2 days Ago
Even though it’s been awhile, most baseball fans who are 45 and older have some recollection of the “Bash Brothers.” They were Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, teammates on the Oakland Athletics for seven seasons in the late 1980s and early ’90s who hit a lot of home runs and led Oakland to a World Series title in 1989. This year, Liberty High’s baseball team featured what you might call the “Slash Brothers.
” Seniors Braylen Gonzalez and Jacob Rivera didn’t hit a lot of home runs, but they wreaked a lot of havoc atop the Hurricanes’ batting order with a lot of line drives that produced extra-base hits, runs and RBIs. The Binghamton-bound Gonzalez hit .417 with 10 of his 30 hits going for extra bases, including three home runs.
He scored 36 runs, knocked in 19 and walked 25 times while striking out just 11 times. His slash line was: .563 on-base percentage, .
663 slugging and a 1.230 OPS (on-base plus slugging). Rivera, a DeSales commit, hit .
494 with seven of his 38 hits going for extra bases. He scored 30 runs, drove in 33, and had a slash line of .588/.
636/1.224. The two of them also combined for 31 stolen bases in 32 attempts.
Both were equally impressive and essential to the success of a Liberty team that went 20-6 and repeated as Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11 6A champs. That’s why the two close friends, who consider themselves brothers, are The Morning Call’s co-offensive players of the year for the 2024 high school season. “They re.
