Eric Erickson, Class of 1980,
baseball card for 1982.
(Photos of online image)
By Ed Piper
Jared Stutts, an All-CIF defensive tackle from Lincoln in 1979, said Eric Erickson could play.
"He was a good quarterback," said, Stutts, now an assistant coach for the Hornet football team, before the Viking-Lincoln game Fri., Oct. 10. "I kept in touch with him when I played at Mesa College (1980-1981), but then I lost track of him."
Regarding the outcome of the game between Lincoln and La Jolla his senior year, a close Hornet win, 15-14, Stutts said, "We beat them. It wasn't a butt-whipping."
Did Erickson (6'4", 200 pounds) have a good offensive line to protect him? "Not really." As a lineman trying to get to the La Jolla quarterback, Stutts noted that the Hornet football team that year was the only one in the history of the school that has gone undefeated (7-0 in the Western League, 12-0 overall).
They will feted at Homecoming at Lincoln this coming Friday night, Oct. 16.
In fact, La Jolla tied with Lincoln for first place in the Western League in 1979 under Coach Gene Edwards, though losing their head-to-head game during league play, as well as a playoff game to the Hornets, 39-22, at San Diego (later Jack Murphy and Qualcomm) Stadium. The Vikings were 10-2 for the season.
Stutts went on to play after Mesa at UTEP (Texas El Paso), cracked two vertebrae his senior year of college, and didn't go into the NFL.
One reason Jared wasn't able to keep contact with Erickson was because the latter also played baseball well. In fact, he was a pretty good basketball player, averaging 16 points a game during his senior season.
Erickson, a member of the La Jolla High Baseball Hall of Fame, went on to play professionally.
Erickson's baseball card
for 1987.
The Class of 1980 graduate had 193 and 283 plate appearances, hitting .269 and .208, respectively, for Great Falls (Montana) and Clinton (Iowa) in his first two years in the Giants' organization--the initial season, in rookie ball. After that, he had few plate appearances.
But as a southpaw on the mound, Eric threw from the beginning, and played seven seasons in the minors, including one in independent ball. His best statistical seasons were 4-2 records as a 25-year-old for Lynchburg, Virginia, in the Carolinas League, single A level, and years later as a 33-year-old, when he came back from injuries (after a six-year hiatus) to play one more season for Palm Springs in independent ball.
His heaviest workload came in 1986, as a 24-year-old, when he pitched 135 2/3 innings for Fresno in the California League, in single A. His ERA that season was 5.44. Erickson started 21 games that season, and appeared in six others.
He recorded 10 saves the year before, for Clinton in the Midwest League.
Says Gary Frank, head coach of the Viking baseball program, "Eric is one of the all-time multi-sport athletes to come out of La Jolla. He is in the conversation with Rick Eveleth, Malaika Underwood, and Peter Sefton for best all-around athlete to come out of La Jolla in the past 60 years."
Frank, an avid historian of the La Jolla High baseball program, along with his father, Howard Frank, added, "Until the Zimmers (Bradley and Kyle) got drafted in the first round, he was the highest-drafted Viking of all time. He is still the highest (draftee) taken out of high school."
Otherwise, Gary said, "(Erickson, a lefthanded pitcher) played in the minor leagues and got hurt, so he walked away. He took a few years off, and was playing on an adult team with Bob Allen (retired La Jolla High teacher/athlete)--and he decided to give it another go.
"He got signed and made it all the way to Triple A, before injuries ended his career again."
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