Archive for the ‘Hank’ Category

Short Porch in Right

Posted: February 20, 2011 in 1990, Games, Hank, Vic, Weapon
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One of the greatest players we ever had was Vic Ramirez.  Vic played for us in our first season in 1990.  Vic was a lefty, ran like a demon, had a great arm, and hit the shit out of the ball.  Vic had graduated from C.V in 1989 and was still eligible for one more season of Legion ball.  He had just played an entire season at Glendale College and started every game and did a great job for them as their lead-off hitter.  Vic wanted to play for the Glendale Legion team that season…but thanks to some great selling by Hank, Weapon, and BullOxen we ultimately ended up with “C’mon Vic” (as we nicknamed him) on our roster. 

One of our games in 1990 was at Chaminade High.  When we first got to the field everyone was eyeing their right field fence.  It was only 240 feet from home plate, but it had a net that acted as a “fence” that went straight UP about 70 feet in the air.  Vic was our only left handed hitter on the team.  The first guy I looked at when we all saw that fence was Vic.  He was drooling.  You knew what was going on inside his head………

“Don’t even think about it” I said.

Vic smiled and said “Don’t worry Gee….nothing but two irons today.”

We were having problems with some of our hitters….alot of guys were dropping their hands when the pitch was on the way and trying to jack the ball over the fence or everyone’s heads………and it wasn’t working.  This is where the term “two irons” came around.  If you’ve ever hit a perfect shot in Golf with a two iron you know what I’m talking about.  A two iron is a low, penetrating shot that goes a LONG way.  I kept telling the hitters that year…”let’s go…lots of two irons today.”

I still knew what he was thinking.  And if I was in his shoes I knew what I would be thinking.  That short porch in right field was a little too tempting…..

And sure enough…the first pitch of the game….Vic drops his hands and tries to jack it over that fence.  He golfed a high towering routine fly ball.  The ball went 241 feet for a home run.  Everybody came out of the dugout laughing.  In fact…everyone was laughing EXCEPT for GEE.  When he came around third with his homerun trot I didn’t even high-five him.  Everybody was out at the plate congratulating Vic but Hank and Weap were looking over at me and giggling because they knew I was pissed.  I was just down there shaking my head but the players still knew I was happy we had a 1-0 lead.  I tried to act pissed but it wasn’t working.

One thing about Vic…he was a great kid.  He came up to me the next inning and said “sorry Gee….just two irons from now on.”

So his next at-bat he laces a two-iron right into the net in right field.  The right fielder knew just how to play it and damn near threw Vic out at first.  Time to re-think my little scheme…………

Next time before Vic came up I called him over and said “All right…you get a hall pass for the day….just golf it over the fucking fence.”  All I know is that this game had quickly turned into a shootout and we needed runs any way we could get ’em.

Vic got a big smile on his face.  He tried about three more times that day but couldn’t golf another one outta there but he did hit another one off of that screen that almost made it.  I was learning a lesson as a coach that day.  Actually, as a coach you are always learning something.  The lesson was simple….JUST LET ‘EM PLAY.

We held on to win that day 16-12………recording the final out of the game with the BASES LOADED and a power-hitting lefty from Chaminade at the plate who was eyeballing that short-porch too!!!!!!!

“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!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bull Oxen Gets Branded

Posted: February 12, 2011 in 1991, BullOxen, Hank
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It was a hot day in 1991 when we were playing Granada Hills out at their yard.  I wasn’t in a real good mood that day.  First of all we ended up getting beat 5-4.  Secondly, we left 17 men on base that day.  That’s right………17 men!!  It seemed like that was the story of the ’91 team.  The first two guys of every inning would go down and then we’d start a fucking two-out rally.  Add that to the fact that we didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of speed on that team and it kind of ties your hands.  We still had a great season.  We went 13-9 and if we had swept a double-header on the last day of the season we would have won the Division Title and reached the playoffs.  

Hank and BullOxen had their usual game of between-inning hockey going on.  Hank would don the fungo, his first baseman’s glove, a catcher’s mask and get into a goalie-like position in front of the dugout opening.  When the between-inning warm-ups were complete, our first baseman would try to fire a short-hop past Hank.  Today it was BullOxen playing first base for us.  They kept score like it was a frickin’ hockey game.  Hank gave it up to block anything.  He didn’t care if it hit him in the face or whatever…and if he got hit he pretended it didn’t hurt (Verdugo-style).  It was entertaining to watch.  But the way we were playing this day, nothing was very entertaining to me.

