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SANTA CLARA – Fifty years ago, a Santa Clara Briarwood baseball all-star team advanced to the Little League World Series championship game against Taiwan.
Among the team members was 12-year-old Carney Lansford, who grew up to be a Major League Baseball batting champion in 1981 for the Boston Red Sox and was later a star for the Oakland A’s in a 15-year MLB career.
On Saturday, Lansford and teammates from that Santa Clara squad got together on a Briarwood El Camino Little League field for a reunion.
Lansford said that 1969 Little League experience was just as fun as winning the World Series in the big leagues, which he accomplished with Oakland twenty years later.
“To be able to play a game at the fields at Williamsport was huge,” said Lansford, who also had off-the-field memories such as sliding down a hill behind the centerfield fence on cardboard. “We had so much fun.”
“What we accomplished as young kids, 12-years-olds and some of them were 11-years-old, to go all the way through the United States and be the best team in the United States is something really special. I think we all realize that.”
The Santa Clara Briarwood team fell to Taichung City-Taiwan (at that time called the Republic of China team) 5-0 in the championship game, but finished the postseason with a 12-1 record, including 10 shutout victories. Only the most elite teams reached the Little League World Series in 1969. There were just eight squads in the tournament bracket, and one loss would eliminate first-round and semifinal teams from playing in the championship game. Wood bats were used.
This year, there are 16 teams in the Little League World Series and teams can advance to the championship game through a consolation bracket.
“I didn’t realize what we had really accomplished until two or three years after,” Lansford said. “When you’re 12, you’re just traveling around playing games with your buddies and having fun.”
Lansford almost didn’t play in the championship game.
In the semifinal game, Lansford was hit in the right wrist by a pitch, suffering a fracture. A cast was put on it. His parent’s permission was needed in order to take the cast off and play in the championship game, which his parents were flying out to attend.
“We were panicking. We didn’t know if they would get there on time,” Lansford said. “My parents got there a couple hours before the game.”
With the cast off, Lansford started in right field, then was moved to third base. He played so well that New York Yankees legend Mickey Mantle, an ABC television commentator for the game, pointed out an impressive defensive stop and throw by Lansford. At the plate, leadoff hitter Lansford was 1 for 3 with a single to right field, a fly out to right field and a groundout to shortstop. Santa Clara Briarwood only had three hits in the game, as Joe Cesairo and Ron Smith also had singles.
As soon as the game was over, the cast was back on Lansford’s wrist. He said the original plan before the injury was for him to pitch that game. “We had three or four guys that threw really hard,” Lansford said. “I was going to pitch and I was going to throw curveballs because they prepared for fastballs.”
Santa Clara Briarwood opened its World Series appearance with a 2-0 win over Newberry-Williamsport, Pa. in which Chuck Carbis threw a no-hitter. A 4-3 victory over Tampa, Fl. put the Santa Clara squad in the championship game.
“Seems like a long time ago, but seems like yesterday too,” said Dave Przybyla, who made a great catch in the team’s 4-0 win over Concord in the local division championship game. “Some of these guys I haven’t seen since actually that last game in Williamsport, so it’s great to get together again.”
Perhaps the key game of the whole run was a 4-3 victory over El Cajon in the Western Regional championship game in Phoenix. El Cajon led 3-0 entering the bottom of the sixth and final inning before Santa Clara Briarwood rallied.
For Jeff Walsh, that win had another special meaning.
“We’re going to be on an airplane. I had never flown on an airplane at that point, and most of us probably hadn’t,” Walsh said. “We had four guys that were just stars on that team – Carney, Joe Cesairo, Carbis and Ron Smith, and the rest of us were young guys that were scrappy and just tried to add to the game.”
Walsh, who later played for Santa Clara University, also remembers meeting Mantle at the Little League World Series championship game.
“My dad played pro ball. My dad was my hero,” said Walsh about his father John, who was in the Boston Braves organization in the 40’s, but did not reach the major leagues. Jeff asked Mantle if he knew his father, and Mantle said he did not remember that name. “I’m going, ‘Really?'” said Jeff with a laugh.”I thought everybody knew my dad.”
Walsh said the squad’s run was “a great adventure that not too many people are able to fulfill, and I’ll cherish this til the day I die.”
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