Sports Medicine
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sports medicine Hired in August The 49er student-athlete’s medical and injury needs are the 2007, Mark responsibility of a highly-qualified and diverse professional staff. The 2008-09 Pocinich MS, daily injury evaluation, management, treatment, rehabilitation, and Sports Medicine Staff ATC is the head first aid of our student-athletes is the responsibility of both, the Head athletic trainer for the 49ers. Pocinich Athletic Trainer, Mark Pocinich, and rest of the sports medicine staff. Head Athletic Trainer spent seven years Assisting Pocinich are Assistant Athletic Trainers Shauna Horton and Mark Pocinich as an assistant Jen Kawamoto along with three graduate students. There are also athletic trainer at numerous athletic training students who work under the guidance Assistant the University of of Pocinich, Horton and Kawamoto. Since 1987, Dr. Larry Drum has Athletic Trainers Mark Pocinich Southern California. been acting as the team physician for all LBSU student-athletes and Dr. During his time Alexandra Chrysanthis joined in practice with Dr. Drum and assists him Shauna Horton* at USC, Pocinich in providing care. Since 1992, Dr. Peter Kurzweil has served as our Jen Kawamoto worked with the Trojan football, men’s basketball, baseball, women’s water volunteer orthopaedic surgeon for all student-athletes. The physicians polo and crew squads. He collaborated attend many of our home competitions and are readily available for Certified with staff on the design and manage- first aid and diagnostic needs on site. There are various other Graduate Assistants ment of the new athletic training facility highly-skilled physicians, podiatrists, and dentists who regularly Scott Buzin in the Galen Center and he and his staff volunteer their services to our student-athletes. Theresa Reyes served as the host medical team for the Justin Shibel Pac 10 Men’s Basketball Tournament Certified Athletic Trainers (ATC) are on hand for all home practices (2003-07). Prior to his time at USC, he and competitions and, also, for many of the away competitions that spent two years as an assistant trainer *Baseball Trainer at Eastern Washington. A 1996 gradu- our student-athletes participate in to assist in treatments should a ate of San Diego State with a degree problem occur. Forty-Niner Athletics provides student-athletes with a in athletic training, Pocinich earned his state-of-the-art athletic training facility located adjacent to the Gold masters degree in sports medicine in Mine Gymnasium and an additional, smaller treatment facility located 1998 at the University of Oregon. on the playing floor of The Walter Pyramid. With well-equipped facilities and knowledgeable and capable personnel on staff, a sick or injured student-athlete at Long Beach State is assured of quality treatment. blair field LBSU AT BLAIR FIELD 1993 20-9 1994 26-8 1995 23-14-1 1996 23-8 1997 17-11 1998 22-9-1 1999 21-11 2000 20-9 2001 16-8 2002 21-7 2003 25-10 2004 20-8 2005 25-9 2006 15-12 2007 21-11 2008 24-9 Home of the Dirtbags since 1993, Long Beach’s Blair field is a perfect 339-153-2 (.689) combination of tradition and modern function. Built on the site of the former Recreation Park, home at times to the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Blair Field has hosted numerous teams and events such as the MTV Rock and Jock Softball Game and continues to receive state-of-the-art upgrades, including a brand-new scoreboard installed in 2009. by Bob Keisser, Special from the Press-Telegram Frank Blair would have loved the Dirtbags. He passed away before Long Beach State officially began playing college baseball in 1954, but one can imagine the former Long Beach Press-Telegram Sports Editor sitting in the stands behind the first-base home dugout, enjoying the young collegians who have become synonymous with dirty uniforms. It was Blair who campaigned hard and long for the city to turn the well-used Recre- ation Park field, in the same exact location, into a more modern stadium befitting all of the young ballplayers who had played ther. Recreation Park was a rickety wood shell of a stadium around a dusty patch of baseball heaven in Long Beach. It was used so often by youth and high school teams that the city in 1929 removed what was left of the shredded grass infield. As the years passed, it became harder and harder to find any green in the outfield. “Frank thought Long Beach deserved a big-time ballpark,’’ Harry Minor, the Long Beach native and former Wilson standout who is one of Major League Baseball’s most distinguished scouts, said. ``Recreation Park hosted a lot of good baseball, but it was a bit of a disgrace. There wasn’t a single blade of grass anywhere. It was basically a softball field that we played baseball on. They would hose down the field to control the dirt. Yet we had all these great players. The major leaguers would come back and play in the winter, Bob Lemon, Vern Stephens, Jack Graham, Bobby Sturgeon. Blair just got behind the idea that the city needed a ballpark worthy of the baseball being played here.’’ Blair began campaigning in earnest in the late ‘40s, when Long Beach’s impact in the major leagues was at its zenith with almost a dozen former area stars playing in the majors, including future Hall of Famer Lemon, pitching for the Cleveland Indians, •Ernie Banks and the Cubs (above) were some of the and slugging American League shortstop Vern Stephens. Rec Park had also become a popular stop for off-season barnstorming teams. ballplayers that called the corner of 10th and Park Blair, who supported the building of Veteran’s Stadium for football after World War II, home, before a new generation of players (below) believed Long Beach deserved a team in the Pacific Coast League, even though there were already two PCL teams in town, the Angels playing in the old Wrigley Field and the came in to play at Blair Field. Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. The city began earnest talk of building a new stadium a year after Blair’s death. A bond issue was passed in 1956 and the park, named in Blair’s honor, opened in 1958. The irony is that was the same year the Dodgers came to Los Angeles, sending the Angels and Stars PCL franchises to other cities and ending hopes of landing a minor league franchise. That likely wouldn’t have bothered Blair too much, since it meant Blair Field would become ground zero for all youth baseball in the city. The first scheduled game was between Long Beach City College and Long Beach State on April 15, but Long Beach Poly High School needed a field to play a game against Huntington Beach, so the city’s sport supervisor opened the doors to the Jackrabbits on April 11. Poly won, 3-1. The 49ers and Vikings officially opened the park on April 15---the same day the Dodg- ers played their first game representing Los Angeles---the 49ers winning, 14-6. The formal dedication was on May 10. The first game featuring major leaguers was held on October 13 that year, featuring a bevy of Long Beach products who had made it to the majors---Lemon, Ron Fairly, Lou Berberet, George Witt, Rocky Bridges, Bud Daley and others. Fairly, the Jordan product and Dodger rookie, became the first pro to hit a home run at Blair. In between high school and youth games---the CIF regularly used Blair Field as site for its postseason and championship games---Blair would host major events. On April 9, 1961, the Dodgers played an exhibition game that drew 6,250 to the 3,000-seat stadium. In 1966, the Chicago Cubs, featuring future Hall of Famers Leo Durocher, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins, used Blair as its spring training site and hosted eight games there. The major league Angels and Indians played an exhibition in Blair in 1967, and the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams made Blair their training facility soon after for 13 years. Long Beach State’s association began in 1992 when the city agreed to a $1.4 million renovation that included new seats, a new roof, upgraded lighting and a modern drainage system. The Dirtbags became Blair’s first full-time tenant in 1993 and on Feb. 5 hosted and beat Cal, 12-3. In 1998, Baseball America ranked Blair among the top 15 college baseball stadiums in the nation. A year later, new box seats and a new scoreboard were added. In addition to high school, American Legion and Connie Mack leagues, Blair also became home of the prestigious summer high school Area Code Games. In their 15 years at Blair, the Dirtbags have hosted major college powers like Florida, Tennessee, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Arkansas, LSU, Miami and Texas in addition to locals like USC and UCLA, bringing more nationally recognized college powers to town than any other sport in school history. Blair and the Dirtbags have also hosted NCAA postseason games four of the last five seasons. The annual series with Fullerton has regularly attracted record crowds, with 8,035 attending the 1996 series. Frank Blair was inducted into the Long Beach Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame last year, in a ceremony at the field bearing his name. Blair may have been humbled to have a stadium named in his honor, but there’s no doubt he would be proud of all the young ballplayers and Dirtbags that have called it home.