It would be fair to say that the Islander Baseball Team had some growing pains at the outset of the 2010 season. The squad started with a 1-6 mark, primarily due to the youth of the team. Only two current seniors Ryan Shepard and Hunter Ralph earned extensive playing time last season. The two best hurlers this season are sophomores Jake Meloche and Austin Denson.

Head Coach Sam Ceci and his staff were essentially starting over.

Last week the Islanders were enrolled in the Premier Division of the Lions Club Tournament, the largest and oldest prep baseball tournament in the nation. The benefit of playing in the Premier Division, which is one division below the top or Classic level, is that a team is guaranteed four games in a week’s time.

Coronado stepped up their competitive level last week, going 3-1 to run their overall mark to 4-7 on the season. The fun portion of the week was that the three victories came against teams from out of the area. As Ceci said, “The coaching staff is thinking we should play all of our games against L.A. schools, or at least against bigger schools. It’s puzzling. We played better in general. We got behind, battled and came back. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

The first game of the week was a 2-1 complete game shutout by southpaw Jake Meloche over Kennedy High School of Los Angeles. Zack Wheeler and Patrick Toomey supplied the Islander’s RBIs, and Ralph was 2-3 with a double. Runs were scored by Kyle Teachout and Leo Legidakes.

Meloche struck out 10, walked two and yielded only four hits on the afternoon. Meloche lowered his team-leading ERA to 2.33.

Tuesday’s game was against Pacific Palisades was a laugher as Coronado rode the left arm of Austin Denson to a 13-2 victory. Denson yielded one earned run and five hits, while striking out eight and walking two over six innings. The Islanders unleashed the lumber with Wheeler, Denson, Shepherd and Teachout having multi-hit games. Toomey, Ralph and Shepherd had multi-RBI games.

Wednesday’s opponent was Valhalla and the Norsemen had their hitting shoes on and glided to a 14-2 win, lashing out 18 hits along the way. Islander catcher Garrett Smerdon had two hits and centerfielder Wheeler had two hits and scored both Coronado runs. Thus ends the good news regarding the Valhalla game.

Thursday Coronado was supposed to host a game, but rain soaked the field and made it unplayable. Coronado then had to travel to Madison, where they played Mira Costa from the L.A. area. If you’ve been following the theme of this portion of the column, the Islanders won 7-4 with Toby Talampas pitching a complete game and only allowing three earned runs. Talampas struck out seven and gave up five hits.

“Talampas gave us a great pitching performance,” said Ceci. “He’s got a good curve ball and he threw it for strikes. He mixed his pitches well and it worked for us.”

Over the course of the last few games, the infield has solidified and now consists of Patrick Toomey at third, Dylan Campbell at short, Teachout at second and Ralph at first. “The infield is fairly stable,” said Ceci. “When Denson isn’t pitching, he plays left field. Wheeler who is currently our most productive hitter is in center and either Shepard or Tyler Hill-Hansen plays right.

This week the Islanders return to compete in the City Conference Tournament, with a home game Monday against Kearny and a road game Wednesday at University City. Both games begin at 3 pm.

Coronado Little League Tigers Battle Lithuanian Team

I arrived fashionably late for Thursday’s game between the CLL Tigers and Sporto Vilkai from Vilnius, Lithuania. Having served time in the dugouts at Bradley Field as a coach, it was strange to hear a very foreign language spoken near the bench during the game.  

The Lithuanian squad was frankly better than I thought they would be from a skill perspective, but they fell to the locals 18-5. The larger point of the game was for Coronado kids to interact with kids from another culture. Seemingly most of Coronado, especially kids around middle school age, seemed to be in attendance.

As Coronado Little League Vice President Kelly Weissenfels summarized the event, “It was really a great day. I can’t imagine how it could have been any better.”

Padres Outlook for 2010

This column is being written on Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, at least the first day of the regular season for teams not named the Yankees or Red Sox. Your Natterer’s family is comprised of Chicago Cubs fans. I can’t defend that concept, it is what it is. The Natter Son and I will continue the family tradition of a meal of steak and eggs consumed during the opening game, a tradition that began with my father 15 years ago.

