Bball fascination

 By Ed Piper

Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks

athletically arching toward another attacking

layup in the Bucks' opening playoff game Aug. 18.

Does the "Greek Freak" have enough horses

alongside him to go far in the playoffs?

Probably not.

(Photo by Ed Piper from TV monitor)

Showing up the opposition

By Ed Piper

I don't agree with other writers' condemnation of first-year Padres manager Jayce Tingler for initially being apologetic about Fernando Tatis Jr. swinging away on a 3-0 count Mon., Aug. 17, the Padres holding a seven-run lead over the Rangers, and Tatis ending up hitting a grand slam.

That led to Rangers pitcher Ian Gilbaut throwing behind Manny Machado when he came to bat in the next inning in retaliation, and both Gilbaut and Texas manager Chris Woodward being suspended.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating or defending throwing at opposing hitters because a team feels shown up.

My take on this is that at the high school and youth baseball level--these kids are not pros--the influence of the pros is very pronounced, leading to things like high school baseball teams piling on runs against defenseless opponents who are far over-matched, and the victors proclaiming, "Well, we have to keep a fine edge or we'll lose it," "We didn't do it to humiliate the other team, we just wanted to give every player on our team an opportunity," and similar justifications.

It's the younger players my focus is on.

If, as U-T columnist Tom Krasovic (August 19) declares, "That unwritten rule should be tossed in the trash," and his colleague, Bryce Miller, insists, "Tingler gets it right after his initial bobble" (after initially apologized), then the whole idea of sportsmanship and respecting your opponent on the younger (and non-professional) levels becomes eroded that much further.

When I was a student athlete, there were whispers about the youth and prep coaches who didn't respect these unwritten rules, and were known to pile on the score even after their team had amassed large leads.

The same during my 16 years covering San Diego high school sports: There are a few bad apples, who hide behind the facade, "But I run a high-expectations program, I'm going to push my kids," who are the ones in the county known for their unsportsmanlike philosophies.

This is a bigger thing than making sure you win, as Padres defenders have argued, Padres relievers representing a leaky sieve and giving leads away during the losing streak that preceded Tatis' grand slam (resulting in an 11-run lead). "We have to score as many runs as we can, because we don't have any guarantees our bullpen will hold even a large lead."

But that's at the pro level. During an abbreviated 60-game Major League season, I get it, every game is like playing in the last two months of the season--because every game is being played in the last two months in 2020 (with the truncated schedule). The Padres are fighting to be one of two National League Western Division teams that automatically qualify for the postseason, or one of two top percentage leaders outside of those six to move on.

My mind goes back to Mission Bay's Dillon Baxter, who absolutely buried the Viking football team many years ago, with his hand in six (maybe seven?) touchdowns in an absolute blowout on the old grass Tom Edwards Stadium surface.

I can understand the motivation. Baxter is compiling a record to attract top college recruiters, which he successfully did in garnering an athletic scholarship to play football at USC. (He later was cut from the program for associating with a pro agent, and other rule violations--his decision-making at the time hadn't matured.)

But in the sandlot, you still encounter the maniac coach, in almost every case male in my experience, some of them living through their kids, others focused on being a "successful coach" in a "top-flight" program, who piles up the score against helpless opponents. Such coaches never got the wider perspective of the youth/high school coach as mentor of formative youth, who is building well-rounded young people for futures in all fields (99 percent of those fields not being professional athletic fields of competition).

Let me put it to rest: As a teacher, grandparent, reporter covering high school sports, my central focus is on how our CIF sports contribute to or detract from providing student-athletes (they are enrolled in school) with positive opportunities for healthy competition, yes, but also growth for future lives in caring professions, academia, business, you name it. Let's model, mold, and nurture them toward having a heart, a heart for work and sacrificial teamwork with classmates, but also a heart for the players in the other dugout. Especially on those afternoons when everybody knows one team way outclasses the other in talent, and massacring the inferior team by posting humiliating numbers up on the scoreboard to shame the opponent isn't honor. It's honor-less.

