The Gathering of the Clan : American Legion: Newbury Oaks fortified by college players who have returned for one last shot at a title.
Three sweltering days and two sultry nights on the road. . . . Bugs on the windshield the size of vampire bats, a dead skunk in the middle of the road, good ol’ boys in patrol cars, the temperature gauge flirting with the red line.
The path runs from Los Angeles, across the arid Southwest and Texas panhandle, into the deep South, where triple-digit heat turns into suffocating humidity. . . . Two road warriors traveling 2,000 miles, dodging armadillos in a sauna on wheels.
Ballplayers Ryan Kritscher and Adam West are making the trek this week so they can drop off Kritscher’s car in Hattiesburg, Miss., where he attends college. The pair, teammates since they were grade-schoolers and currently members of the high-powered Newbury Oaks American Legion team, killed time listening to country and western tunes.
Kritscher made a similar journey last summer and has adapted, if you will, without breaking a sweat. Playing last spring at Southern Mississippi, Kritscher fast converted from California cat to Southern man.
Kritscher now lives where “oil†is pronounced “earl,†and “How y’all doin?†is the salutation of choice. But the local twang was nothing compared to the one that emanated from the acoustic guitar Kritscher bought shortly upon his arrival. In short, he fell into place like a one-legged high jumper.
On the other hand, West spent the school year in Lewiston, Ida., playing for Lewis-Clark State College. Rural or not, West didn’t go western. He can barely tell Garth Brooks from Wayne and Garth, though he surely will know the difference before his trip with Kritscher is over.
“He listens to Garth Brooks, I know that much,†West said before the trip. “Other than that, I don’t know any of the other guys. I don’t listen to that stuff.â€
After leaving Kritscher’s car, the duo will catch a flight to Los Angeles and rejoin their teammates in time for the Legion Southwest Regional, which opens Wednesday in Las Vegas.
It will mark the pair’s second homecoming of the summer.
West and Kritscher, along with four other players on the Newbury Oaks roster, agreed to return to play Legion ball after a year in college. They signed on with their longtime hometown buddies and rounded out a team of former Little League leviathans that has won a Legion state title and 31 games in a row.
The gang’s all here.
And then some.
Shock, the magnitude of a Southland temblor, registered on the contorted face of every kid. The Conejo Valley Senior Little League all-stars had lost in the 1989 Western Regional to Union City in the bottom of the seventh inning at Las Vegas--on a two-out, disputed call at first base, to boot.
A few days later, Union City was in the World Series, playing--and beating--Taiwan. The Conejo kids, a group of overachieving 15-year-olds, went out and spent $500 at a Japanese sushi restaurant. Raw deal, raw fish. One more hot dog at the ballpark would have tasted so much better.
Two years later, in the summer of 1991, seven of those players met Union City in the late stages of the state Legion tournament in Yountville as part of a team called Conejo A. A win would have meant a berth in the regionals.
The results were the same: Union City advanced, and the kids from Conejo Valley again were left to wonder what went wrong and what might have been. It was a hard-core encore.
There was one glimmer of hope remaining, though. Several key players on the Conejo A club had Legion eligibility remaining for 1992. All somebody had to do was assemble the parts.
“I didn’t have to twist anybody’s arm,†Newbury Oaks Coach Chuck Fick said. “Everybody seemed interested.â€
Fick, a former minor-league catcher who founded and coached the Newbury Park Legion team in 1991, worked with assistant Wayne Smith and former Conejo A Coach Craig Sturges to construct a team that won the Area 6 and state championships this summer with consecutive four-game sweeps and is 31-1 overall.
To date, it has proven to be the Legion equivalent of the merger of the Union and Pacific railroads: Every challenger has been run out of town on a hot rail and Fick’s players seem to recognize that the last stop truly does mark the end of the line. The terminus will determine us.
“This is our last chance to make it to a World Series in something, besides college,†said outfielder Mike Moore, who played on the Little League team as well as with Conejo A. “But we won’t be playing together then, of course.â€
Moore is one of six players who graduated from high school in 1991 and agreed to give Legion a final fling. The younger players were keeping their fingers crossed that the graybeards would agree to play.
“The whole question was whether the older guys would come back or go play in some college league,†said outfielder Jim Chergey, a 1992 Thousand Oaks graduate and a member of last year’s Conejo A squad. “Then rumors started flying that they were gonna come back and play with their buddies.
“Chuck said, ‘I got him, I got him, and I got him.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, this is gonna be great. ‘ “
The leaders of the group are Kritscher and West, both of whom played last season in established college programs. Shazam: instant credibility.
“Kritscher was starting at a Division I school,†Chergey said. “West was pitching at one of the top NAIA schools, if not the top school. It’s kind of scary to have them on the same team again.â€
Kritscher, who batted .431 with 40 stolen bases for Thousand Oaks High in 1991, has been the catalyst for as long as anybody can remember. He bats leadoff and moved this summer from second to third base. And he still motors from home to first in a blur.
As a freshman at Southern Mississippi, Kritscher appeared in 30 games, was 25 for 93 (.269) and drove in 10 runs as a part-time starter.
West, a left-handed pitcher, is top dog on a Newbury Oaks staff that includes three left-handers. West appeared in two games at Lewis-Clark, which won the NAIA title.
