LJ baseball: Clinic

Pitching guru Tom House (red jacket) holds court

with Viking pitchers as LJHS baseball coach

Gary Frank (far left) looks on.

(Photo by Ed Piper) 

By Ed Piper

Though I don't play sports actively as I did when I was sports editor at a tiny newspaper four decades ago, I still play the George Plimpton role in my head (teenagers, ask your parents).

That's a little the way it was for me driving to a pitching clinic La Jolla High baseball coach Gary Frank invited me to Wed., July 6. Tom House, a former major league pitcher and renowned pitching coach, was going to run several varsity and younger players through their paces in a special event arranged by Frank and his father, Howard, who are long-time friends of the former Texas Rangers coach.

It vividly came to my mind the only other time I attended an event in which young pitchers were going to throw in front of a major league scout--my sophomore year in high school.

He was a scout for the Reds, I believe, and his only comment to me after I threw a few pitches from the JV mound at my alma mater was, "You hurt your arm, didn't you?" I nodded and said "yes".

That was the pro scout's sole interaction with me, and it was the crushing of my dreams. Actually, by then, I had no illusions about my future in baseball. Two years earlier, as an eighth-grader, I had taken part in our daily lunchtime softball game at my junior high, and after taking my fifth straight grounder at third base and making the throw to first without warming up, I hurt my arm, an injury I never recovered from.

Our P.E. coach, Bob Cornelius, had told us, "No warm-ups today. Let's play the whole period." He later went on to teach at my high school, Camarillo, and was my coach that day two years later when the Reds scout watched each of us JV players throw off the mound.

I never told Coach Cornelius about the injury. He passed away a couple of years ago. He was a great athlete himself, a Little All-American in college basketball. He was active and energetic, and put energy into motivating us, both in basketball and baseball. He never meant to do any harm that day on the softball field at Los Altos Intermediate School. He would have been devastated to learn I had injured my arm that day.

Happily, I can say--and I emailed Coach Frank to thank him for inviting me--I thoroughly enjoyed attending and viewing Tom House's clinic close-up while taking photos of him interacting with the Vikings players and taking notes of his often humorous and technical remarks to the guys.

The crushing blow hurting my arm happened a long time ago. I can enjoy sports through my contact with the student athletes at La Jolla. God has given me thousands of opportunities (check my photo website--1,000-plus games covered) to observe the young people in action. And that's what it's all about--moving forward, helping the next generations learn and grow.

Bob Cornelius, in later years, had some tough times. He struggled with alcohol at times, and he changed from a clean-cut, crew-cut athlete/coach to an often flamboyant, sometimes erratic individual who died in his 60's, if I'm not mistaken. Penning this to share with you, I realize fully that he did mean no harm that day on the ball field at Los Altos. He gave me a lot, as my basketball coach and my baseball coach my sophomore year. He didn't short-change me in any of that.