Let's keep a wider perspective of how our activities for youth mold better human beings (or fail to do so). And that includes the pros, who when we're kids we naturally look up to and emulate in everything from length of baseball pants, to mannerisms at the plate, to how we view our opponent on the other side of the field.

Odds & Ends

 By Ed Piper

This was a novel incident involving Angels rookie

Jo Adell Aug. 9. In the fifth inning, with two outs,

a flyball by the Rangers' Nick Solak in Arlington, TX

 bounced off the heel of the right fielder's glove

(in my blurry image--sorry--the ball has already hit

Jo's glove), then flew into the (empty) stands.

The play was scored as a four-base error on Adell.

The Rangers later appealed to get their hitter

credit for a home run, but were turned down.

(Photos by Ed Piper from TV monitor,

unless indicated)

Cheetah, which can outrun Fernando Tatis Jr. and Mookie Betts

reaching 70 mph going from 1st to 2nd, reclines in the

morning heat at the San Diego Zoo Fri., Aug. 14.

(Photo by Ed Piper)

Tatis makes a great stop on a grounder to short,

but his throw from a sitting position didn't

arrive in time to get the out Thurs., Aug. 13.

(Photo by Ed Piper from video monitor)

Freddy Galviz, Reds ss, formerly of the Padres.

His braids have gotten even longer, but his

glove, which he is known for, is still

pretty slick

Gallery II: More shots

 By Ed Piper

Words were exchanged after the Dodgers' Chris Taylor
(far L, kneeling) put a shoulder into Padres catcher
Austin Hedges (center, speaking to Taylor after
the collision) in an attempt to score on a hit.
Austin Barnes, LA's catcher (15), then said
something to his counterpart on the Padres.
Tempers did not flare; no incident ensued.
Taylor was called out, as signaled by the
home plate umpire (far R).
(Photos by Ed Piper from TV monitor)

Jurickson Profar, 2b-OF for the Padres.

Even though he is struggling at the plate,

I like San Diego's new acquisition.

Cody Bellinger, the defending NL MVP, fell

on a swing during the Padres' win over

the Dodgers Tues., Aug. 11. He was

unhurt. An unusual position for a batter

to end up during an at-bat.

Jake Cronenworth, a rookie for the Padres,

has been playing great defense and hitting

a ton in his first trip to the majors. Very

athletic, he is a former shortstop who is

able to play first base (filling in for

Eric Hosmer last week), second, and elsewhere.

Gallery

Fernando Tatis Jr., the Padres' phenom, debuted

in his own BMW commercial Tues., Aug. 11,

during FSSD's broadcast of the Padres'

second win in a row at Dodger Stadium.

(Photos by Ed Piper from TV monitor)

By Ed Piper

Lacking high school sports to cover in light of COVID since March 12, I have kept (part of) my sanity by actually taking photos of the TV screen while I watch Major League Baseball games on my living room couch.

If you had told me before the pandemic arrived that I would become desperate enough to do so, I would have told you that you had not recovered your own sanity.

I was thinking the other day (though for a week my mind was super cloudy as I took antibiotics to prevent infection in two healing blisters on my right foot (incurred during my granddaughter Violet's seventh birthday pool party July 21)) (I have never used double parentheses in my published writing before, incorrect as it is--should change it to brackets around parentheses, or reverse)--I have not missed five months of work since my retirement October 1, 2015-April 1, 2016. Before that, never. I struggled to find summer work during 17 years I substitute-taught in the 1980's, but the summer break only lasted 2 1/2 months.

These are remarkable times.

Included below are selected photos from games (including Padres, Dodgers, and everything else, including some Lakers and other NBA teams).

Don't take offense--like I said, I'm using this for therapy.

