1954 Baseball: 24-0 Cavers Shocked in First Game of Playoffs
San Diego High, for decades the No. 1 team in Southern California baseball, was undefeated and favored to win an 11th CIF championship. Until…. The Hillers, as they were most often called (besides Cavemen, Cavers, and Hilltoppers) during the era, lost a quarterfinals playoff to a team it had beaten, handily, twice before. This San […]
Read More1953 Baseball: La Jolla Almost Wins It All With “Pupil” Coach
Walt Harvey was a football and track coach and once confessed he “didn’t know anything about baseball.” Harvey was a 1936 Hoover High classmate and friend of Les Cassie, who was a successful baseball coach at San Diego High. Cassie didn’t know it but he deserved an assist when Harvey found himself coaching the varsity […]
Read More1942: Cardinals (Baseball), Hillers (Track) Southern California’s No. 1’s
Hoover, as newspaper accounts and the school yearbook indicated, might have been an undefeated, 12-0 champion. Published reports in The San Diego Union show that the East San Diego team played only a couple military teams in early-season March, emerging victorious in each. Other games may not have been reported. Schools were cutting back on […]
Read More1952 Baseball: By Any Name Cavers Are All-Time Winners
San Diego High, under second-year baseball coach Les Cassie, enjoyed its greatest success in a sport the Cavemen had dominated almost since the CIF Southern Section was formed in 1913. It won 35 games! And lost only two, a stunning won-loss percentage of .946! The historically powerful squads located on the beautiful campus at the […]
Read More1963 Baseball: East County’s Helix-El Capitan Final Steals City Thunder
The typically good baseball played in the area was augmented by another stable of outstanding players. Pro teams signed dozens and several made it to the big leagues: Dave Duncan and Eddie Herrmann were the first two of the eventual five catchers from Crawford to reach the top. Others included Lincoln’s Lou Marone. St. Augustine’s […]
Read More1962 Baseball: Crawford Begins Dominant Decade
Crawford was emerging as a legendary power and would appear in the San Diego Section championship game six times, winning four, by the end of the decade. The Colts’ coach was Bill Sandback, a hockey-playing Minnesota transplant who, after seeking more agreeable weather, moved west, and taught one year at Memorial Junior High before becoming […]
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