Meusborn Provides Correct Answer in Final Test

One year ago today, 29-year-old Tom Meusborn was poring over the roster of the Grant High junior varsity, trying to figure out which ninth-graders might be strong enough to throw a ball 60 feet 6 inches.

One season was all it took for the former Grant junior varsity coach to take his first varsity team to the City Section 4-A Division championship. Chatsworth scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning Wednesday at Dodger Stadium to upset El Camino Real, 3-2.

“I’m still in shock,” Meusborn said. “It was a great, great, great, great first year.”

With one bold stroke, Meusborn and Chatsworth squeezed the life out of favored El Camino Real when shortstop Tommy Lee laid down a bunt with the bases loaded and one out to score Nestor Martinez.

“It’s the first time all year we’ve run a suicide squeeze,” Meusborn said.

Meusborn called for bunts three times in the seventh, contributing to the dramatic conclusion. With the Chancellors trailing, 2-1, Rodney Bloom opened the inning with a walk off El Camino Real starter Pat Treend. Meusborn, coaching in the third base box, signaled for his No. 3 hitter, Martinez, and cleanup hitter Mike Mancuso, to bunt. Both calls worked.

Martinez reached base when Treend threw late to second in an attempt to nail Bloom. Mancuso also reached safely on Herman Merchan’s fielding error.

After Chatsworth tied the score, 2-2, and loaded the bases with one out, Meusborn went with his hot hand--the bunt call.

“Tommy Lee’s a great bunter,” Meusborn said. “I knew if it was near the plate, he’d get it down.”

Down it went and down went El Camino Real.

Meusborn, the second consecutive rookie coach to win a City title (he follows Kennedy’s Manny Alvarado), accomplished the feat for a school that last won a City title in 1983 but stumbled in the semifinals at the end of the decade. The Chancellors lost in the semifinals in each of the past three years.

Leading the Chatsworth cheers was starting pitcher Reed McMackin, the only leftover from the 1988 team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today before losing a semifinal game. He proved a perfect beneficiary of Meusborn’s freshness.

McMackin, who worked 5 2/3 innings Wednesday, said that he had received a call from former Chatsworth Coach Bob Lofrano before the game. And what did the coach who suffered all those semifinal losses have to say?

“He just said, ‘Congratulations,’ ” McMackin said.

One can imagine that McMackin, Meusborn, Lee--and the rest of these unlikely champions--will hear those words for weeks to come.