Tim Anderson of the White Sox (number 7, left)

tore up the Tigers in the early MLB TV game

Wed., Aug. 12. The defending AL batting champ

led off the game with a home run, then proceeded

to add another hit and scored multiple times--

all in his first game back from the Injured List (IL).

I never thought much of A.J. Pollock after the

Dodgers got him a year ago. But he has been

hitting and playing the outfield well so far

in this young (shortened) season.

Justin Turner's three-run HR off the Padres'

Craig Stammen (L) launched L.A. to a 6-2

win over SD Wed., Aug. 12. My brother-in-law,

though, reminded me of San Diego's wins

in the first two games of this week's

4-game series at Dodger Stadium, though.

Five months of pandemic: Things I've learned

By Ed Piper

I've learned/re-learned some things during the pandemic:

--Not all toilet paper is equal.

During the early days of panic and pandemic following the March 13 announcement that schools would be closed beginning Mon., March 16 (I call the announcement date "Friday the 13th"), my wife and I grabbed toilet paper, some good, some bad, in local stores.

The bad has been on the roller lately. It is so thin, when I dampen it to wipe up something off the floor, the paper deteriorates and ends up leaving debris on the floor--and here I am using it to try to make things cleaner.

--There are some handy point-and-shoot cameras out there.

I have used a Canon 720 for a couple of years. (I had to give up my big DSLR's and telephoto lenses for sports at La Jolla High three years ago after injuring my back after lugging the burdensome equipment around for 13 years. There goes that number 13 again.)

But several weeks ago, I thought, hey, since I'm now using point-and-shoots (and in full midday sun, I can take passable shots of Viking teams who play outdoors: field hockey, baseball, even some first-quarter football before the sun descends completely below the Pacific Ocean horizon--take a look at my entries from last year), why not indulge my photography interest and explore some other little cameras?

My current favorite, perfect for sitting on the couch as I view (up to seven) baseball games a day on TV while I stay off my feet to let open blisters heal, is a new Canon G9X. It, and other point-and-shoots I've recently bought, have no zoom capability at all. (The Canon 720 murders them in that category.)

The G9X, though not zoomable outside of a tiny range, is made for low-light situations. Hence, in my desperation (I was telling LJHS baseball coach Gary Frank this the other week) to take photos and do something with my time, I have been taking up to almost 1,200 shots a day of our large TV screen! That is true desperation.

This Canon point-and-shoot, though maybe a little bulkier than my favorite 720, can focus in our living room and capture a usable image from the screen that I can use on my blog: for instance, Padres and Dodgers (and other teams') players I like, including Fernando Tatis, Jr., Jake Cronenworth (isn't he playing amazing baseball at first base for the Padres in his first time up in the Majors?), Cody Bellinger, Justin Turner (his bright red beard and hair get longer and longer, the length they were before he cut his hair for his wedding a year and a half ago).

How about Ronald Acuna, Jr. of the Braves, Aaron Judge, who is so fun to watch on the Yankees--here I grew up hating the Yankees, because in the early 60's they were the dynasty to beat, with Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford--I just hated them--Francisco Lindor of the Indians. Judge had home runs in five straight games, his personal record, a total of six in the five games. Fabulous.

Doesn't your mouth salivate over the potential for the gifted Lindor to join one of the LA/SD teams when he becomes a free agent?

What do I do with all these photos of my TV screen? I've used a few here in my blog (see entries). Most of 'em, I won't use. But it keeps me sharp and using my cameras. And it's certainly positive for my mental health in this period of enforced inactivity (both my blisters, and the COVID dampener).

--Canola oil is the healthiest cooking oil (I make whole-grain pancakes once or twice a week for my wife and me), some updates are not to be downloaded on my desktop (my computer, other than this blog, is basically on the fritz since I mashed it yesterday--so upsetting--but have no fear, my computer genius guy comes this afternoon to save the day)...

What else?

As I read over what I've written to correct errors and smooth it out, I recall a nickname I saw for Cronenworth, the Padres' baby rookie they got from the Rays' organization: "Rake" (in place of his first name).


