College Baseball: Trio comes back to Napa Valley for Cal scrimmage

YOUNTVILLE — There’s no place like Borman Field. It’s a place where everyone should go to watch or play in a baseball game.

On Saturday afternoon at the Veterans Home of California ballpark, UC Berkeley’s Blue team beat the Gold,11-7, in Game 2 of the Fall World Series. This gives them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-5 intrasquad series that continues Nov. 14 at Evans Diamond at Stu Gordon Stadium in Berkeley.

The game was played in front of a near-capacity crowd. Tickets were free for the event, obtained in advance online, but a donation to the hosting Napa Valley Baseball Club was encouraged.

It’s the second year in a row that Cal has played an intrasquad game at Borman. This year’s crowd was bigger due to advertising on social media and the fact seventh-year Golden Bears head coach Mike Neu, a 1996 Vintage High graduate, brought two other local products — first-year Cal hitting coach Brett Wallace, a 2005 Justin-Siena product, and rookie pitcher Miles Tescher, a 2024 Vintage grad.

“I think it means for us, for an organization, an opportunity to give back to the veterans,” NVBC President Chris Padowan said. “It’s been a great day for the vets. Got a lot of veterans out here.”

Neu spent much of his summers playing at Borman Field as a teen, and he likes to give back to the community he came from with this now-annual scrimmage.

“It was great. It’s why we come up here,” Neu said of the attendance. “We have some local guys with the three of us, and then we’re supporting the vets. This is where I grew up playing. I got to play a lot of games here when I was in high school, so to get back into the community and see the support, hopefully, we can just continue to grow it every year and come every year and just have more and more people show up because it’s a great atmosphere and one of the cooler venues to play in in California. For our guys to get that and then also get the support from the community, it’s an all-around win.”

The game came together when NVBC reached out to California Athletics about hosting a game and Neu agreed it would be a good idea.

“Coach Mike was here a couple of years ago over the Fourth of July tournament. His son was playing in a tournament,” Padowan said. “Him and I started talking and I asked ‘You guys ever play games outside of Berkeley?’ And he said ‘We’d love to.’ He got me connected with the sports information office and we made it happen.”

Neu told the Bears before the scrimmage it wasn’t just a chance to play among the vineyards, Napa Valley version of the Field of Dreams, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

“I talked to the team about it before we even started, and just told them that this is a place where I played a lot,” he said. “Obviously the support of the vets is big, and it’s just a little bit of a unique environment to play in.”

Tenscher, who is from Yountville, wished he could have played in the game but said he didn’t because he is still recovering from injuries. But he said he should be ready to go when the regular season begins in February.

He was looking forward to seeing his new teammates play at Borman Field.

“It was super fun just to kind of be back here on this field that I grew up playing on. That was really cool experience,” he said. “It’s fun to be back out in front of the veterans who do so much for us.”

Besides family, there was a good number of Napa Valley fans to see the newest Bear. Tenscher said some teammates asked him to share his inside knowledge of the facility.

“They asked me a little bit about the field and kind of, how it played and stuff,” he said. “Obviously, they did this last year so some of the guys had been up here before in this super beautiful stadium.”

The fall has been a time for Wallace to begin teaching hitting technique with the spring season around the corner.

“It’s been awesome,” the former Brave said of how the players have adjusted to his ideas. “Everyone’s hungry to learn. They want to get better. They want to be the best they can. When you have a group of guys that want to get better and they’re willing to work, it’s a lot of fun to be around them.”

Wallace helped lead Justin-Siena to a 97-9 record during four varsity seasons under former head coach Allen Rossi. He broke nine school records and still holds single-season school records for walks, runs, hits, RBI, home runs and slugging percentage.

He went on to star at Arizona State, where he was the Pac-10 Player of the Year and Triple Crown Winner in 2007 and 2008. He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as the 13th overall selection of the 2008 Major League Baseball draft. He was traded to the Oakland A’s and Toronto Blue Jays in 2009 and to the Houston Astros in 2010.

He made his MLB debut in July 2010 and was sent down called up three more times before being released by the Astros in March 2014. After playing in the minor leagues for the Baltimore Orioles, Blue Jays and San Diego Padres, he was called up by the Padres in 2015 and 2016 before retiring after the 2017 season.

Wallace said he has fit in well with Neu and assistant coaches Chris Bodishbaugh and Chad Highberger.

“One of the reasons I really was excited about this opportunity was the staff, getting a chance to work with Mike, Bodie and Chad, and everyone wanted to kind of work together. We’re all focused on getting the right group together and trying to make these players the best they can be.”

Neu agreed that Wallace has been a good addition to the staff.

“Brett, obviously, his experience not only playing, but now getting into coaching, he’s just a really good hitting coach and really good communicator,” Neu said. “The guys really like him.”

The scrimmage began with a trio of home runs in the first two innings. In the top of the first, Carl Schmidt singled for the Gold and scored when Ryan Limerick roped a two-run blast down the left-field line.

In the bottom half of the inning, Dominic Smaldino went yard on a solo shot to get the Blue back in the game.

Finally, Ryan Tayman sent a solo homer to left-center to lead off the second inning for gold.

Other highlights included performances of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by the Mixed Nuts players and “God Bless America” to honor veterans two days before Veterans Day.

The Bears went 36-19 last season with a 17-13 record in the Pac-12. This spring will be their first in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which sent four teams to the College World Series last spring.

It was also the final event at Borman for the NBVC this year.