High School Notebook : Merciful Dismantling of Providence Worthy of ‘This Week in Baseball’

Mel Allen, have we got a TWIB note for you.

Providence High, which last season won 19 games and finished in a tie for first in the Delphic League, fell into a dubious category with its 34-3 loss to Crossroads on Friday. Crossroads’ run total is the seventh highest in Southern Section history.

How about that, Mel?

The kicker is, the game lasted only 4 1/2 innings. Rarely has the mercy rule been more merciful.

“It was ugly,” Providence Coach John Miller said. “It was like, I’m watching ‘This Week in Baseball’ and I’d like to send the film of our game in. This is high school baseball. Heck, 15 or 16 runs scored on passed balls.”

In the Pioneers’ defense, six starters did not play. Three were attending the school’s senior retreat and three others are academically ineligible, according to Miller. Providence (3-8, 0-2 in league play) dressed 10 players.

Miller says he bears no grudge against Crossroads or Coach Chuck Ice for piling up the runs. Well, sort of.

“I wouldn’t have called off my team,” he said. “You work from February to April 15 to train your kids to play hard. You don’t send them up there to strike out.”

The Roadrunners did, however, squeeze a run home with the score 26-0.

“Now, I think Chuck Ice seemed to be a good fella,” Miller said. “I think the kid either missed the sign or Providence had beat up on them in the past.”

Miller likened his remaining players to Eddie the Eagle, the novice ski jumper from England who caught the attention of the world in the Calgary Olympics.

“That guy’s got (gumption) up to his neck,” he said.

Add lighting it up: Burroughs dedicated its new electronic scoreboard in high style Friday night against cross-town rival Burbank. Balloons were released and the school band played the national anthem.

Then, the real fireworks began.

Trailing, 2-0, Burroughs scored 11 runs in the fourth inning and won, 11-4.

Nine of the Indians’ 10 hits were in the fourth, when Burbank sent three pitchers to the mound.

Besides the nine hits, Burroughs also benefited from five walks and an error. At one stretch, there were five consecutive hits, a walk and two more hits.

“It was just one of those innings when everything we hit went where they weren’t,” Burroughs Coach Ed Knaggs said. “I’m sure the people in the stands thought it went on forever.”

Scott Clark had two singles in the inning, the first producing two runs, the second another. The Indians sent 16 batters to the plate.

At that point, the new scoreboard seemed to be shining all the more brightly.

“Yeah,” Knaggs said. “We checked that baby out, for sure.”

Indian feather: Chatsworth’s rise to the top of the USA Today national baseball poll also bodes well for Alemany. The Indians are the only team to have beaten the Chancellors, who are 14-1.

“I like it that they’re ranked No. 1 and that we put the L on their record, “ said Coach Jim Ozella, whose team is 12-6. “That’s one feather in our hat.”

TV guide: The McDonald’s All-Star game will be televised from Albuquerque, N. M., on a delayed basis at 12:30 p.m. today on Channel 7.

All-Americans Don MacLean of Simi Valley, Chris Mills of Fairfax and Darrick Martin of St. Anthony will represent the Southland.

Born to be a Bruin: Although Jenny Whelchel of Agoura, the defending state champion in the shotput, listed Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and USC as college choices before signing a letter of intent with UCLA on Thursday, she admitted that the Westwood school had been her No. 1 choice all along.

“I’ve wanted to go to UCLA since I was in fourth grade,” Whelchel said. “I like the location of the campus, the academics, the team spirit and the coaching. Art Venegas is a great technical coach who’ll get the most out of me.

“I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity.”

Venegas, a former assistant at Cal State Northridge, has coached several world-class throwers at UCLA, including John Brenner, the American record-holder in the shotput (73-10 3/4) and 1987 world championship bronze medalist.

Suddenly, Sommers: John Sommers became the sixth member of this season’s Valley-area 14-foot pole vault club when he cleared 14 feet at the Ventura Relays last Saturday.

The mark, which destroyed Sommers’ previous best of 12-6, was long overdue, according to Coach Bill Duley.

“Johnny’s been jumping 13-6 in practice all year,” Duley said. “I knew it was only a matter of time before he did it in a meet.”

Verbal barrage: Any time Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks get together to play a baseball game one can expect emotions to run high.

Aside from being traditional Marmonte League rivals, the teams engaged in a huge brawl a few years back.

While Friday’s game failed to feature any bench-clearing incidents, it did offer some first-class heckling by both teams and a near confrontation on a rough play at the plate.

The play occurred in the sixth inning when, with the Pioneers already enjoying an eight-run lead en route to a 9-1 win, Simi Valley’s Jeff Sommer tried to score from second base on a single by Andy Hodgins. Sommer was tagged out by catcher Mark Skeels in a minor collision.

Sommer, however, tried to get at Skeels before Pioneer Coach Mike Scyphers quickly pulled him away.

“That kid had no reason to jump us,” Thousand Oaks Coach Jim Hansen said. “If anybody should have been upset at that point it should have been us.

“But there’s a lot of tension that’s been in existence for some time. All it takes is one misunderstanding to rekindle the whole controversy.”

The rest of the tension between the teams was expressed verbally, with a stream of insults spewing forth from both benches.

One of the more peculiar comments from the Simi Valley bench was the consistent yell of “Hey, why don’t you write us a letter?” directed at the Lancers every time Thousand Oaks committed an error or Simi Valley scored another run.

If that vague barb sounds like it doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry.

It doesn’t.

Scott Sharts, Simi Valley pitcher and slugger, offered the following explanation:

“One time one of their guys yelled over to us, ‘Hey, why don’t you write us a letter?’ and it didn’t make any sense. So we just said, ‘Man, that’s a weak bag,’ and now we just yell it to make fun of them.”

But, as Scyphers sees it, boys will be boys. Even if boys will be loud, obnoxious boys.

“It’s just good, clean fun noise by both teams,” he said. “It keeps both teams in the game. Nobody likes a quiet dugout.”

Staff writers John Ortega and Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.