A key is staying grounded mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, in addition to the physical side. My wife and I are taking part in a weekly Zoom small group for Bible and prayer support. It has been one of my lifelines to sanity, what little I have (as my friends would tell you--I say that, hopefully, with tongue firmly in cheek).

LJ FB: The ring

By Ed Piper

I picked up my 2019 CIF championship ring from La Jolla High football coach Tyler Roach the other day.

Boy, I am blessed.

It's enormous, it's gaudy, it's unusable as regular hands-on jewelry because it's so big. As my wife said, it's not for wearing. It's for show.

"It's like a Super Bowl ring," said Roach as we had a quick curbside, socially-distanced exchange.

The ring comes in a case lit by a bulb that lights up when the case is opened. Pretty unusual.

But the fourth-year head coach, now with a CIF Division 3 title, and a Southern California title to boot, was even more excited about something else.

After all, he's a coach.

"You ought to see our team this year," he enthused, as he held his tiny son, with Marshall, a little bit older, roaming back toward the front door. They both look so much like Dad (and Grandma, who was my granddaughter's dance teacher).

"We're even better," he insisted. I mentioned linebacker Dirk Germon, searching my mind for other names. My excuse is I'm on antibiotics to prevent an infection in blisters healing on my right foot. That's why I didn't get up out of the car, my wife driving, when we visited Coach Roach at his place in Scripps Ranch. Not too mobile last week or this.

"Yeah, and Max (Smith)," he said. He didn't go on to name other players just due to the circumstances and the short chat we were going to have, in view of the COVID situation. It doesn't always allow for long chats and building relationships, does it?

"I just hope we get a chance to defend our title," the former University City High standout said. (His wife went to Scripps Ranch High.) (He also played at Azusa Pacific.)

We chatted about the tentative schedule that CIF put out a month ago: football practice to begin in December, with a shortened game slate from January to March 2021. Playoffs would be curtailed, with the emphasis on getting a regular season in, with a short playoff to decide a CIF champion in each division.

La Jolla's Division 3 title was the first one in school history since 1993, the first of three straight years the Vikings won league titles. La Jolla was dominant back then. Now Roach, with the aid of re-leaguing and a lot of enthusiasm and hard work, has brought back a CIF title--plus an appearance in the state title game--to the campus by the sea.

The ring itself is pretty gaudy. Pretty incredible. First off, it comes in a case with a bulb that lights up when you open the case.

On the face of the ring, "LJ" in prominent interlocking letters shines in Viking red, bordered by gold. Above the school initials, "CIF SD/SOCAL" and, below, "CHAMPIONS", demark the Vikings' 2019 CIF Division 3 title, as well as their win in the Southern California Regional in Westminster last fall. I didn't go to the latter--but I watched the grainy broadcast on computer. I wrote my game story from that. A first in my career.

All around the school initials are cubic zirconium jewels. The size and the bulk of the ring are really quite impressive. This is the only championship ring I have ever gotten. Thanks to the program.

On the right side, it reads "LA JOLLA HIGH SCHOOL". Underneath, "EASTERN LEAGUE CHAMPS", above a red stylized "V" for Vikings, with gold bordering. "2019, 10-5" below that, for the Vikings' won-lost record. Pretty impressive for a program that never won during my previous 15 years covering the program, which I began following as a result of my granddaughter Alexis entering high school and making the varsity cheer squad her freshman year. That was in fall 2002.

On the opposite side, "PIPER" stands above a cubic zirconium-jeweled "S" (for "Staff"), then below that a smaller "M"--for media. I love that.

On the bottom reads "SAIL THE SHIP", the squad's motto. Ask Roach the significance of each part of that. That's a whole other motivational, team-building device.

This was my 16th year covering the team. It began, as I said, with my granddaughter entering La Jolla High. I received a patch for a letterman's jacket from the girls basketball team several years ago. This is the only CIF championship item I have ever owned. I really appreciate Coach Roach for embracing me and my sports coverage, and thank him and the program. (When I was a high school basketball player in CIF Southern Section, our team finished fifth of six teams in the Channel League, a 4A league--the top level at that time.)

