Trevor Bauer (left) is once again pitching for the Indians and is wearing Hart High of Newhall black and red in this year’s World Series. His Hart teammate, Mike Montgomery (right), pitches for the Cubs. Photos: Twitter.com & bleachernation.com.
While there is one California school with two players in this year’s historic World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians, it’s not a good year for the Golden State overall with the lowest total of alumni players since 1999. Florida and Texas both have more this time and Florida with 13 may have its most ever.
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California high school baseball alums have been part of the World Series since some of the first ones, including the 1908 World Series, which was the last one that the Chicago Cubs were crowned as champions.
That Cubs team, immortalized because the Cubs haven’t won since and haven’t even been in the World Series since 1945 until this week, was led, in part, by manager-player Frank Chance along with pitcher Orval Overall.
Chance is from Fresno High and later was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. He was part of the famous Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double play combination. Chance also is one of two Fresno High grads in the Hall of Fame, the other being pitcher Tom Seaver.
Listed as the Cal-Hi Sports Mr. Baseball State Player of the Year for 1900 (yes, those picks do go that far back), Orval Overall is the last pitcher to get the final out in a World Series for the Chicago Cubs. Will someone do that next week? Photo: Wikipedia.com.
The highlight of this year’s World Series is that the Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, who haven’t won a World Series themselves since 1948, both have pitchers who are from California’s Hart High of Newhall – Mike Montgomery of the Cubs and Trevor Bauer of the Indians.
That’s a rarity to be sure, but it did happen for another California school just three years ago for St. Francis of Mountain View, which is where both Daniel Descalso (St. Louis Cardinals) and Daniel Nava (Boston Red Sox) are from.
Checking back in later years, with the help of the baseball-reference.com site, we also found at least three other combos in the World Series from one California high school:
•Joe DiMaggio and Bobby Brown of the 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1951 World Series champion New York Yankees (both from Galileo of San Francisco).
•Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson of the 1961 Cincinnati Reds, who lost to the Yankees (both from McClymonds of Oakland).
•Bobby Tolan and George Hendrick from Fremont of Los Angeles, who both were in the 1972 World Series (Tolan for the Cincinnati Reds and Hendrick from the Oakland A’s).
•And Robb Nen and J.T. Snow of the 2002 San Francisco Giants, who lost to the Anaheim Angels (both from Los Alamitos).
DiMaggio and earlier Yankees’ teammate Tony Lazzeri are both listed as from Galileo by baseball-reference.com, but Cal-Hi Sports founder Nelson Tennis never found evidence that Lazzeri ever went to Galileo (although he is from San Francisco).
Our other favorite World Series alum for this year besides the two players from Hart is Indians’ relief pitcher Cody Anderson, who is from the tiny CIF Northern Section school of Quincy (in Plumas County).
Last year in October, Anderson was the grand marshal of the Quincy High homecoming parade. This year in October, he’s pitching in the World Series.
Anderson went to Feather River College after playing multi-sports at Quincy High. It was there that scouts discovered something they liked. He was a 17th round pick in the 2010 MLB draft, but didn’t sign and went back for one more year of college. The Indians then picked him in the next draft in the 14th round.
If there’s ever an example that MLB scouts are going to find you no matter where you’re from, then Cody Anderson is a prime example.
Here is this year’s World Series Alumni List (all from California high schools):
Chicago Cubs – Kyle Hendricks P (Capistrano Valley, Mission Viejo); Mike Montgomery P (Hart, Newhall).
Cleveland Indians – Cody AndersonP (Quincy); Trevor Bauer P (Hart, Newhall); Coco Crisp OF (Inglewood); Bryan Shaw P (Livermore).
World Series Alumni Notes
•California’s total of six this year is the lowest since 1999. Not only is that not first in the nation this year, breaking a streak that went back to 2009 in which the state was either first for tied for first (Texas also had eight in 2013), but it’s behind both Florida (with 13) and Texas (with seven).
•Since we’ve been compiling World Series alums since 1990, Florida has never had a higher total. We wouldn’t know for sure, but we’d bet this year is the best ever for that state. Some of Florida’s standouts include pitcher Cody Allen, pitcher Andrew Miller, infielder Francisco Lindor and infielder Mike Napoli of the Indians along with infielder Javier Baez, infielder Anthony Rizzo and infielder Addison Russell of the Cubs.
•California’s total of nine last year bested Florida with seven and Texas with three. The state was in double-digits with 10 in 2012, 11 in 2011 and 10 in 2010. The best California total since 1990 is 15 for the 2002 series between the Giants and Angels.
•Coco Crisp played for the Boston Red Sox in 2007 when they won the World Series.
•Bryan Shaw of the Indians is from the same California high school as recent MLB Hall of Fame inductee Randy Johnson.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
