Every Team Needs Managers, Coaches...
I assume that Lou Bonomini remains as manager of the All-Time team. I'd be interested to read who you select as pitching coach and hitting coach? Also, what North Coast baseball field would this team call home?
January 13, 2009 10:54 PM
The home field for the All-Time North Coast baseball team would be the original Albee Stadium. It featured a beautiful redwood seating structure that was raised above the playing field. The setting, in that redwood tree-lined bowl, remains unmatched.
Like the original V.F.W. Field, now the Eureka Babe Ruth League field, old Albee Stadium had a ticket booth underneath the bleachers and ramp leading from there up to the seating area. The dugouts were actually dug out of the ground and players had to walk down steps to get from the field into them. My earliest memories of North Coast baseball include walking down into the 1965 Crabs' dugout to have the team autograph a baseball for me on Scholarship Night. I've still got the ball -- and Bob Bonomini's autograph.
The baseball diamond faced the Albee Stadium football field. The left field line ran parallel to the extreme edge of the outside lane of the old dirt track that used to circle the football field. In my youth, there was a portable, wood fence up during baseball season -- from foul line to foul line.
By the time I played at Albee Stadium, the bleachers were torn down, the snack bar was gone...it was just the playing field and the dugouts. They even stopped putting up the fence, so I played right field at Eureka High standing at the base of the slope leading up to the redwood trees. (Let's say I wasn't really interested in having to go back on a ball.) I once saw Mark Lucich hit a home run that hit halfway up into those redwood trees. Pitching at the decimated Albee was great, because a fast outfield enabled you to get an out on a ball hit 420 feet -- from home plate to the 30-yard line of the football field. I didn't see anybody hit a ball that landed in the existing football bleachers, but I did it once. (Well, twice, in the same game...there was no ground rule, so I had to run while the centerfielder tracked the ball bounced off the cement.) Since I did it, then I'm certain it was done countless times by guys who hit prodigious clouts that landed up in the football seats. It was a long drive from home plate to the football seating -- and it's gotten longer every year in my mind.
I fell out of love with the dump Albee became when I realized that a line drive single over the third baseman's head could be misplayed into a home run that hit the dirt track and rolled and rolled toward the football locker rooms. (Rick Mohorovich, who was the slowest guy I knew, hit that type of homer off me. He could've circled the bases twice.)
Albee's football stadium used to have cement bleachers on both sides of the football field. So, I used to marvel at the little portion of those cement bleachers that were razed. I wondered how cool it must've been to have filled a football stadium that big, you know? How cool must it have been to go to a baseball game with a a full football stadium beyond the outfield fence? Back in the day, I think Albee Stadium even had baseball locker rooms -- a clubhouse. All that was left in my day was an equipment shed.
The original V.F.W. Field was cool, too. It had underground dugouts, so players would stand and peer through an eye-level screen to watch the game. Best thing about it, I figured, was that the coaches couldn't really see or hear what was going on in the dugout...so, very little need for the fake chatter and lots of time to really enjoy yourself. I just didn't like the enormous dimensions at the V.F.W. Field. Although...in the wood bat days, even the right field fence seemed a fair distance away. (I saw Mark Lucich hit a ball off the smaller Redwood Acres pavillion beyond the right field fence once.) The center field fence was a mile away before they started storing those football bleachers out there and, honest, before the advent of metal bats -- it was a big deal to get one out in left field ... and just hitting that fence was considered an epic feat for a Babe Ruth League player.
I never was a fan of the Arcata Ball Park -- even when it had redwood bleachers and all the same accommodations old Albee Stadium had. I did like that the Crabs had vendors walking the stands selling hot dogs, peanuts, etc. Initially, I guess I didn't like that Arcata got the Crabs...later I played the infield at the Arcata Ball Park and didn't like that it was about the worst infield I'd ever seen. (Hey...35 years ago...I'm sure it's fine now!)
Actually, if I could rebuild the original Albee Stadium at the site of the Rohner Park baseball field in Fortuna -- that'd be home to my North Coast All-Time team. I used to really love that I'd leave Eureka stuck in the fog and get out of the car in Fortuna to see blue skies and sunshine.
Don Terbush once told me that there was a full baseball stadium on the huge plot of land where Carson Park has been for decades. I had special fondness for the Haney-Jacobs Eureka Midget League field -- before Haney got his name attached to George C. Jacobs Field. It was a miniature version of old Albee Stadium, so we felt pretty big league playing in what seemed like an actual stadium. (Thus, high praise to the Arcata Little League for building that Brizard Complex. It captured the history of baseball in the area with redwood bleachers, etc.)
Coincidentally, the baseball complex I most depised was the St. Bernard High School facility. My sons played there and really liked it because their coach Al Brisack maintained it like most people maintain their vegetable or flower garden. I didn't like that screen hanging over me when I hit...I felt claustrophobic. I didn't like the tiny green wooden bleachers pressed up against the backstop. And, when I pitched, I despised the overhang above the dish even more because a pop foul out was simply impossible to achieve.
While, I'm sure it was no issue to (and likely helped) legendary pitchers like Billy Olson and Greg Shanahan...the mountainous pitcher's mound at St. Bernard really bugged me. They throw over the top -- and were incredibly skilled pitchers. I had only marginal talent and threw three-quarters and sidearm...so that big mound didn't do me any good ... just threw me off my game...what little there was to it.
I need to think more about the manager and coaches...because, this is my all-time team so ... nothing's automatic.
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