LJ baseball: 7 guys have to choose

Ryan Lancaster, senior OF/LHP
5'8", 140 lbs.
Also plays basketball.
(Photos by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

Gary Frank, La Jolla High's baseball coach, says he has seven players who will be faced with choosing to play in his program or another sport in Spring 2021 due to CIF's grouping of baseball with a zillion other sports in this COVID-altered period.

He named three varsity players: Luke Brunette, Ryan Lancaster, and Cole Duffy; and four on JV: Binks Deatherage, Charlie Long, Spence Carswell, and Angel Reynosa.

The forced choice by these multi-sport student-athletes in his program of either playing baseball in the recently-announced "Spring Season" (scheduled March-May 2021), or another sport they participate in, is the result of all these sports being grouped together.

Luke Brunette, senior, 1B/LHP
5'9", 145 pounds.
Also plays basketball.

In response to the COVID situation, with school campuses closing March 16 for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester, now announced closed for the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester as well, CIF telescoped the three traditional sports seasons into two temporary "seasons".

Under normal conditions, Fall, Winter, and Spring would see traditional calendars of competition in the various (and numerous) high school sports.

The temporary, crisis-response seasons announced by CIF for the 2020-2021 school year only, are "Fall", playing from January-March 2021, and "Spring", scheduled for games from March-May 2021.
Baseball is included in the latter.

Cole Duffy, junior, catcher
6'0", 165 lbs.
Also plays basketball.
(Pictured July 2019, American Legion
playoffs.)

"CIF has made it very clear that playing a full football season is their top priority (they added zero teams to the football field in the fall, but added 8 additional teams in the spring--when it was already more crowded)..." Frank texted to a reporter.

In addition, the 17-year LJHS head coach opined, "I believe, if things get pushed back more, they will play football in the spring and just cancel spring sports for the 2nd straight year."

Frank, when asked further, explained, "My hope is that all sports can play their seasons. And I know that CIF has an impossible job and a lot of factors I probably don't know about to consider, but from the outside, it just seems like a strange balance of seasons."

Frank, a former Viking All-CIF second baseman and professional minor league player hitting from the left side, expressed his extreme disappointment in the spring when his team's season was, first, suspended, then permanently cancelled as the coronavirus situation deepened.

At this point, as the number of virus infection cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have spiked after stay-at-home measures were lessened, no one knows if the tentatively-scheduled sports seasons will even happen beginning in January 2021.

Binks Deatherage, Viking wrestler, at the
Vista Freshman Bash Dec. 21, 2019.
Binks is now a sophomore.

'Don't Stand So Close to Me'

                                                   Mookie Betts (left, on base against the Dbacks July 31) gives

                                                   Dodger fans hope for a World Series championship after

                                                   seven straight Western Division titles.

                                                   (Photos by Ed Piper from TV monitor)

Don't stand

Don't stand

Don't stand so close to me

          The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me"

Come on, come on, come on, come on

Now touch me, babe

Can't you see that I am not afraid

           The Doors

Songs for the COVID era

By Ed Piper

Two totally different approaches to circumstances in the lyrics cited above, and that encapsulates the upside-down world engendered by the coronavirus pandemic.

And my coping device: Scoring, scoring, scoring one Major League Baseball game after another since the season began a week ago Thursday (July 23), as I chronicled in my previous blog entry. (See previous.)

Plus the other thing almost compelling me to sit on our living room couch and watch Dodgers-Dbacks, Padres-Rockies (the last two mornings, Aug. 2-3, catching the early morning replay of the latter on Fox Sports San Diego), Yankees-Red Sox, you name it--is a quickly-healing open blister on my right big toe. I've stayed off my feet the past week, and viewing baseball gives me something concrete to occupy my time with.

