With all due respect to the Live Oak High varsity baseball team
and Coach Mark Cummins, I know which dugout I want to hang out in
during Saturday
’s seventh annual Alumni game.
With all due respect to the Live Oak High varsity baseball team and Coach Mark Cummins, I know which dugout I want to hang out in during Saturday’s seventh annual Alumni game.
That would be the dugout that promises to provide not only cigars and beer but homemade burritos by Grandpa Souza.
According to Alumni Coach Jim Crossen, the smokes, brews and chow are all part of the former Live Oak players’ strict training regimen before, during and after the game.
“Our training is eating lunch and dinner,” Crossen said. “The alums are trying desperately to get in shape for this one game.”
Crossen also put out a general plea to any fans with emergency medical training to please attend the game.
These are serious athletes.
Despite the fact that the game will occur on school grounds, where alcohol and tobacco are strictly prohibited, I’m still determined to believe Crossen’s promise, right up to the moment I step into the visiting dugout.
You gotta believe.
But whether or not the contraband shows up or not, Saturday’s 1 p.m. game at Live Oak’s Sarich Field should be vastly entertaining.
The game serves as a fundraiser for the high school’s baseball program but it’s also a chance for current and former players, and fans, to reminisce about the great Live Oak teams of the past.
Many of the erstwhile Acorn stars of the past decade (and a few from several decades ago) are expected to show up and see if they can still pound the old horsehide, hobble around the bases and not break a leg in the process.
And don’t think this game won’t be competitive. After losing the first five games in the series, the Alumni have won two straight, “quite by accident, and you can quote me on that,” Crossen said, including an 11-6 thumping of the varsity last year.
The list of alums expected to make an appearance is impressive.
There’s Adam Montarbo (1999 grad) who starred at West Valley and Chico State before giving the pros a shot. Montarbo may pitch for the alums, that is if some pro baseball organziation doesn’t snap him up beforehand.
There’s Gavilan College head baseball coach Neal Andrade (1994) who led the alums to its second straight win last year, and his brother Wayne (1998).
There’s current Live Oak pitching coach Eric Wagle (1999) who will get a chance to try and throw a few high hard ones past his players.
There are the Alciati brothers, Mike (1995) and Jon (1993), and dad Al (1967). Mike’s the Gavilan pitching coach, and Al’s expected to “earn more team fines for baserunning errors in this year’s game,” Crossen said.
Mike Alciati is just one of several former Acorns from the outstanding 1995 team who are expected to show up, including Joel Sanders, Mike Christman (current varsity player Shane’s older brother), Ryan Smith, Billy Sousa, Daniel Crossen (the Alumni coach’s son) and more.
Then there’s the keystone combination of brothers Kristopher and Adam Ferguson, who are reputed to be practicing in their garage for the big game.
There’s Kevin Henley (1996), brothers Jason and Michael Sarich (1992 and 1997, respectively), Jeff Becknall (1996) whose younger brother Josh pitches for Gavilan, and Cris Bergstrom (1999).
One alum who won’t be there is 1993 grad Brandon Villafuerte, who is pitching in the Arizona Diamond-backs organization.
Villafuerte is just one of several ex-Acorn players who won’t be able to play in the Alumni game because they’re still competing in the pros or college, including the younger Becknall, CJ Goularte, Ryan Muller and Rey Sanchez, the Puerto Rican native and major league shortstop who played at Live Oak in the mid-1990s when he visited Morgan Hill as an exchange student.
Cummins, the longtime Live Oak coach who has coached every one of the players mentioned above except the elder Alciati, said the Alumni game is a time of the season he looks forward to every year.
“It’s always a pleasure to see the former players and see how they’re doing in their lives off the field,” Cummins said. “It’s a fun time of the year.”
But Cummins said the Acorn varsity will be looking to reverse its recent losing trend with a victory this year.
“The varsity is out to beat the alumni,” he said. “(Senior catcher) Chase Perez said he wants to beat the alumni once in his three years (on the varsity).”
To the winners go the spoils. But the alumni will still have the cigars, beer and burritos.
Jim Johnson is the Sports Editor at the Morgan Hill Times. Call him at (408) 779-4106 or e-mail him at
ji**@mo*************.com
