Sidelines: The stuff of champions

Don Cantrell

It is interesting to reflect back on the 1948 Newport Harbor High

championship baseball team from 54 years ago and focus on many of the

outfit’s noted players.

As known in many quarters, this is the only championship baseball team

in Tar history.

The late Wendell Pickens, who repeated that performance many times at

Orange Coast College in later years, coached the Harbor ’48 champs.

Four of the top ’48 players have passed on over the years, including

the great left-handed pitcher Frank Hamilton, first baseman George

Reeves, outfielder Paul Robertson and reserve pitcher Jack Clark.

Reeves is among the most recent, according to infielder Carleton Mears

of the same ’49 class.

Hamilton, Boyd Horrell and Clark are Pilot Sports Hall of Famers,

though Clark gained the votes from his play later at Orange Coast.

Hamilton, who was offered $50,000 by the New York Yankees, turned the

offer down since he had planned to enter college first.

Hamilton was fondly known as “Lassie” by most all baseball fans in the

harbor area. This corner always referred to him as the 6-foot-4 pitcher,

which prompted him to remark, “I grew another inch, you know. I was then

6-foot-5.”

This corner joked back, “Well, I recall when you got mad at us once in

a basketball game for calling you, Lassie,”

Hamilton chose to explain after all the years.

“Here’s how that came about,” he said. “Dick Deaver was fouling up

once in a basketball game and I called him, Lassie. But it didn’t stick.

However, he chose to call me, Lassie, and it caught on. I couldn’t stand

that name,” he continued, then laughed.

Hamilton injured his arm in college and faded from baseball. He never

stopped painting. In time, his watercolors of nostalgic Old West scenes

were drawing top prices at one Scottsdale, Ariz. gallery. He spent some

time living in the famous Old West town of Jerome, not far from Sedona,

in Arizona.

Mears had a fond recall of Reeves, who was a very intelligent student

and always maintained superb health.

Mears, a versatile athlete, went on to become a noted aviation

scientist. He was also a skilled glider pilot and once purchased a slick

$35,000 glider in Germany. His favorite space trails included the High

Sierra. He now lives in Minden, Nev.

Bill Weatherwax, the all-league catcher, spent five years performing

on one farm club for the St. Louis Cardinals. He later spent numerous

years serving the fire and police departments of Costa Mesa. He still

lives in Costa Mesa.

One of the top outfielders was Horrell, known as Boggie, who was the

fourth-leading hitter in the Sunset League and also played outstanding

football at Harbor and at OCC.

Horrell, who was an infantry sergeant during the Korean War,

eventually turned to farming in Somerton, Ariz., where he lives today.

Horrell also helped Pickens develop the first baseball field at OCC

and played a role in the drive for the college’s first baseball

championship.

In the past year, Horrell has had to flow with an oxygen tank, since

his breathing was affected from work in the soil around pipeline

construction years ago.

He still has a habit of returning to the harbor area to visit old

friends and his son in the Huntington Beach area.

Reserve pitcher Pete Nourse became a contractor and infielder Don Ward

became a real estate man.

Third baseman Bill (Willie) Skiles advanced to become a top music

performer over the years with partner Pete Henderson and they appeared

twice as guests on the Johnny Carson Late Night TV Show.

Skiles and Henderson, both musicians, were both sons of popular

entertainers from yesteryear stage and radio.

Skiles drew national attention once in the early ‘60s when a Navy

blimp accidentally “bombed” his red sports car in the Back Bay with 4,600

gallons of bilge water.

Skiles loved the publicity and tried to enlarge the event by

threatening to sue the Navy for a $1.50 car wash. The story stayed alive

for a week through the press and the Navy was shocked, not knowing what

action to take.

It was finally settled when Daily Pilot Publisher Walter Burroughs

offered a “shake-hands” dinner for the Navy and Skiles, and the Pilot

staff, to forgive and forget. That worked, as oldtimers recall with

smiles.