Two things: One is this late start to the baseball season and my being home (sidelined by the COVID situation from substitute-teaching, being an aide in summer school in Poway, covering local high school sports, and sharing a message at our denomination's area churches, a true 0-for-3 as I count it, subbing and summer school as one item) likens to my annual Spring Training experience in the greater Phoenix area.

I was able to slip in and out of the Valley of the Sun during the last week of February/first week of March this year to watch 12 games in eight days, visiting all 10 stadiums (though the visit to the Brewers' park was only a driveby) and seeing, basically, all 15 teams.

Watching six games on my couch of the present MLB season, scoring five of them in my scorebook (which had last been used at Spring Training), is a similar hyper-adrenaline fueled experience. I played baseball as a kid and in high school and American Legion with my brother, so the sport has always been in my blood.

Second, having the open wound (now almost completely closed) takes me back to my final days teaching in the Juvenile Court and Community Schools (JCCS) before I retired five years ago. There, I had to use up all my sick leave, three weeks, after walking barefoot on the hot concrete and street pavement at La Jolla Shores after taking a dip in the Pacific Ocean and burning my feet. I have neuropathy, so I don't have a lot of sensation in both feet. I got into my pickup, and looked down. There was blood pouring from my feet! I hadn't even felt a thing.

                                                           The Angels' two-way star, Shohei Ohtani, one of my

                                                           personal favorites who I've watched in Spring Training,

                                                           gets shelled in his first pitching appearance in two years.

                                                           The "Japanese Babe Ruth" failed to retire a batter

                                                           in the first inning.

I bandaged them, I poked them into my size-17 shoes, I drove all the way from Clairemont to Kaiser in Otay Mesa on a Saturday morning for the clinic there. There was a long line of people waiting. For some reason, being on my feet on two bad wheels, the nurses in charge bumped me up to third and I quickly got in to see a doctor.

The hilarious thing, having driven myself the 18 miles down to Kaiser Otay, was that the nurse taking care of me wrapped a pile--literal pile--of gauze and tape around my feet, so that there was no way I would be able to get into my stick-shift truck and drive home, using the pedals.

I kept my mouth shut, as the time in the cram-packed clinic was already extending, despite my being bumped up in the queue. I didn't tell the nurse, but I let her put all that stuff on. Then, having checked out of that area and dropping off a prescription to be filled in the adjacent pharmacy, I quickly walked outside on the patio and stripped all the mounds of tape and gauze off so I could put my shoe (I think my right one) back on to drive myself home.

Funny. Just a stack of padding I deposited into the trash can right there outside the pharmacy door, though not in direct view of the employees of the pharmacy (so that someone wouldn't ask why I was taking all my just-applied bandaging off).

Full circle, five years later, almost to the day and month, and I sitting at home staying off my (gauze-less) right foot.

I have really felt inside the game, watching so many and scoring three, four, even more innings a game of whoever is on: I flip through Ch. 29 (ESPN), Ch. 76 (MLB-TV), and less frequently, Ch. 5 (Fox), Ch. 30 (ESPN2), and Ch. 61, the Padres' station.

The NBA bubble has come up for viewing, too, interspersed with MLB. But I've found over the last couple of days that my attraction is to the Lakers, not so much other teams.

My mantra in the restart period: Let's get two titles, Lakers and Dodgers. (Forgive me, San Diego natives/Padres fans, I grew up in greater L.A.)

                                                              I even caught some NHL restart (they call it

                                                              "qualifying round") hockey. The NY Islanders

                                                              faced off against the Florida Hurricanes Aug. 1.

                                                              Infielder Max Muncy (taking a lefthanded hack

                                                  at the plate against Arizona) brings a lot of punch

                                                              to the top of L.A.'s order. So far, Dodger manager

                                                              Dave Roberts has rotated Muncy and Betts in the

                                                              first two slots, depending on whether a lefty or righty

                                                              is facing L.A.