Glendale Right-Hander Sofro Stuck His Neck Out Just to Get an Assist

After making this assist, he needed assistance.

Score it this way: just a routine, 1-to-3 pop fly. Of course, it didn’t start as a fly ball. It began as a line drive.

“It was the hardest-hit ball of the day,” pitcher David Sofro said Saturday of the fourth-inning incident. “It was a rocket.”

Sofro, a senior right-hander, was on the mound for Glendale High in a Pacific League game against Muir on Friday when, in his own words, “they rang my bell.”

Ding, ding, ding. It was a TKO.

Just before the fateful pitch, Sofro scanned the stands and noticed that his grandmother had arrived. His head spun around again an instant later. The first batter of the inning sent a wicked liner up the middle that Sofro recognized as trouble right off the bat, so to speak.

“I just turned my head and put my glove up,” Sofro said. “I don’t know how it happened.”

“It,” in this case, might be the strangest assist of the season. The ball hit Sofro squarely in the back of the noggin and caromed high into the air, where first baseman David Gantt caught it for an out.

Sofro went down in a heap. After it became apparent that he was not seriously injured, jokes started to fly.

Said Coach Chris Axelgard: “At least you got an assist. They caught the ball.”

Said Sofro: “Huh? I had no idea.”

Sofro left the game under his own power and was taken to a nearby emergency room, where tests proved negative.

“They took X-rays of my head and found nothing,” Sofro quipped. “It just hurts a lot and I have a big headache.”

Doctors should have administered to his other abrasions too. In the second inning, Sofro tried to steal second, but the throw from the catcher was wide. Sofro slid headfirst into the shins of the second baseman, who had come off the bag to take the errant toss. He was tagged out.

“I still have scrapes all over from that one,” Sofro said. “He came down right on top of me.”

At least Sofro was wearing a batting helmet at the time. Two innings later, with Glendale holding a 4-2 lead, he was whacked by the line drive. A few innings after that, things really went berserk.

With Glendale still holding a 4-2 lead in the top of the seventh, both Muir coaches were ejected by the plate umpire for arguing balls and strikes. Since Muir had no other coaches or administrators on site, the Mustangs forfeited the game and Glendale was credited with a 7-0 victory.

So, in light of the forfeiture, who was awarded the pitching victory? “I don’t know,” Sofro said, laughing. “Me, hopefully. I earned it.”

Side order: In the Northwest Valley Conference, Kevin Szymanski of El Camino Real and Miguel Diaz of Kennedy are the submarine sandwich.

Neither of the senior right-handers throws hard. Heck, neither throws over the top. But that’s precisely where they have put their red-hot teams.

El Camino Real (16-1, 12-0 in league play) and Kennedy (19-2, 10-2) are within a victory of clinching a share of their respective league titles with five regular-season games remaining.

Szymanski (7-1) tossed a five-hitter and lowered his earned-run average to 1.07 in a 12-0 victory over Reseda on Thursday. He has thrown back-to-back shutouts and has not given up a run in 20 innings. Diaz (9-1, 2.08 ERA) tossed a four-hitter in a 12-0 win over Cleveland on Tuesday. His lone loss came against El Camino Real.

El Camino Real, ranked fourth in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, has won 13 consecutive games and leads the West Valley League by four games. Kennedy, ranked ninth in the state, has won 14 in a row and leads the North Valley by four games.

The City final at Dodger Stadium is June 3. Players admit they can’t help but think about the potential matchup.

“It very much looks like it could be El Camino versus Kennedy at Dodger Stadium,” Szymanski said. “We’re still very focused on the rest of our games, but if we get seeded first and they get second, it could happen.

“That would be something.”

Theory of relativity: Let’s get it straight. Nepotism was not involved in Mark Lopez’s decision last week to play baseball at Pepperdine. But you’d never know it.

Lopez, an All-City outfielder from Chatsworth, recently made a recruiting trip to the Malibu campus and was given the grand tour by Coach Andy Lopez, who did nothing to clear up the persistent question of whether the two are related (they aren’t).

“It was kind of funny,” Mark said. “He kept introducing me as his son.”