All-Time Baseball Thoughts & Moves

Not that there's an outpouring from North Coast baseball fans to actually piece together and complete my personal all-time baseball team, but I have been thinking about it and settled on a lineup...

1b...Mark Lucich...He harkens back to the days when small-town kids had heroes playing high school ball in the same town. In the early 1970s, everybody I knew admired Mark Lucich and wanted a brother like Gary Lucich.

Tad Sundquist's spot on the all-time team is jeopardized by the memory of how pissed he would get after making an out. God forbid he would strike out and then I'd have to take an infield spot and pick up groundballs he threw between innings. I doubt he even knew he was rocketing us wicked grounders to vent his frustration, but I do recall in Midget League and beyond intentionally bouncing throws back at him in the dirt to alert him that, "Let's make easy on each other, OK?"

2b...Bob Bonomini...If I mimicked his batting stance and he later coached my nephew and my oldest son...Bons is not only a starter, he's a North Coast Sillanpaa Hall of Famer -- first ballot.

SS...Garth Iorg...Hustle and work ethic are talents that he had in buckets. The fact that he was athletic by nature was icing on the cake. (You know he played basketball at CR between minor league seasons, right?)

3B...Scott Eskra...there's not a great deal of difference, I don't think, between Scott and Eureka High grad David Stone from the class of about 1977 who went on to play in the Mets farm system. I'd take either one at third base and enjoy watching them rake. I just thought Eskra ran a little better and that Stone, because he was on teams that had catchers and needed a third baseman, had to play out of position locally.

LF: Dane Iorg, Arcata...He's a Sillanpaa Hall of Fame first ballot guy, too. I have a soft spot for Arcata's Steve Van Deren, though, who was a catcher-outfielder for Garth Iorg's Arcata teams as well at CR. Van Deren spent time in the minor leagues. He had all the tools...all the tools.

CF: Paul Ziegler, Fortuna...With the exception of Lee Iorg, I can't think of anybody close to Ziegler.

Greg Lorenzetti, another Fortuna alum, starred at Stanford, for the Crabs and in the minor leagues...he'll be on the final team...assuming readers pay attention long enough for me to finish the team.

RF: ... Buster Pidgeon...If push came to shove, forget the position...I'd bump some guys way before giving any thought to a lineup without him in it.

C: ... John Jaso...a McKinleyville High star whose rise to the big leagues is indicative of the quality program Dustin Dutra has built over the years. A lefthanded hitter...strong arm...ran well. I didn't see the guys from the 1940s, so how can I rate them? Jaso's the first 21st century pick.

DH: David Stone and Nick Giacone...Stone and Giacone could play positions, and would if the team was real. But, if you could go with Stone's booming righty bat and Giacone's lefty bat...that's a potent DH combo. Then, you platoon Giacone at first base and Stone at third and behind the plate.

SP: Billy Olson, Eureka High...my oldest son met a guy in Lafayette the other night who coached a winter ball team that Olson and Buster Pidgeon would drive south to play on during the off-season. Small world.

SP St. Bernard's Greg Shanahan was the righty contemporary of Olson's. And...he pitched briefly for the LA Dodgers in a time when he would've cracked the pitching staff of almost any other team in the big leagues. The Dodgers were loaded with pitchers.

SP: Randy Niemann...Fortuna's best pitching product, ever. Again...here's a guy parents and coaches could've learned from because he wasn't all-world at 10, 11, 12, 15, etc. He got bigger and stronger and worked on his game. He had the mentality needed to work patiently to transition from a kid power pitcher to a minor league control artist. He doesn't get the respect he deserves, and gets overlooked, because he pitched for the Southern Humboldt summer team and not for the Humboldt Eagles -- although I think he beat the Eagles when he faced them in the lone S. Humboldt v. Eagles series I can recall. No coach up there can take credit for Niemann...so, I guess, I'm the only one to recall his greatness.