In 2000 our Opening Day  tradition faced a serious challenge when the Cubs began their season against the New York Mets in a game played in Tokyo. The starting time was 2 am Coronado time. (Breakfast Epilogue – the rib eye steaks and scrambled eggs with honey-baked ham, cheese and onion were all first-rate. On the other side of the ledger, the Cubs got nipped by the Braves by the score of 16-5.)

With the coming of the baseball season, I patrolled some baseball-specific websites over the weekend to gain some insight into the coming six months of probable futility. If you want to achieve your inner baseball geek, visit fangraphs.com, which contains a meaningless statistic for all aspects of America’s Past Time. Home runs, RBIs and batting averages are only the building blocks for analysis for these guys.

Of interest were the organizational rankings for all of the 30 teams in Major League baseball. The Cubs were ranked No. 18 and the accompany analysis says the Northsiders feature players on the downhill side of their careers and a bloated payroll. The Padres were ranked No. 27 and were deemed a team in transition.

In professional sports, you often get what you pay for. There is an established correlation between money spent and the talent level on the field. There are occasional exceptions, including the Tampa Bay Rays two seasons ago, but the aforementioned Yankees and Red Sox have the first and fourth largest payrolls in the game respectively and they have won three of the last six World Series crowns between them. In 2009 the second largest payroll in baseball belonged to the New York Mets and they were terrible. The Cubs were third in payroll and sported a final record 83-78. They were the epitome of ‘average’ and had a player payroll of $139 million. 

Over the weekend the “San Diego Union-Tribune” printed a special section on the Padres and listed their opening day roster, complete with statistics, head shots and other pertinent data. Reviewing the team’s player personnel did not make we want to whip out my wallet and purchase tickets. Following our theme of ‘you get what you pay for,’ (except the Cubs) the Padres opening day payrolls have declined from $73.68 million in 2008, to $43.75 million in 2009 and now $37.15 in 2010.

Nine Padres will earn $1 million or more this year, while 14 of the 25 roster members will be within hailing distance of the Major League minimum salary of $400,000. Two veterans signed during the off season, Matt Stairs and Yorvit Torrealba will earn in the $700,000 range.

Of greater concern is the fate of local product and the Padres lone legitimate everyday All-Star Adrian Gonzalez. A graduate of Eastlake High School and of Mexican descent, Gonzalez has been the focal point of the marketing outreach efforts of the Padres south of the border. Gonzalez goes about his business as a player, appears to be a pillar of the community, doesn’t do outlandish things and is the two-time consecutive National League Gold Glove Award winner at first base.

In 2007 Gonzalez signed a contract that paid him $1 million that season, $750,000 in 2008, $3 million in 2009 and $4.75 million in 2010. The club holds a $5.5 million option for 2011. Basically this amounts to peanuts for an All-Star caliber player in modern-era baseball. Trevor Hoffman and Jake Peavy were dealt to trim payroll and to initiate in the rebuilding process of the Padres. Quoting fangraphs.com, “Now they (the Padres) face the prospect of trading Adrian Gonzalez, with the question being when he will be dealt, not if.” The article written by Dave Cameron continues to say, “The Padres don’t need any more solid part-time guys. They need stars and those take a while to develop.”

Consider the Padres retaining Gonzalez to be a referendum on the future of the franchise. The new ownership group headed by Jeffrey Moorad issued carefully worded promises to Padres fans that they would spend more money on players. If a home-grown All-Star caliber player approaching the prime of his career at age 28, and who is a role model in the community isn’t deemed worthy of retaining, then who is?

As lead television announcer Dick Enberg said of Gonzalez during the cablecast of the Diamondbacks vs. Padres season opener, “Gonzalez is worth the price of admission to see him take his swings.” Enberg knows sports and knows baseball.

Catcher Joe Mauer, a St. Paul native and one of the top five players in all of baseball, just signed a multi-year contract extension valued at an average of $18 million a year. The Twins are playing in a new ballpark this season, and are guaranteed a sold-out season before the first pitch is thrown this year. The Padres cannot afford a contract at that level, but there is a huge span between where Gonzalez is now and where Mauer will be next season when his new contract kicks in.

