Ol Hank was up there giving it to ’em….I think he made eye-contact with every last one of ’em!!!
Our dugout and fans were making a lot of noise. Their side was silent. Normally, an outburst like that was crazy…..the outcome of the game had not yet been determined…..and we STILL needed three outs to win…..but that’s what we all were FEELING at that moment. So I let ’em go. I didn’t say anything. I just squinted my eyes and looked straight at Fat Jody. He looked away when he caught my squinting eyes………..
Then I looked around for McBride. He was sitting down and just STARING at the field. Yeah, he had that look in his eye. I knew he was gonna finish ’em off.
But Hank wasn’t done. When Hank came down from the fence….he started yelling “Fuck Yeah!!! That’s 7-5, now let’s make it 8-5 in another 10 minutes!!!”
He was predicting the WIN!!! We still needed three outs but Hank had just moved us up in the standings from 6-5 to 7-5..and was even talking about 8-5!!!
I loved it!! Mcbride’s outburst three weeks earlier had pulled us together. And Hank took us out on a limb. And we were about to find out if we could trash talk and back it up.
McBride was a little too pumped and walked their leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth. The next hitter laced a single to left, but the runner who moved to second on the base-hit took too big of a turn towards third. Damon Martin, our left fielder…fired the ball to the cutoff man Frost, and Frosty back-picked to second where BullOxen made a great play tagging out the runner. That broke their backs. And Hank was over there at first base (right in front of their dugout) barking “Fuck Yeah!!” again.
The next hitter popped out. One out to go.
McBride was totally pumped! He was overthrowing. He walked their cleanup hitter on four pitches. Turner went out to the mound and calmed him down.
Runners at first and second…two out. And McBride STRIKES OUT their other big gun Lou Tapia LOOKING!!!!
Done! We walked the Walk!! No crazy celebration when it ended. Yeah, David had kind of beaten Goliath but I liked the way we handled ourselves when it ended. You could sense that our guys were figuring out just what we were capable of. And we proved we could play with anybody that day. And yeah…as Hank predicted….we were now 7-5.
We had woken up a sleeping giant with that win. Notre Dame had a lot of talent on that team and they beat our asses pretty good the second game that day. But it didn’t matter. We STOLE a game from them with nothing more than will, resolve, grit, and determination.
And you know what’s really cool? Notre Dame missed the Playoffs that year by ONE GAME.
You think ‘Ol Fat Jody spent a little time over the winter thinking about THIS ONE?????????
Yes-sir-ree….’Ol Cal Frost’s double……..The Double that SHOOK THE EARTH. The Double that was one of the greatest DEFINING moments of our four years of Glory. The Rock in our sling that SLAYED Goliath……….
Proof that “They Burned Their Bodies”……..
Posted: February 21, 2011 in 1992, BullOxen, Hank, No Way!, Turner, WeaponWe’ve had close to 500 hits on this blog already. So it’s becoming obvious that there are some people out there reading this shit every day who had nothing to do with this team and don’t know who the hell we are. They are clearly reading this brilliant shit strictly for entertainment purposes. For those of you who are doing so…we thank you. And we agree that there is some pretty funny shit on this blog!! We also urge you to write in to us here at Verdugo Headquarters and remind us of how brilliant we are!! (as if we don’t already know). This picture came in today from New Orleans, Louisiana where one of our All-Time Greats by the name of “Turner” is now living. For those of you who don’t know what this picture is…..may I direct your attention to one of our earlier blog entries titled “They Burned Their Bodies” by Colin James. This is a picture of Turner’s ‘Gar-Burn.” Turner, by the way, shaved his head when we clinched a playoff spot that season. Turner also had a fake ID when he was 18 years old and playing for us…WITH MY NAME ON IT!!! CLUTCH PICTURE TURNER!!! Ahhhh!!! Thanks for sending it in. I know there are more of you out there who can take a few minutes and take a quick snapshot of YOUR Gar-Burn and send it in here to Verdugo Headquarters. Weapon said he was going to send a picture of his in last time I talked to him…..but then again…I used to give “Weap” the take sign on a 3-0 pitch and he’d TAKE all right…..as in TAKE a big rip at it….(I’m just sayin’). So Weap…we’re looking forward to seeing your Verdugo Gar-Burn indeed. You owe it to us to send us a shot of that, dude….after all…it later caused you a trip to the hospital emergency room. Weapon also told me that when he got to emergency the nurse asked him “Did you do this to yourself?” In typical Verdugo-style, Weap lied and told her he had tripped at a bonfire party at the beach or some bullshit. Then, when Weapon got the bill in the mail….in typical Verdugo-style…he never paid it!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here’s a close-up of Turner’s GAR-BURN for everyone!!!!!!!!!!
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