November 14, 2000

The most obvious "story" I can think of off the top of my head concerns a game we played against CVU, @ CVU in either my junior or senior year. (I'm leaning towards my senior year) I can't remember all the specifics as to what inning, what the score was, etc., but the story begins with a play at the plate. I was trying to score on a base hit. I rounded third and was heading home and the catcher began to come up the line to field an obvious throw that was off line. The catcher parks himself about 15 feet up the line directly in the basepath waiting for the throw. I don't hesitate and run right through him, both of us crashing to the ground and then me scrambling to get to the plate. The ump then proceeds to call me out for interfering with the catcher. Big argument erupts as I'm claiming the kid was in the basepath and I have the right to that basepath. Ump isn't budging and I'm hot at this point, really giving the ump some hassle, demanding how he can possibly call me out when the runner always has the right to the basepath. Saddlemire is out there by now and he's asking the same questions and getting hotter by the minute as the ump won't even try to explain his decision. Finally the ump tries to claim that because I took out the catcher, then I am automatically out by rule. (Rule was then that a player could not take out the catcher at home plate and that you always had to slide) I'm screaming that if I had slid at the point in the basepath where the catcher was, I would have been sliding 15-20 feet before home plate and that is not the intent of the rule. Saddlemire erupts at the ump trying to impose the "slide" rule and is pushing me away so I don't get run out of the game. Ump finally has had enough, points at me and tells me I'm out, points at Saddlemire and tells him he's out, effectively booting him from the game.

I'm playing first and get out there late as I'm talking to Saddlemire about how he wants to handle the rest of the game (we had no assistant coach). Shea Lamphere and I were captains, so we were trying to figure it out. By the time I get to my position, the base ump asks me what I'm doing there, that I've been kicked out of the game as well. He yells down to the plate umpire and when he sees me down there, gives me an official heave-ho from the game. I head back to the dugout and the ump then goes on to say that that because our head coach has been ejected and one of the captains has been ejected, the remaining captain has to come out of the game and serve as coach because we have no asst. coach. This causes a problem because Shea is in the game, Saddlemire has gone to the bus because he's so hot and we're stuck trying to figure this out. All of a sudden in the midst of this conversation, my Dad comes out of the stands, tells one of the guys on the bench to give him his Lakers jacket, squeezes it on and walks up to the ump claiming to be the acting asst. coach. The ump at this point has apparently had enough and accepts this, Shea heads out to the field, I have to go to the stands to watch the rest of the game. Somehow we manage to win the game by a run. My Dad is out there flashing make-believe signs at our guys (he, of course has no idea what the signs are). Finally, in an effort to tell one of the guys to steal, he merely yells out to the guy on first to steal on the next pitch. You probably get the idea on how much of a circus this was to watch and I was dying of laughter watching my father go through his antics. But as I mentioned, we managed to win the game.

The whole point of this drawn out story was to this day, my Dad claims to be the only undefeated coach in Laker history, along with the coach with the best winning percentage in Laker history. A flawless 1-0 record.