Glory Days: Campolindo's Boys of Summer Return to Moraga

Jim Darby recalled his days on a struggling Campolindo High School baseball team. Ed DeLuca still sees himself waiting on deck for a Cougars team hoping to extend a string of league titles. And many argue that current Cougars such as Robbie Tenerowicz and James Marvel are part of a golden age that has seen the team win the past two North Coast Section Division II championships.

On Saturday, all the eras of Campolindo baseball came together on the school's field at the Campolindo Baseball Alumni Reunion.Current Campolindo coach Max Luckhurst, a reunion co-host, hopes to use the event as a springboard for a Cougars alumni game in the spring. The ultimate goal is to make the alumni game an annual event.

"There's so much tradition at Campo," Luckhurst said. "So many guys who went on to play pro ball, so many guys who went on to play college ball, and guys who are still living in the area."

Saturday's reunion perhaps was hastily cobbled together, and many former Cougars had other commitments -- Cal's baseball reunion, for instance, was the same day (a number of former Cougars also are former Bears). Still, the different generations were well represented with plenty of baseball yarns to spin.

"It's pretty cool to see how (Campolindo baseball) was a family (for the older players)," junior second baseman Tenerowicz said. "You can tell that everybody who played baseball here loves the game. It's like a religion."

"There's a lot of tradition coming back here," senior pitcher Marvel added. "We hear stories of how people went through what we are going through now."

In all, four NCS championship banners hang at Campolindo's field. In addition to the 2010 and 2011 titles, the Cougars also won the NCS 3A championship in 1988 and the 2A East Bay crown in 2000. Jon Zuber, who went on to Cal and the Phillies, represented the 1988 squad. Josh Isaacs, Matt Anderson and Mike Gorman were on hand from the 2000 squad.

But the glory days -- and the not-so-glorious days -- go back years earlier (Campolindo first opened its doors in 1962).

On the plus side, the Cougars reached new zeniths in the 1980s, when they were almost consistently at the top of the Foothill Athletic League standings. One of the few exceptions was 1986. DeLuca, who graduated that year, had been part of league championship teams as a sophomore and junior. In his senior year, the Cougars needed only to beat Acalanes to grab another league crown. It didn't happen."

We were trailing 5-4, bases loaded, one out," DeLuca recalled. "I was coming up, but the batter before me was told to bunt and popped up for a double play to end the season."

But there were leaner years, as 1969 graduate Darby would attest.

"Those were great times, but we weren't very good then, in '68 and '69," said Darby, a former pitcher who went on to Cal and has been employed the Easton sporting goods company the past 34 years. "I pitched about 60 percent of the games. There was no relief then, so you finished what you started. You pitched all seven innings. In my case, for road games, you pitched six innings --- our opponents were usually leading and didn't have to bat in the bottom of the seventh."

Campolindo's field also looked different then.

"Where did these trees come from?" asked Darby, now a Peninsula resident. "When we were here, it was like a desert. There was no fence, and the (outfield) grass was mostly dirt. If you hit a ball to left field, it just kept going."

Those looking at Campolindo's pristine field of today might have a hard time imagining its earlier condition. "It never drained; in May, there would still be two feet of water," said reunion co-host Don Miller, a 1972 graduate who went on to coach the Cougars from 1979 to 1983.

Field conditions aside, Campolindo's baseball fortunes began to improve. Former third baseman Glen Humann, a 1973 graduate, recalled when Campolindo beat both top-ranked Las Lomas and second-ranked San Ramon Valley in his junior year.

"We had some good baseball teams, but we always seemed to come in second," said another 1973 graduate, former pitcher Mike Miller (no relation to Don), who went on to play basketball at Cal.

For 2012, Campolindo already has seven players orally committed to collegiate programs (they cannot actually sign letters of intent until next month). Not surprisingly, the Cougars again will find themselves among the favorites for yet more league and section championships as they build on a half-century of baseball tradition.