West considered playing in a collegiate summer league but decided to give it another shot with his former mates. Ditto Kritscher, who will pass up a family reunion in Hawaii to play in the regional.
“I knew all along that I had one year (of Legion eligibility) left,†West said. “Chuck called to see if I was going to Arizona or what. I figured I’d have a lot more fun here and I’d get more playing time.â€
Kritscher and West compared notes. They were on the same page.
“I talked to Kritscher and said, ‘If you play, I’ll play,’ †West said. “He said, ‘If you play, I’ll play.’
“So me and Ryan tried to help round up the rest of the players.â€
So far, the trail to the final roundup has been a smooth one. But with the horses in the Newbury Oaks stable, that’s no surprise. West is 10-1 and has an earned-run average of 2.25. Kritscher is batting a team-high .535 and has six homers and 48 runs batted in.
The list of collegians doesn’t end there. First baseman Trent Martin was on the roster last spring at Moorpark College. Had the best seat in the house, in fact. Right there on the bench.
“I watched a lot of games,†Martin said with a laugh.
He has watched a lot of balls clear the fence since. Martin, a 1991 graduate of Thousand Oaks and a member of the Conejo A and Little League teams, has whacked a team-high nine home runs, is batting .450 and has driven in 52 runs from the cleanup position.
One of Martin’s Moorpark teammates was pitcher Jeff Naster, a right-hander with the best velocity on the Legion roster. Fick immediately nicknamed him “Goose,†as in Gossage, and Naster took to his role as the bullpen closer like a duck to water.
After honoring a commitment to play in the Arizona Summer League, which includes college players from throughout the nation, Naster rejoined Newbury Oaks earlier this month. He has allowed one run in six innings and earned saves in the area and state championship games.
Naster, who was 10-0 for Conejo A last season and also played on the Little League team, said it feels good to be back with the boys.
“Guys on this team can play and joke around with each other,†he said. “They know what you’re like and who you are.â€
Neither Moore nor Tighe Curran played ball in college last season, though it doesn’t show. Curran, a left-handed pitcher-outfielder and a 1991 graduate of Newbury Park, is batting .342 and is 9-0 with an ERA of 1.90. Moore is batting .386.
College-age players are hardly the only ones critical to the team’s success and chemistry, however. Starters Chergey and Jeff Olin, who also graduated from Thousand Oaks in the spring and played for Conejo A last summer, were looking toward the formation of Newbury Oaks and salivating.
Newbury Oaks players Jamal Nichols and Craig Arnold also played last spring at Thousand Oaks, which finished 4-21-1. The contrast between spring and summer has been staggering. For Newbury Oaks, Nichols is batting .432 with 14 stolen bases; Arnold is 2-0 with an ERA of 2.69 and has allowed one walk in 26 innings.
“About halfway through the (high school) year, I said to myself, ‘Forget this. I can’t wait until summer ball,’ †said Chergey, who was selected to The Times’ All-Ventura County first team.
The past wasn’t exactly prologue. “High school was terrible,†said Olin, the second baseman who also played for the Little League and Conejo A teams. “When you’re on a team and you know every day that you’re going to lose, you start to hate it. I hated showing up for the games.â€
Showing up these days means showing up an opponent--on the scoreboard, that is--and ends in almost certain victory for Newbury Oaks.
Nobody can seem to spell or pronounce their hometown correctly, but players from Newbury Park High have been crucial to the team’s performance. The team was called “New berry Park Oaks†on the draw sheet that was posted in Yountville and repeatedly was mispronounced over the public-address system.
Bury is exactly what the team has done to 31 consecutive opponents since falling to Camarillo A in the season opener, with Newbury Park standouts shoveling much of the dirt. Catcher Robert Fick, who played on a 13-year-old Conejo Valley all-star team with Kritscher, West, et al., in 1987, and shortstop David Lamb have been full-time starters. Jeff Hook (.323) and Chris Correa (.344) have platooned in the outfield.
Fick, the younger brother of the coach, is batting .487 with a team-high 53 RBIs. Lamb, who will be a senior at Newbury Park and is considered one of the best professional prospects in the region, is batting .478 with 51 RBIs.
Bryant Fick, the coach’s nephew, and fellow pitchers Jason Patterson and Curran are a combined 18-0 and along with West and Arnold have carried the pitching load. In short, Newbury Oaks--a hybrid term coined to describe the combination of Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks highs--managed to fill all the holes.
From A to Z.
“When they brought back the college guys and combined them with the T.O. guys and the players from N.P., it practically gives us an all-star-type of player at each position,†Olin said.
Between Newbury Oaks and the World Series, held Aug. 26-30 in Fargo, N.D., lies a return trip to Las Vegas, site of the heart-rending loss in 1989. Yet everybody knows that the heart is a muscle, and a good workout only makes it stronger. “We have more heart to do it this time,†Naster said, referring to the team’s string of playoff disappointments. “We all know it’s our last chance.â€
If the Newbury Oaks season was a highway sign, like the ones Kritscher and West are seeing, it would read: “Highway Ends Just Ahead.†Age-group baseball is nearly over.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime team,†Chergey said. “We’ve been so much better than the competition. I guess it’s our send-off.â€
The next time Kritscher, West and Co. return from a trip, they hope to have trophies in hand. They’ve reached the end of the map.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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