LJ baseball: Spring League championship

Dousing with Sparkling Cider of teammates goes on
after the deciding tilt of the three-game Spring League
championship Feb. 7. The left hand seems to be the
more effective weapon to give a shower.
(Photos by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

Horror of horrors. When Gary Frank was "15, turning 16," he and his father Howard went to the World Series at Dodger Stadium in 1988.

Did you see the Kirk Gibson home run that won it? "I didn't actually see it, but we were in the stadium," admitted the younger Frank, following the third and final game of a Spring League series between squads of his Viking baseball players.

The pair were headed to the exits, and heard--but didn't have eyes on--the historic homer, which the Dodgers star hefted in a pinch-hit role, hardly able to walk due to an injury he had sustained.

Having cleared that up, his baseball players, looking ahead to their annual tilt with the alumni Sat., Feb. 16 in a traditional--and super-early this year--kickoff to the baseball season, either raked the mound or tilted sparkling cider after the scrimmage.

The winners, including junior veteran Cooper McNally, got Big League Chew in two types, plus Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Frank, before snapping their photo, advised them they might want to doff their caps, since they weren't getting new ones if they saturated them with the apple-cranberry flavor or whatever was going to shoot out of their bottles.

Johnny Agbulos, good-hitting
rightfielder for the Vikings
in 2015-16, is Gary Frank's
new freshman coach.

While they frolicked and doused one another around the plate with non-alcoholic bubbly at the Muirlands field, the unfortunates did the field maintenance and other closing tasks.

Johnny Agbulos, the Vikings' rightfielder in 2015 and 2016, is back to coach the freshmen. Steve Triolo, a Patrick Henry product, takes over pitching coach duties.

Asked about a recent proposal to make the designated hitter universal in the Major Leagues, Agbulos said, "I'm a traditionalist. I like the strategy in the National League."

Triolo agreed. "There are a lot of pitchers in the National League West who can hit," he said on the first base sideline, standing near the fence in front of the home dugout. "Zack Greinke, Madison Bumgarner." A reporter named Clayton Kershaw. "Yeah, and Kershaw. They're all good hitters."

Steve Triolo, by way of
Patrick Henry High and
CSU San Marcos,
is La Jolla's new
pitching coach.