The Padres have to be selective in their expenditures and I get that. However, fans won’t continue to pay top dollar to watch a bargain-basement team. Tailoring the 2010 Padres to Petco Park’s huge field dimensions by emphasizing pitching and defense is good baseball strategy from a management perspective. But, someone on the team has to be a draw for the fans, a player to build a season ticket sales package around. There has to be at least one guy on your team that you don’t want to miss see swinging the bat when it’s time to go to the concession stand. Gonzalez is that guy.

Local fans cared to some extent when Hoffman was traded, but the reliever only pitched on average every other or every third day. Peavy, a starter, pitched every fifth day. But Gonzalez is an everyday player coveted by several big market clubs willing to pay his asking price. Will Gonzalez take the ‘San Diego Discount,’ which translates to less money in exchange for a great climate year around? Here’s hoping Moorad will cough up the cash to keep the lone Padre star and re-build the team around him.

CHS Honors and Awards

Having covered baseball at all levels thus far, it’s time to move along to celebrate the achievements of three CHS Girls Soccer players, who last week were named to the CIF All Academic Team. Earning that honor were Cassie Callahan (4.11 grade point average), Mallory Mitchell (3.67 gpa) and Stefanie Pietkiewicz (4.23 gpa).

Callahan was recently named the CIF Player of the Year and is a junior, Mitchell is a junior and Pietkiewicz is a senior. The All-Academic honors are designed to honor athletes who excel in their sport and in the classroom.

CHS Boys Golf Loses Twice Last Week

Last week in an unusual scheduling move, the Coronado Boys Golf Team played Westview High School twice, over a two-day period. Wednesday the two teams hit Coronado Municipal and the Wolverines emerged with a 215-223 victory.

The next day, “We improved by 10 strokes, but lost by five,” said Head Coach Randy Coutts. Islander Alex Valle was the match medalist at Rancho Bernardo Country Club, shooting a 37. The match score was 205-213. “Our top four guys all improved their scores,” Coutts said.

This week the Islanders were supposed to play Crawford in a Central League match, but neither team could field a team. Coronado is on spring break and Crawford only had two players available.

Instead the Islanders will have a golf holiday of sorts. Wednesday they will play 18 holes at Warner Springs Golf Course and on the way back to Coronado they will invade the Barona Golf Course for another 18 holes. “We’ll play 36 holes Wednesday,” said Coutts. “We start back in a week later. We have some easy matches for a while and we’ll see if we can play some better golf.”

CHS Girls Lacrosse Splits Two Games

After seeing the CHS Girls Lacrosse Team dominate Rancho Bernardo last week 12-4, Your Natterer was prepared to seed the Islanders into the CIF Finals. Let’s just skip the preliminaries and get to the Finals.

The first part of last week Coronado held up their end of the bargain, defeating Poway 10-7 on the road. Coco O’Brien and Alex Reidy led the way for Coronado with three goals each. “Alex had a phenomenal game,” said Head Coach Jessica Battle. “Michaela Guerrera and Anna Turpit had a couple of goals each. It was a great game to watch. Meganne Weissenfels had 13 saves and was really on. Our defense against Poway, lead by Brianne Clifford, Lainey Mebust and Cory De Marco did great.”

Friday, nattily attired in my Coronado green, full length coat, I arrived at Niedermeyer Field at the appointed hour, expecting to see Coronado dominate Torrey Pines. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. The Falcons scored the first six goals of the contest and held an 8-1 lead at the half. The Islanders rallied to start the second half, scoring the first goal, but the Falcons proceeded to run off four straight tallies.

“The good news is that Torrey Pines never takes anybody lightly,” said Battle of Friday night’s opponent. “They are a great team and they just wanted it more. They won every single ball control (the face-off after a goal is scored) and the ground ball margin was similar. Torrey got the ball, moved the ball quickly and kept possession. We’ll take the game as a positive. It’s a little disconcerting to be undefeated. We’ll regroup after spring break and get back on track.”

This week the Islanders (6-1) have a unique game schedule, as they host St. Ignatius Saturday morning at 10 am. They then host El Toro High School at 12:30 pm. In between the two varsity games, the CHS JV squad plays the El Toro JV.