No-Hitter Left No Doubt

Pali High Baseball Alums Recount Historic Loss to Cleveland in 1982 City Championship Game at Dodger Stadium

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor         

It was 40 years ago Tuesday that a skinny 18-year-old by the name of Bret Saberhagen pitched the only no-hitter in City championship game  history, propelling Cleveland High of Reseda to a historic 13-0 victory at Dodger Stadium. The team in the losing dugout that day was Palisades and while the Dolphins fell short of the ultimate prize, players still look back with pride on their improbable run to the finals that changed the fortunes of the program forever.       

The date was June 14, 1982 and Jim Vatcher remembers it like it was yesterday. He was the Dolphins’ junior right fielder, batted seventh in the order and only got two at-bats, so masterful was the Cavaliers righty.

Saberhagen retired the last 20 batters he faced, racking up eight strikeouts.

“We truly thought we were a team of destiny,” recalls Vatcher, now 57, who lives in Westchester and is CEO and President of Jaegar Sports, a SoCal-based organization specializing in arm health, arm conditioning for baseball and mental training. “Going to Dodger Stadium was like a trip to Disneyland. When we got on the bus, someone yelled ‘We’re going to Chavez Ravine!’ When we got off the bus Coach North shouted ‘We’re gonna be No. 1!’ We took out Chatsworth in the semifinals and they’d won two of three against Cleveland to win the West Valley League. We’d heard the hype about Saberhagen but to us he was just another pitcher we were going to light up. We had confidence we’d out-hit the other team and that was our plan. Then the game began and things went south fast.”

Vatcher and his teammates were overmatched by a gifted thrower who three years later would win the Cy Young Award and lead the Kansas City Royals to the World Series over St. Louis. He earned two wins in the seven games and was voted MVP.

“We got dominated,” says Vatcher, whose parents still live in the house he grew up in above Pali High. “His velocity was a whole different level. Back then, if a guy threw 84 to 86 miles per hour it was shocking but he was low to mid-90s with perfect command. Every pitch was on the black at a speed we’d never seen before. Two fastballs low then he elevated for a third strike—that was his pattern. I remember parents afterwards questioning why we weren’t swinging but we ran into a buzz saw that day. We recognized early we were toast. We were used to scoring lots of runs and figured if we got men on we’d make something happen but Bret wasn’t having it. I believe I grounded back to the pitcher and struck out on a high fastball. Nothing he threw was over the middle of the plate.”

The only player from that team who would go on to play in the major leagues, Vatcher never had a plate appearance versus Saberhagen as a pro.    

“Well, I was in the National League, Bret was in the American League and that was before interleague play so I didn’t face him in the majors­—but once was enough,” jokes Vatcher, who enjoyed stints with the Phillies, Braves and Padres from 1990-92 and got a kick out of seeing his son Jack play against Palisades as a freshman on the JV squad at Venice this spring.

Batting No. 2 that fateful evening was third baseman Scott Clarke, who was the only Dolphin to reach base in seven innings.

“I was a contact hitter and my job was to move runners over,” says Clarke, who grew up in Mandeville Canyon and whose 6th-grade teacher at Brentwood Elementary was none other than Ann North, wife of Palisades head coach Dick North. “In my first at-bat I hit a routine grounder to the second baseman [Tom Brandt] who made a poor throw. I was surprised I was standing at first base.”

Brandt was charged an error on the play and that was all that prevented Saberhagen’s no-hitter from being a perfect game. Of course it was no consolation for Clarke who, like Vatcher, was not afraid of Saberhagen or the “Valley Mystique,” especially after Palisades stunned perennial powers Kennedy, Sylmar and Chatsworth in the playoffs.

“Until that year we were never very good in baseball, I don’t know if we were even over .500, so I’m sure everyone considered us underdogs, but we’d just knocked around Chatsworth’s best pitcher [Brian Wood] and we knew the bats we had in our lineup,” adds Clarke, who lives in Thousand Oaks, has a law practice in Burbank and was Vatcher’s agent when he signed his first MLB contract. “The day before there was a pep rally on campus, Principal [James Mercer] was there and we felt like rock stars. Winning mattered to us. We weren’t into surfing or partying, we felt like we had something to prove. We were league champs which was a big deal because at that time our league was dominated by Venice and Crenshaw. Sure, Bret shut us down but we played poorly. I felt miserable the next morning, regretting that we didn’t play better. Our pitcher Kenny Hirsch was a sophomore left-hander who wasn’t overpowering but he threw strikes and kept us in every game. Well, he had an off day on the mound and things snowballed from there. We dropped a pop fly, I booted a ball at third… we just played bad defense. Granted we weren’t used to playing at night in front of a few thousand fans but it wasn’t like we were too nervous to warm up. It was an absolute dream to get there. Saberhagen was ridiculously good but at least I can say he didn’t strike me out.”

Palisades’ best player was Clarke’s best friend, two-time All-City center fielder Steve Singer, a dangerous gap to gap threat who batted in the cleanup spot. Up against a pitcher in top form, he was the only Palisades batter to hit the ball out of the infield—a lazy fly to left center in the fourth. With two outs in the top of the seventh, trying to get on base however he could, Singer dropped down a bunt in front of home plate but catcher Glen Newhouse pounced on it and fired a dart to reserve first baseman John La Rosa for the final out. Ironically, Cleveland’s skipper that year was Leo Castro, who would serve as Palisades’ head football coach from 2004-06. While Palisades could not muster a single hit, the Cavaliers put 16 on the scoreboard and the margin of victory is still the second-widest in finals history, dating back to 1943.    

“In my first at-bat he threw me a breaking ball and I hit a line drive two or three feet foul down the right field line—it was as close to a clean hit as we got all game,” says Singer, an online business owner living in Poway. “I didn’t see another breaking ball all night. Looking back on my last at-bat I regret trying to bunt. It was stupid. I was out by a step. We were so fundamentally sound all year and to play so bad that game… it was a hard way for the season to end.”    

Also on the roster was Steve Kerr, a junior relief pitcher who threw two plus innings in the title game and returned to Dodger Stadium a year later when the Dolphins lost to Westchester in the first 3A Division final. Kerr’s best sport was basketball and he went on to win five NBA titles (three in Chicago alongside Michael Jordan; two in San Antonio) and is now the head coach at Golden State.   

Making the finals for the first time was a fitting send-off for North, who was in his last year as coach. While  North made the lineup and pitching decisions during games, the architect of Palisades’ rise to respectability was Vatcher’s brother Chris, a 1976 Pali High graduate who coached his sibling for seven years in the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association.

“He was one of our assistants and played a huge role in our success,” Jim Vatcher says. “He did everything­ from field maintenance to running practices, to scheduling tournament games. I recall being at the Rec Center and running a course he’d set up down to the tennis courts, back up the hill and around the diamonds. We had to run a mile under a certain time.”

Clarke served as new coach Jerry Marvin’s assistant in 1983 when Palisades lost in the 3A (lower) final.

“By that time, Dick North was an icon at Pali—a Bobby Knight type of figure,” Clarke shares. “He built the football team into a powerhouse. I remember going to games as a kid. Chris deserves all the credit for turning the baseball program around but Dick was secure enough to know when to get out of the way and let Chris take the lead. The 1982 team was a byproduct of years and years of developing those guys at the park.”

For Chris Vatcher, not even a no-hitter could diminish a magical season.

“Dick trusted me and I trusted him over three years, we knew our roles,” says Chris, the General Manager of Westlake Golf Course in Westlake Village. “I ran American Legion in the summertime and fall league. We had hardworking, smart boys who blazed the trail for future teams.”