Damon Berryhill, Millennium Hall of Fame

In baseball’s greatest showcase against the game’s winningest

pitcher of the 1980s, Damon Berryhill rocked Game 1 of the 1992 Fall

Classic for the Atlanta Braves and joined the unique pantheon of a common

player turning into a World Series hero.

A backup catcher who had become the Braves’ starter when Greg Olson

broke his ankle two weeks before the end of the regular season, the

switch-hitting Berryhill -- on the heels of Francisco Cabrera’s

unforgettable game-winning hit against Pittsburgh to clinch the National

League pennant -- launched a Jack Morris forkball into baseball

immortality.

Three days after Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was jolted by a

little-known catcher from the Dominican Republic in the NL Championship

Series, it was shaken again by a surfer from Laguna Beach and Orange

Coast College, as Berryhill rode the wave of his life around the bases.

“I didn’t really feel myself hit the ground until I reached third

base,” Berryhill said at the time in a postgame press conference,

following his dramatic three-run home run in the sixth inning to give the

Braves a 3-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in the opener of the ’92

World Series.

“When you see that ball leave the park -- for that one moment, you are

on top of the world,” added Berryhill, the second former OCC player to

compete in a World Series (following the late Dan Quisenberry in 1980 and

‘85).

Berryhill, whose batting average for the Braves that season was .228,

came to the plate with Morris working on a two-hitter and a 1-0 shutout.

There were two outs in the inning, and Morris, a savvy postseason veteran

with Detroit and Minnesota, had only allowed three guys to even hit the

ball out of the infield to that point.

Morris, who ran the count to 1-and-2 against Berryhill, had pitched a

10-inning complete-game shutout in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, when

Minnesota edged Atlanta, 1-0, to capture the title.

Berryhill, merely Olson’s caddie in the minds of the league, had

struggled the previous two seasons to overcome a shoulder injury that

doctors said might end his career.

But Berryhill, who hadn’t homered in five weeks, snapped Morris’

streak of 18 consecutive scoreless World Series innings against the

Braves, delivering one of the biggest home runs in Atlanta history before

51,763 fans.

“It was your basic hanging 390-foot forkball,” Morris told reporters

afterward.

For Berryhill, whose shot landed in the right-field seats, it would be

a highlight in a professional baseball career spanning 14 1/2 seasons.

“There was so much excitement -- there was just nothing like it,”

Berryhill said recently, upon his induction into the Daily Pilot Sports

Hall of Fame, celebrating the millennium.

A former major leaguer with the Cubs, Braves, Red Sox, Reds and

Giants, Berryhill once walloped a walk-off-the-field home run for Orange

Coast in 1984 to beat Golden West and clinch the South Coast Conference

championship for Coach Mike Mayne’s Pirates. Another tough right-hander,

future Seattle closer Mike Schooler, was the Golden West pitcher.

One of three ex-OCC catchers under Mayne to reach the big leagues

(along with Jamie Nelson and Brent Mayne), Berryhill was selected in the

first round (and No. 4 overall) by the Chicago Cubs in the 1984 January

draft. Following an outstanding season for Orange Coast, he signed with

the Cubs and reported to Quad City in the Midwest League.

By 1987, Berryhill was at triple-A Iowa, where he batted .287 with 18

home runs and 67 RBIs, earning a trip to the American Association

All-Star game and, later, a promotion to Wrigley Field.

In 1988, he threw out 40% of would-be base stealers (44 of 110) and

was named to the Topps Major League Rookie All-Star team. But, in 1989,

when the Cubs won the National League East Division title and lost to San

Francisco in the NLCS, Berryhill tore his right rotator cuff in August

and underwent surgery in September.

In September 1991, Berryhill was acquired by the Braves from the Cubs

with Mike Bielecki in exchange for Turk Wendell and Yorkis Perez, and, a

year later, was a World Series hero.

“It was a good World Series (eventually won by Toronto in six games),”

Berryhill said. “Every game was exciting. It was kind of strange in that

the two games we won were off Jack (Morris). That was surprising, because

he’s such a big-game battler. But we got to him. Then we struggled

against (David) Cone and (Juan) Guzman (and Jimmy Key).”

Berryhill arrived in Boston in 1994, the strike-shortened season, then

moved to Cincinnati, where he was a member of Manager Davey Johnson’s

1995 NL West Division champions, the fourth time in his career in which

he was part of division-winning teams (following Chicago in 1989 and

Atlanta in 1992 and ‘93).

After missing the entire 1996 season with reconstructive elbow

surgery, Berryhill came back again, this time with the San Francisco

Giants. Not knowing that he could even come back, Berryhill worked hard

to get in shape and made Manager Dusty Baker’s ballclub.

“That was another big highlight,” Berryhill said of the 1997 season,

in which he enjoyed a fine season and helped the Giants capture the NL

West title -- the fifth division championship of his career.

“It’s weird,” he added. “After I left Chicago, with the exception of

the strike season, we won a division title everywhere I was, so I was

real fortunate to be on winning ballclubs.”

Berryhill caught 10 Cy Young Award winners in his career, including

Greg Maddox, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Roger Clemens and Lee Smith. “That

was a big thrill to be with those guys,” he said. “They can teach you a

lot about the game.”

Berryhill, who said Clemens and Cincinnati’s John Smiley were among

the most intense pitchers he ever caught, started the 1998 season at

triple-A Edmonton, but retired a month into the campaign because his

throwing arm, after three surgeries, simply did not work anymore.

“It was definitely a quiet (retirement),” he said. “My arm had been

bugging me for four years. It just got to the point where there was

nothing really anybody could do to repair it.”

These days, he’s an assistant baseball coach at Laguna Beach High, his

alma mater. Berryhill, 35, lives in Laguna Niguel with his wife, Anne,

and two sons, Joshua, 10, and Jacob, 6.