City Baseball Looks to Turn Over a New Leaf
By Henry Crowell
The Rams baseball team, led by Head Coach Mario Mendoza, is gearing up for the start of the season, “new” (temporary) field in tow.
The Rams are looking to improve, coming off a season in which they battled injuries and lacked a home-field advantage to finish 6-32. “We’ve been getting the body right, staying focused, staying in shape. Staying uninjured… It’s hard to win games without your main guys,” Mendoza said.
City baseball will be buoyed by the fact that they finally have access to a ballpark of their own, and one relatively close to campus, as they will be playing at Maloney Field for the next two years. It was the former chomping grounds of the now-defunct SF State Gators baseball program.
“I’m just excited for my players, the parents, and the fans. It’s the first time in 20 or 30 years that we actually have home games. We don’t have to play at 10 or 11 o’clock, we can play at a normal time. And [the field] is somewhere in the city where students can come and watch us play,” Mendoza said.
Ocean Campus has never housed a baseball field, forcing the team to find other places to play over the years, with Balboa Park’s sorely inadequate “Sweeney” diamond serving as the Rams’ home field from the campus’ inception to 2010, when they moved to Fairmont Field in Pacifica, some 7 miles away from campus. This field was also plagued by numerous issues, mainly availability, as St. Ignatius Prep. owns the field and uses it for their baseball and softball teams.
“I’m excited for a guy like Kaleo Velez, who’s been here for three years, who’s been on the road for three years, that he and his family get 16 games at home this year. I’m excited to have a normal schedule,” Mendoza said. “I’ve never really had a home-field advantage.”
Velez is a super utility player for the Rams, logging innings at catcher and all around the infield in his three seasons at City. “Recovery is the biggest thing. Sleeping, eating right, stretching every day,” Velez said of his preparation for the role. “Just doing the little things that keep your body healthy. [Coach Mendoza] can stick me wherever he needs me, and he knows I’m ready to go,” he continued.
Returning alongside Velez is newly minted member of the Preseason All-American list, Isac Mendoza, a standout on both sides of the ball, posting a .408 on base percentage to go along with stellar defense as the Rams’ first baseman last year. “I’ve just been trying to get better as a whole, a better athlete, a better teammate to everyone. Be a better leader,” Mendoza said.
Velez and Mendoza will seek to anchor and improve a lineup that had shown an ability to get on base but sometimes struggled to capitalize on the opportunities. “Our bats were pretty solid in the fall. Not amazing, not terrible, but our bats were solid enough to hang in with the teams we were playing,” said Velez.
“I tell our guys, if we play good baseball, if we don’t worry about the other team, we just play catch, we execute, we get big plays, then everything else gets taken care of,” Coach Mendoza said.
Baseball’s first game of the season will be played Jan. 23 at Maloney Field, against the Contra Costa Community College Comets.