Around the seventh inning I was sitting in our dugout on the first base side looking at something in the scorebook or something.  All of a sudden I HEARD…that’s right I HEARD a ball sizzle by my face…you know that fzzzzzzzing sound you hear…missing my nose by about an inch.  The ball rattled around the inside of the dugout.  Guys were running for cover.  It hit at least one guy.  You think that got my attention?  Helllllllll yes it did!!!  So I look up to see who the hell did that and there’s BullOxen and the rest of the team on the field celebrating that they had scored a goal on Hank.  Bull was out there laughing…he was looking at the shortstop and celebrating.  Without missing a beat I reached straight down to our ball bag that was conveniently located right next to my right foot and from a sitting position FIRED a ball as hard as I could at “Ol Bull out there who was laughing his ass off about 75 feet away.  And it hit him RIGHT IN THE ASS!!!!!!

That’s right…..drilled him.  He looked into the dugout at me but he couldn’t get too pissed about it.  He knew he had it coming.  And totally Verdugo-style…he pretended it didn’t hurt.  Some people in the stands were laughing about it, saying “Nice shot Gee”……

Still, that throw was a pretty stupid thing of me to do………..

Someone said “were you trying to hit him in the ass with that throw?”

“Absolutely” I said.  Lying through my teeth.

We all had a good laugh about that one (well, except for maybe Bull) and I must admit I got lucky with that shot.  I could have injured my own player pretty bad with that throw.  But the Gods were always looking over us at Verdugo…and thank God Bull’s goal on Hank didn’t leave stitch marks on my face…..and thank God my throw only hit him in the ass. 

Bull told me a few days later……”Gee that throw left a mark…..you nailed me good.”………..and he was laughing about it.

All I can say is we had the greatest kids any coach could ever hope to have on his team.  Do you think I stopped all future between-inning hockey games after that?  Hell, no.  Part of my pre-game ritual from that game forward was to find out what part of the dugout was “the net” and I positioned myself at the other end.  Between-inning hockey became a great tradition for Verdugo, and it was fun to watch………FROM THE OTHER END OF THE DUGOUT.   There was another game they brilliantly invented which I will be telling you about soon……….probably in the next post………a little game they liked to call “FLIP.”

“The Saugus 500″………part two

Posted: December 31, 2010 in 1990, Games, Hank
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Now we had a game to play.  Our Team that day was divided into several teams.  Throughout the game all the guys who had driven in the same car to the game kind of hung around each other.  And they kept trying to prove their case as to why they won the race.  Newhall-Saugus had a good team, they ultimately won their Division and reached the playoffs.  They threw their big-gun at us Eric Hiljus.  He was a fourth-round draft pick in 1991 and did pitch for four seasons in the Major Leagues.  He was a big, tall, hard-throwing right-hander.  We lit him up.  He was gone by the fourth inning and we almost mercied them on the ten-run-rule. 

I was thinking I would be a really smart guy and bring a video camera to the game.  You know, use it to show our pitchers some stuff.  After the game I had decided I wasn’t such a smart guy and had pretty much decided “no more cameras” at the games.  

Why?  Well…..let me tell you a little story about Hank.  Hank had a great day at the plate that day.  He was doing so well that when he came up in about the sixth inning he decided to start “mugging” at the camera that we had behind home plate.  Smiling, making different facial expressions.  He even did the thing where he smells his armpits and reacts to the smell.  I didn’t see any of this shit going on.  And because he was so busy posing for the camera crew,  Old Hank didn’t see (or hear) the squeeze sign I gave.  Whoever was on third base came charging down towards home plate and Hank either took a big rip at it or he took the pitch I can’t remember.  Our baserunner was caught in a rundown and did not score or return safely to third.  I think the baserunner was Weapon……

After the rundown, the cameraman had the camera RIGHT ON HANK.  All of a sudden Hank was no longer in the mood to make faces and smell his armpits for the “viewing audience.”   He never looked at the camera the rest of the game.  As I am writing this I am laughing out loud!!!  We all know what a great competitor Hank is, and let me tell you, I tried to act pissed about it when I saw the tape…….but I couldn’t stay pissed.  It may be the funniest video footage I have ever seen.  He didn’t tell us at the game that he missed the squeeze sign because he was mugging for the camera….all of that came out when we went home and watched the tape after the game.  I remember he was at “The Dome” watching the footage.  I tried to act pissed, but when he left I couldn’t stop laughing!!!!!   It was priceless!!

