LJ baseball: Anomalies

Junior Johnny Meyerott deals during
his one-inning stint on the mound
in La Jolla's annual Varsity-JV Game.
(Photos by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

La Jolla High baseball under 16-year head coach Gary Frank is about serious ball and doing things right.

The diminutive former second baseman wants players in his program to enjoy themselves, but honoring the game and maintaining tradition are a long-time element of the Viking program.

Witness the old-school stirrups and short uniform pants meeting the socks just below the knee that every team member has to wear. No long pants down to the shoes, without stirrups.

Well, to walk over to the Muirlands field and see a left-handed catcher (Blaise Gimber) and a three-quarters left-handed infield--now, that's a lot to swallow, having become accustomed to "Frank's World" over the past decade and a half.

What else at the Vikings' annual season-end varsity-JV scrimmage? Shortstop Noah Brown (gulp) on the mound. The same Brownie who hurt his arm in 2018 and took most of a year to regain his wellness in that valuable extremity.

But Brown, asked on the home team bench before his appearance, said the arm strain came from non-school baseball.

"Coach for a Day" Arman Sanchez-Mohit,
a senior (left), holds a mound conference
with Jake Klimkiewicz midway through
the Varsity-JV contest.

Arman Sanchez-Mohit, a senior, was Coach for a Day. After he failed to connect on a third strike at the plate, a visitor called out, "You can't strike out and be coach. That's a bad model for the others."

Which was all meant in good fun, as a handful of dads and moms--no girl friends or other teenage female admirers, interestingly--looked on at the ersatz competition.

A peak emotional moment came after four innings or so when Johnny Meyerott, a junior on the current La Jolla varsity, took the mound and faced Jimmy Meyerott, a 2011 grad and one of the coaches of the junior varsity. (The elder "Meyo" also took a turn at the public address microphone.)

Johnny, nine years the younger, wasn't taking things lightly. He was throwing gas to his big brother. Being a younger brother, this writer knows what this side of sibling rivalry is all about: always being smaller growing up, always being in a younger grade, always knowing less than Big Brother. It's pretty intertwined with day-to-day existence.

Well, Johnny's heat got big bro Jimmy to pop out to short, and a blow for the younger generation was landed.

During the match-up, the same inappropriate visitor called out from behind the Viking backstop, "Somebody's not going to get dinner tonight." To which a knowing LJHS baseball mom responded, "No, they won't. There's a barbecue afterward."

"Well, at least one might have to spend part of the evening at their sister Ro's (Rosemary, a 2008 grad) house across the street (from the Meyerott family home)."

Jake Klimkiewicz was moaning in the dugout after his one-inning stint on the mound against Simon Baker, Jackson Stratton (who pitched, throwing sidearm) and the other JV's.

"I hate pitching," said "Klim". "I only pitched one inning and my arm is dead." It sounded like he might have needed an extra hot dog for nourishment.

Frank, during the scrimmage, maintained a perch in the visitors' stands, turning the game completely over to his players.