Verdugo Hills Safe at Home in Legion Sweep

The distance between third base and home plate at any ball yard is universal: 90 feet, give or take a speck of chalk dust.

For the Glendale American Legion baseball team Saturday, the distance may well have marked the team’s last mile.

Verdugo Hills worked some magic on that final leg of the basepaths and swept Glendale, 5-3 in eight innings, and 4-0, in a key District 20 Eastern Division doubleheader at Stengel Field in Glendale.

Verdugo Hills (13-2) somehow scored three runs on off-the-wall plays between third and home. Glendale (9-5), which faces unbeaten division leader Van Nuys-Notre Dame in a doubleheader today, may have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to earn one of eight District 20 playoff berths.

Verdugo Hills’ basepath story line started in the first game. Glendale scored an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh to tie the score, 3-3, and send the game into extra innings, but Verdugo Hills quickly took charge in the eighth. With runners on first and second and none out, Brendon Cowsill singled to left to drive in Ivan Moreno for a 4-3 lead.

Left fielder Frank Taormina overran the ball for an error, and Kirk Hagge was waved around third.

Glendale catcher Keith McCullough blocked the plate as the relay throw came in on a bounce, and Hagge dived into the catcher’s shinguards with a head-first flop. The 6-foot-4 Hagge never made it home--and was left sprawled out about six inches short of the plate.

Hagge, thinking he was out, lay face down in the dirt with a bloody nose when he heard Coach Kelly Magee screaming for him to touch the plate. Hagge crawled the last few inches for a 5-3 lead as McCullough--who bobbled the one-hop throw--scrambled to retrieve the ball. “I thought he broke his neck,” teammate J.R. Workman said of the bloodied Hagge. “I wouldn’t have gotten up from that one. It was vicious.”

The performance of the Verdugo Hills pitchers went much more smoothly. Josh Canale pitched a two-hitter in the opener, striking out six and walking five. After Glendale scored twice in the second for a 2-1 lead, Canale (4-0) found the groove and walked only one thereafter.

Cowsill, whose brother Shane played Legion ball for Glendale two years ago, clubbed a two-run homer to left in the fourth inning of the opener to give Verdugo Hills a 3-2 lead. In the game, Cowsill had two hits and three runs batted in.

Workman, a standout from St. Francis High, posted his own Workmanlike performance in the second game. He yielded four singles and allowed only two batters to reach third. Workman (3-1) struck out two and walked two.

With a 1-0 lead in the third inning of the second game, Verdugo Hills again put the third-base hex on Glendale.

After Canale moved Moreno to third with a hit-and-run single, Cowsill followed by grounding hard to third. Moreno, who had started down the line toward home, appeared to be an easy out. But Moreno stayed in a rundown long enough for Canale to move to third, then bolted toward the plate. Trouble was, Glendale catcher Henry Petrie was waiting with ball in hand--his right hand, to be specific.

Petrie tagged Moreno with an empty mitt and Moreno was ruled safe for a 2-0 lead. Yet Verdugo Hills wasn’t through and absconded with another run before the next pitch was thrown.

Cowsill broke from first, and Glendale pitcher Frank Loera froze as varying instructions from teammates rang in his ears. He finally ran toward Cowsill--who was dancing between first and second--and Canale in turn broke for home. Loera fired the ball past Petrie for an error, allowing Canale to score for a 3-0 lead.

“We run that play all the time,” Magee said. “Most Legion teams don’t practice a first-and-third defense.”