Time machine: 1999 Vintage High baseball

The basic ingredients of a thunderstorm are moisture, unstable air and lift.

Thunderstorms are most likely to occur in the spring and summer, especially in the evening hours. Well, high school baseball season happens in the spring and the 1999 Vintage High baseball team was a perfect storm if there ever was one.

The through the idea of team chemistry is floated around too frequently, this Crusher team personified that quality. Most of all, the 1999 Vintage Crushers had a tenacity level that made you think you were watching a team from 1975. In a nutshell, this was one of the most self-motivated high school sports teams I witnessed on a regular basis.

I’ve said this so much people are probably tired of hearing it but to understand a team’s success, you have to understand its journey. The Crushers entered the 1999 campaign having lost its ace pitcher, Charlie Frasier, to graduation. Vintage had 12 of its 18 players that were seniors that had gone 14-14 in the Monticello Empire League the previous two seasons. Some of those seniors had varsity experience as sophomores and in shortstop Steve Skinner’s case, as a freshman. Second baseman Lorin Brambila, pitcher Wes Frey, pitcher/outfielder Dal Wilson and catcher Derek Texdahl played on the varsity as sophomores.

Throughout the journey, head coach Rich Anderson preached the importance of being fundamentally sound and his players executed in such a manner all season. Assistant coaches Billy Smith and Fred Scaruffi, who died in 2002, complemented Anderson with their presence, the former on the hitting side and the latter on the pitching side respectively. The latter was commonly known as “Scroof.” The coaching staff appealed to all generations. At the time, Smith was experienced but still in his early 30s. Scroof was in is late 60s, he was the old-timer that could be gentle and funny one moment but the ball-busting old-timer the next.

If I had to think of a word to describe this Crusher team, it would be “grinders.” While that phrase has become overused, it aptly described Vintage baseball less than a year before Y2K. The Crushers went 27-5 and 13-1 on the way to the MEL title, edging out league rival Fairfield. What was most compelling about that season was how Vintage and league rival Fairfield were polar opposites in how they carried themselves. Though Vintage won the MEL title, Fairfield went on to win the CIF Sac Joaquin Section Division I title, something that sticks in Crusher fans’ craw to this day.

Fairfield was the team that carried a swagger and was not afraid to tell you how good they were. Though the Crushers went 2-2 in the SJS Div. I playoffs, they proudly carried narrative of playing with your bats and gloves, not your mouths. When Vintage won the MEL title, they walked off the field as if their parents called them home for dinner. Translation, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a less celebrated league title by a team.

The 1999 Crushers rewrote the school record book with the 27 wins and 196 runs scored, recording winning streaks of 12 and  games along the way. Vintage won 21 of its last 22 regular season games.

With the loss of Frasier, Anderson had a decision to make, so he moved Frey into the starting rotation and the hard-throwing righthander rewarded him with an 11-0 season after going 0-5 as a junior. Frey recorded an ERA of 2.51 and struck out 52 batters in 53 ⅓ innings. Wilson, who was a lefthander, was the perfect compliment to Frey in that he was a mixture of power and finesse. If you needed someone to punctuate the game out of the bullpen, Andrew Workman was your guy with his Kent Tekulve like sidearm delivery.

On the offensive side, the Crushers were a machine led by the record-setting Skinner, who broke the season mark for batting average (.528), hits (48), runs scored (39), stolen bases (22) and home runs (8). Skinner was the MEL MVP and though he was undersized at 5-8, 170, he had incredible range and howitzer for an arm. You name the play, Skinner could make it. Diving, backhanded stop deep in the hole between second and third? Check. Charge a slowly hit groundball? Check. I have never seen a shortstop double-clutch and still fire a Brett Favre like bullet to first for the out.

Vintage’s lineup gave opponents no breaks as the Crushers compiled a .338 team batting average with 12 guys registering averages North of .300. Those players included but were not limited to Brambila, centerfielder Jared Kimball, Brian Massey, Texdahl and Wilson. The Crushers offense and pitching was so dynamite that it became easy to overlook the stout defense of Skinner, Brambila, Massey and Texdahl to name a few.

Though the Crushers outscored MEL opponents 124-54 and averaged 6.9 runs per contest, the season was also typified by clutch-hitting. However, if there was one such moment that exemplified that quality was Brambila’s game-winning RBI single in the MEL opener against Vacaville to kickstart Vintage’s 13-1 stretch in league play. Brambila also had a game-winning two-run single in a 10 inning win over Fairfield to avenge Vintage’s lone MEL defeat.

When I look at the 1999 Crushers, they didn’t have sweat stains and grass stains on their uniforms just to keep laundry detergent companies in business, they wore them as badges of honor.