Iris Chin, Katie Garvey and Emma Wager were named today to the Daily News First Team all-Peninsula softball team. Kudos for that! (Greek word, singular, for “praise”. They should know this, since the school has a pseudo-Greek theme, with the Oracle — newspaper — and Olympian — yearbook).
Alumnus and parent Matt Maltz (who married his classmate Jamie Sparaco) coached the Lady Titans to the CCS berth and a big win over rival Palo Alto. Ok, Matt and Jamie are parents of a former Lady Titan, Casey, now in college, and have two other kids, boys, including Andrew, a rising sophomore and returning letterman in football.
Here are the Daily News notes on these three players:
Iris Chin, Jr., 17-6 record, 1.50 ERA (earned runs not Equal Rights Amendment), 165 K’s, .344 batting average;
Katie Garvey, Jr., .324 average , “stalwart behind the plate” which is an AP-English word for saying she is Gunn’s version of Buster Posey;
(note to self to edit to add with etymology of “stalwart”, which is what English majors do, even 25 years out of school)
Emma Wager, designated hitter, Sophomore, .423 average, 5 triples, 8 doubles — I don’t believe we had designated hitters when I was in school, although we didn’t have chaperones typically, either, accept at the prom. (Designated hitters started in Major League baseball in 1977, I believe with Orlando Cepeda the former Giant, then a Red Sox — singular and plural. I actually don’t recall if high school baseball or softball had adopted the new rules by the time I graduated, which was 1982. My last game of baseball, for Los Altos Little League Senior All-Stars, at Stan Troedson Field, now renamed for William Sigua, was summer of 1979, if that excuses me. Close enough for the internet.)
Gunn also landed six players on the Honorable Mention list: Torres, Oda, Tevanian, Schwarzwald, Ostrom and Potter.
Matt Maltz was my teammate for 8th grade flag football, which tied for league honors, as it were, at Terman. In fact, he was a guard and I was right next to him, at tackle, although on passing downs I reported eligible and lined up as a flanker. I don’t recall him playing much baseball (or softball, for that matter), although I do recall that he won the CCS frosh-soph championship in swimming and said he partied with Greg Louganis at regional and national youth meets, although I probably should go there, degree of difficulty and all that.
I wrote about Matt and family about a year ago, and since it continues to get hits (my blog post, and hopefully his daughter playing collegiate softball), I thought I would update.
I think the big story in local sports, although it seems to be underplayed in the Weekly, is that a Gunn runner, Sarah Robinson, would a state title in mid-distance running and is on soccer scholarship next year to play for Stanford. I don’t know the family, although I know another Robinson family with athletic kids at Gunn. And not to digress too much or steal the Thunder from the Lady Titans, but I noticed that former Los Altos High All-American soccer player and local coach Albertin Montoya has three young ladies from his nationally-ranked LAMV Lightning going on scholarship to Stanford. Kudos for that! (I met Albertin when he was on the semi-pro Palo Alto Firebirds soccer team, for whom I worked as a freelance front office dork — Mark Bult and I designed a cool poster once).
Anyhow good luck, kudos, mazel tov and namaste to all the young athletes, their parents and their coaches. Go, Titans, especially.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: due to the nature of the internet, something I wrote a while ago about Cadence Lee (daughter of Emmie Fa and Hon Lee), still gets hits. My understanding is that Cadence Lee, Blaze Lee, coach Chris Horpel and them continue to fight fiercely for the Alma Mater in wrestling. I think I heard that Andrew Maltz is also wrestling, and one of the other-Robinsons as well, if that ties it all together, Plastic-Alto-style.
edit to add: “stalwart” is from Scottish/Middle English “stall” like “place” and “weorth” like “worth”. And although I am kinda chiding the Daily News for use of the big word, it turns out that, according to my internal search function, I have used that term 20 times in previous posts, including the article on Gunn softball that this is kinda sorta updating. In that case I was describing as a “stalwart” the pitcher Claire Klausner, daughter of school board member, at the time, or just before then, Barbara Klausner. I think I am gonna tag this post “stalwart” just for yucks.
another edit to add: fact-checking what I already published about the history of the DH, apropos of All-Peninsula Gunn Titan Emma Wager, reminded me to look up something I saw at Giants’ game the other night, a mural in the form of song lyrics, attributed to Danny Kaye, at section 118 lower, near the press box, which mentions Cepeda. It’s actually a “Dodgers Song” which is ironic for inclusion at the Giants park. Here is a fuller context:
Maury Wills at bat, hit it for me once, Stu Miller throws, Maury bunts
Cepeda runs to field the ball while Hiller covers first
Haller runs to back up Hiller, Hiller crashes into Miller
Miller falls, drops the ball, Conlan calls, “Safe!” Yea, Maury!
Gilliam up. Miller grunts. Miller throws. Gilliam bunts.
Cepeda runs to field the ball while Hiller covers first.
Haller runs to back up Hiller, Hiller crashes into Miller
Miller falls, drops the ball, Conlan calls, “Safe!” Yea, Conlan!
Willie Davis gets a hit, and Tommy does the same
Here comes Mr. Howard with a chance to win the game!
Hit it once! Big Frank – BUNTS?!
Miller runs to field the ball and so does Hiller so does Haller
Miller hollers Hiller. Hiller hollers Haller. Haller hollers Miller points to Hiller with his fist.
And that’s the Miller-Hiller-Haller Hallelujah Twist!
Frank Howard, by the way, is also the source of the bit of New York Mets trivia, the origin of the name of the indie rock band, Yo La Tengo (featuring Ira, Big Day Coming); Howard, a left fielder, ran into his teammate who tried to say “I Got It” or something. By the time I started watching baseball, Frank Howard was a big galug stuck at first base (and before DH).
Cepeda started in the first crop of DH’s in 1973, it says here. Also, I wish to state, here, although it fits better elsewhere, that “Viva Cepeda” the Vince Guaraldi song, I would Wager, is also a reference to the movie “Viva Zapata”, it occurred to me recently.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 