Ninety years ago, on July 18, 1927, the Manteca Maulers baseball team hopped on the veteran Jack Gilligan of the Modesto Merchants early in Sunday’s Don Pedro League game and, coupled with some very loose playing by the Merchants, easily trounced them 12 to 1. Tom Washington started for Manteca and then retired after the fifth inning when Manteca had piled up a seven-run lead. Clarence Flores finished the game and got away nicely. Benny Hooper, crack Mauler catcher, retired from the game in the seventh inning with a badly swollen hand. Hooper came through with a single and a double out of three chances before he went out of the game. Washington lined one over the center fielder’s head for a home run. Emil Theiler and Dewey Percival had two hits for the locals,
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80 years ago: July 13, 1937 – Manteca 20-30 Club’s first-half champions of the Valley Baseball League took a beating Sunday afternoon on the high school diamond when they bowed to the Powers Builders of Stockton, 10 to 2. Emil Theiler, Lyle Percival and Cyril Wigley each got two hits for the locals.
70 years ago: July 17, 1947 - The Junior Legion baseball team, sponsored by Hope McFall Post, American Legion, and its Legionnaires Tony Cotta and Frank Lourentzos, managers of the team, announce that Robert Theiler, who will be assistant coach at Manteca High School this next term, has consented to coach the team when Junior Legion begins next spring. The team ended this season with three wins and three losses.
40 years ago: July 15, 1977 – Azevedo Stat e Farm Insurance remained undefeated in Central Valley Babe Ruth 16-18 Baseball play with a three-game sweep over Ripon. The wins included doubleheader victories on Sunday in Ripon and a Tuesday evening decision here. State Farm’s victories were their 14th straight of the season and lengthened an unblemished string to 31 over the past two seasons. In Sunday’s opener, southpaw Darrell Womack fired a three-hitter and struck out 11 batters for a 6-1 win. Mark Azevedo and Brad Steele banged out two hits apiece to lead State Farm. Pete Duenas went three-for-three and scored two runs to fuel the locals in a 4-2 victory in the nightcap. Rick Hogan and Womack each added two hits to the winning total. Tim Vick, Bob O’Rourke and Ron Yee combined pitching talents to register 12 strikeouts. Tuesday’s contest saw Azevedo bang out three hits and score twice as State Farm prevailed, 6-1. Bob Allsup collected two hits and Yee tallied two runs for the winners.
Manteca’s Babe Ruth 14-15 all-stars topped rival Modesto-American Wednesday night in a wild game at Lodi’s Kofu Park. The final score was 12-10. Nick DeGroot had three hits for Manteca with Jeff Tilton adding a triple, a double and three runs scored.
30 years ago: July 13, 1987 – Manteca stranded 15 base-runners and committed five errors in an 8-6 loss to Inland Port and elimination from the District 1 Babe Ruth 14-15 tournament at East Union High yesterday. After falling behind 7-0, the local nine came back to within two runs. Tim Beck, who was a perfect 4-for-4, paced the Manteca comeback as he scored once and drove in a run. Manteca had the bases loaded in four straight innings.
20 years ago: July 13, 1997 – The Tri-County National Babe Ruth 16 year-old All-star team was eliminated from District tournament competition Saturday by dropping a 10-2 decision to Tri-County American in Modesto. It was their second loss in tourney play. American took advantage of National’s mistakes plus getting another stellar pitching performance from Greg Galli to advance to the State Tournament. The winners banged out nine hits to go with five walks and five errors by the National defense. National score d its only runs in the third inning when Troy Vick and Danny Vickers each doubled in a run.
The Manteca Babe Ruth 15 year-old all-stars lost to Modesto National 13-10 and were eliminated from District play last night.
10 years ago: July 17, 2007 – Sierra High senior and the Bulletin’s 2006 All-Area MVP for women’s golf Julie Shutler will hit the links at Castlewood Country Club starting today in Pleasanton for the Golf World West Coast Championship. The tournament is sponsored by the American Junior Golf Association. In 2006, Shutler led Sierra High to its first Valley Oak League championship in three years by medaling an incredible 13 of 14 tournaments.
Saturday at Sierra High, the Manteca Dolphins swim club wrapped up the regular season with an impressive tri-meet win over the Oakdale Gators and the Ceres Dolphins. Manteca finished with 1156.33 points, followed by Oakdale and Ceres. The win insured that Manteca would finish the regular season undefeated in dual or tri- meets. Four female swimmers turned in perfect 27-point outings. They included Vanessa Flores (8), Natalie Randolph (10), Taylor Swift (12) and Kim DeLeon (14).
The Manteca Babe Ruth 15 year-old all-stars capped a brilliant run through the District 1 tournament Saturday at Lincoln High with a 9-8 win over San Benito in the championship game. Offensively, Brian Sage led the way with a couple of key hits, as did Ryan Knisely. Curtiss May, Ricky Acosta and Marshall Swift combined efforts to pitch the victory. Manteca now heads to the Central California State Tournament next week at Lodi’s Tony Zupo Field.
