Grant, Granada Hills Reach City Final : Beck Impressive in 7-3 Grant Win--Just Ask Him

His coach calls him “the Franchise.” His teammates consider the game a win when he comes in to pitch. Opponents rave about him. The Oakland A’s drafted him.

With all this praise, Grant High’s Rodney Beck might have easily come down with a bad case of Reggie Jackson’s disease: “My only regret is that I can’t sit in the stands and watch myself play,” the Angel slugger once said.

But Beck? Nah. He’s less poetic.

Consider his comments on Friday afternoon at Birmingham High, shortly after Beck came in to pitch in relief and shut down San Fernando for a 7-3 victory in the City 4-A semifinals.

So how’d it go today, Rodney?

“I was really impressed with myself today,” he said.

Well, you can’t fault a guy for being honest. Certainly, everyone else was also impressed.

“Beck is a fine competitor and a real good chucker,” San Fernando Coach Steve Marden said. “You get into a tight ballgame with him and you’ll probably end up in real trouble. We were hoping we could jump on them for a few runs before he came in.”

Beck, who relieved starter Donny Hussey in the third inning with the bases loaded, one out and a 3-1 lead, gave up a two-run single to Art Gutierrez, which tied it, 3-3. After that, he was virtually un-hittable.

Beck, who was drafted by the A’s in the 13th round of this week’s June draft, struck out eight, walked three and gave up four hits in improving his record to 12-1.

“It all starts with our big guy,” Grant Coach Tom Lucero said. “He’s the most competitive player I have coached in my 11 years at Grant and it all rubs off on everybody else.”

Jason Peterson, who was 2 for 3 with a solo homer to left in the second, agreed.

“As soon as we put him in, I said to myself that this game is going to be ours,” he said. “All we had to do was score a couple of runs and Rodney would nail them down.”

The win put Grant (19-5) in the championship for the first time in 22 years. The Lancers will face Granada Hills, a 14-7 winner over Poly on Friday, in the title game at Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

Grant, champion of the East Valley League, has never won a City championship. The Lancers lost to Birmingham, 2-0, in the 1964 City final. Granada Hills (18-5), co-champion of the Mid-Valley League and the No. 1-seed entering the playoffs, has won five City titles in the last 11 years.

And who will be the starting pitcher for the Lancers? “Who do you think will be pitching?” Lucero asked. “There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind who’s going to be throwing in that championship game.”

That’s right. The guy who talks as good of a game as he pitches--Rodney Beck.

On Friday, Lucero started Hussey, but had an agreement with Beck that if Hussey got into any trouble, Beck would be quickly moved from shortstop to the mound.

When Hussey walked three of four batters in the third, Beck began slapping his right arm with his glove.

“I had just asked him if he was OK to throw,” Lucero said. “He was just answering me.”

Beck had pitched nine innings on Tuesday in a 3-2 win over Birmingham in the quarterfinals. “When I went to my arm, he told me to start stretching it and to get ready,” Beck said. “My arm wasn’t really sore from Tuesday, but there was a little twinge when the game started.”

After the two-run single by Gutierrez, the Tigers (14-7) could do little more against Beck. Meanwhile, Grant bats came alive to give the senior right-hander all the support he would need.

Catcher Sean Pettway led off the bottom of the third with a single and moved to third one out later on a double by Peterson. Pettway then scored on a sacrifice fly by designated hitter Danny Karpin, giving the Lancers a 4-3 lead.

Grant added three runs in the fourth off San Fernando reliever Frank Ruiz. The big hit of the inning was a one-out triple to left by Juan Guerrero that scored Matt Simpson and David Waco.

Guerrero, Peterson, Karpin and Harlan Berk each had two hits to pace the Lancers’ 11-hit attack. San Fernando catcher Troy Knox was 2 for 4 to lead the Tigers.