I would like to challenge any of the readers out there who think THEY WON “The Saugus 500” to please leave a comment as to just WHY (or how) you won.  General and I like to think we won it.  Everyone is giving General a hard time about driving up on the sidewalk, but the bottom line is we were the first ones in that parking lot and we were the first ones to cross that line in the dirt.   Everyone was trying to say “General cheated” and all of this other BS.  You know what I say?  I say General did what he had to do to win….VERDUGO STYLE.  So let that be a lesson to you boys who sat at the red light and waited for something to happen while General simply MADE IT HAPPEN.  I am especially looking forward to hearing what Hank has to say.  Not just about the race, but whether or not he took a rip at that pitch or took it when the squeeze sign was on…because I can’t remember, and I can’t find that tape.  But know this, if I do find that tape, I will be putting that footage on this blog!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh Verdugo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“They burned their bodies”

Posted: December 23, 2010 in 1992, Behind the Scenes, Hank, No Way!, Weapon
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by Colin James

I have finally met with the coach of this baseball team.  This was our second interview and we couldn’t even get past the first question before I was inspired to write.  All I asked him was the following:  “So just what was it about this team that made it so special?”

He said “They did all the little things that you hoped a team would do.  On the field and off the field, too.  They hung around together, they were always picking each other up, they were looking to slide headfirst, they went in hard to break up double-plays, they were looking to dive and make spectacular plays, they talked a lot of shit,  they dogpiled, they burned their bodies, they…..”

“Stop!” I asked in disbelief…….”Did you just say that they burned their bodies?”

A smile lit up his face.  “Yes” he said, “they burned their bodies.”  Now he was laughing.

“What on earth are you talking about?” I asked.

“I can’t remember the exact date it happened,” he said.  “It was either the night after a win that had clinched our first playoff spot or it was after we had made a furious rally to beat Fat Jody in the playoffs”

Before I asked him just who “Fat Jody” was I had to ask “They burned their bodies?”

“Let’s just say we were celebrating that win in typical Verdugo fashion.  I went straight home and started pounding celebratory beers and some of the players showed up.  Maybe except for four or five guys everyone was there.  We were all drinking beer and smoking cigars.  I think it was Hank who started the whole thing.  I walked outside and there he was, standing there with a cigar in his left hand.  He reached that cigar across his chest to his right arm and was burning a mark in his right arm.  If he had pushed that cigar any harder into his arm he would have knocked the quarter-sized cherry off of it.  He was basically branding himself.    He held it there for about 30 seconds.   You could smell the flesh burning.  Smoke was just coming off his arm.  He still has that “gar”-burn mark today.  I think six or seven guys did it.”

“They were so happy with the win that they BRANDED themselves with cigars?” I asked.

“Fucking -A.  That’s exactly what they did.  Hank started doing it and it was kind of contagious.  Next thing you know like six or seven guys were doing it….all trying to outdo the other as to how long they could hold it on there while it burned.  Nobody held it on there longer than The Weapon.  In fact, Weap held it on there SO LONG that about a week later he had to go to the hospital.”

My God man, I thought to myself!  “And what happened to The Weapon?” I asked.

“He branded himself right in that spot where people slit their wrists, you know?  Well, apparently it got infected and a purple line was moving up his arm from the spot where he had branded himself with the gar.  You should let Weap tell you the story at the reunion……..I promise you WON’T stop laughing the way he tells it.”

“Did you also brand yourself that night?” I asked.

“I would have”…..he said………”but I was just too drunk.  But that’s what you gotta love about our program.  We didn’t work hard and play hard.  We played hard and played hard!”

And here I was thinking that this is something one would do IF and ONLY IF they were too drunk.  My God, I thought to myself……..I wish I could have seen this team play!

Were YOU one of the folks who “Burned their bodies?”…………….if so , please comment and tell us what it felt like (if you even remember).  Better yet take a picture of it and send it to us here at the blog and we’ll be happy to show the world your official “Verdugo Gar-Burn”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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