LOS ANGELES — Well, I’ll say. Sometimes the Ghosts of Christmas Future can run a good gambit, every so often blindside us with a beyond-our-wildest-dreams plot twist.
Other times, fate ain’t fooling anybody.
So, yes, they knew. Of course they knew!
Everybody in Orange County knew. Everyone in the Valley knew.
Gerrit Cole was going places. Giancarlo – or Mike, then – Stanton was going far.
And if you knew them then, you too might have guessed that their road might point to this – a Southern California showcase of a World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees, starting Friday at Dodger Stadium.
It’s got managers from UCLA and USC in Dave Roberts and Aaron Boone. Dodgers contributors from Burbank and Fountain Valley, in Jack Flaherty and Freddie Freeman.
And, in the clubhouse across the way, reliever Tim Hill, of Granada Hills Charter High School. And Stanton and Cole – just a couple of supremely talented Southern California dudes paying a visit home, hoping to rain on their friends’ parade plans.
Stanton storming in as the American League Championship Series MVP after hitting four home runs to vanquish the Cleveland Guardians. Cole – also a former Bruin – taking the mound to start Game 1: “A dream come true,” the lifelong Yankees fan called it Thursday.
What could have possibly given it away about those two back in the 2000s?
Obviously, the power. The power!!
Now the New Yankees’ ace, Cole was once Orange Lutheran’s big arm, blowing away scouts with his upper-90s fastball that could touch 101 and would leave catchers’ hands stinging so much they can just about feel it today. “That’s what I think about most often: ‘How did our catchers catch him?’” said Willie Shaw, a Nashville-based singer who was a sophomore shortstop when Cole was a senior.
Now a bona fide Bronx bomber and one of five batters who have hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium, Stanton started as a Tujunga Little Leaguer hitting home runs clear over the fence and the wash at Babe Herman Field in Glendale.
Once a three-sport stud called by his middle name at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, Stanton used to mash moon shots over the fence and the 30 feet of extra netting at Loyola High School’s field. Or through a headwind, off future big leaguer John Lamb in a CIF playoff game against higher-seeded Laguna Hills.
Over the hills and through the woods, the tale of the tape tells its story, but it’s the sound off the bat that’s echoing still really drives it home.
“It sounded,” said Trevor Gee, a Baltimore attorney who once was a third baseman on Stanton’s Notre Dame team, “like a gunshot.”
“Like when a plane breaks the sound barrier,” texted Hayden Hunter, a former Knights catcher. “Like thunder.”
Nick Rodarte, who pitched, is surprised that Stanton, wielding a metal bat in high school, never killed anyone: “Nobody was playing even with the bag at third,” the Sherman Oaks-based general contractor said. “No way.”
We all played with good athletes growing up. Guys or gals who went off to play in college. Perhaps one even went pro, maybe even made a real career out of it.
But how many of us can say we hit behind or caught bullpens for future stars? All-Star shoo-ins? Potential Hall of Famers? Superstars?
What I learned this week talking to these former Lancers and Knights is that we’d know if we had.
“We had a lot of really special players,” said Chase Harrison, a Concordia University Irvine baseball coach who was the catcher for a Lancers’ pitching staff that produced three big-league draft picks. “… and it was pretty obvious at that point how special Gerrit was. The type of guy that really, a goal that he set, he’s going to hit, he’s gonna reach. So nothing’s gotten in his way, from being a first-rounder to a big leaguer, to a Cy Young winner, to an All-Star to a strikeout king.”
Said Stanton’s former teammate Rodarte: “We knew he was different, the way he hit balls – and then he made the jump from junior year to senior year, just in his approach to the game. It was more advanced … he just went about his business like he knew this was what he was going to do for a living.”
He, like Cole, put in the work. The study. The time, the effort, all the invisible but imperative behind-the-scenes stuff that can net historical results.
In Cole’s case: the No. 1 overall pick in 2011, the unanimous Cy Young Award in 2023, the record for strikeouts in a season for two franchises, the Yankees (257) and Houston Astros (326). And six All-Star bids.
In Stanton’s: 429 career home runs, the Miami Marlins’ franchise home run record, the 2017 National League MVP and, twice, the NL Hank Aaron Award and Silver Slugger Award. And five All-Star bids, though not in 2016, when he participated in the Home Run Derby and homered a record 61 times.
Their commitment has net record compensation too: In 2014, Stanton’s 13-year $325 million extension with the Marlins was the most lucrative contract in sports history. In 2019, the Yankees signed Cole to a franchise-record nine-year $324 million deal, the richest ever for a pitcher.
And, again, none of this is remotely surprising to the men who knew them when they were kids, one-time teammates who all wanted to stress what nice guys these superstars still are – “just with a lot more money,” as Stanton’s buddy Rodarte put it.
The 6-foot-6 slugger – whose social media handles, @Giancarlo818, harken back to his hometown area code – would come by and talk to the kids in the under-14 feeder program Rodarte coached. “Everybody loved it, all the kids were going nuts, and you’d see them standing next to him, the size one of his legs,” Rodarte said.
Cole? “He was a confident guy,” Harrison said. “But at the same time, he was always humble, a good teammate. It’s just the energy he had, it was infectious. It made the team believe.”
So Harrison can’t help it. Normally a Dodgers supporter, he’s pulling for the Yankees in this series.
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So too is Stanton’s former teammate Gee – though if it was Yankees vs. Cubs, it might be a different calculation for the Chicago native.
Shaw, the one-time Orange Lutheran infielder, is splitting his rooting interests: “I hope Gerrit has a stellar performance and bolsters his Hall of Fame chances and the Dodgers win the series.”
But Rodarte, the Notre Dame pitcher who grew up a Dodger fan, just like Stanton? He believes his talented former teammate would understand: “I hope he does not do well during the World Series against the Dodgers. Honestly, I hope he goes oh-for-the-series.”
Now, Rodarte knows – of course he does – how unlikely that is. In 25 games at Dodger Stadium, Stanton is hitting .309 and 10 home runs and 26 runs batting in.
“That Cali air, man,” Stanton said Thursday. “Grew up with it.”