Orange Coast College—without suspended coach John Altobelli in the dugout—won the California Junior College championship this past weekend at Fresno. It was an emotional season for OCC, as detailed in the above subscriber-only column, but they rallied in the postseason, Altobelli said Wednesday.

"I think we were 4-4 at one time after I got dumped," he said. "But we pulled the guys together and told them, if the coaches tell you to hit and run, you just have to trust them. It’s just like if I was there. I was able to do everything but coach during the games, which was difficult, but the guys pulled through. In the playoffs, we really got on a roll.

"It was very emotional. It was just a crazy, crazy year."

Several draft eligible pitchers were in action at the JC tournament. Our scout source had these insights on three of the JC hurlers, including two at OCC:

Brett Wallach, OCC: “He did himself a lot of favors—89-91 fastball, good curveball, nice frame. Could go three-to-four rounds.”

Calvin Drummond, OCC: “He sat around 91, but it was straight and he got hit. He looks a little stiff to me, a little complacent also.”

Brian Peacock, Santa Ana JC: Peacock is a highly projectable freshman lefthander who is a “real interesting guy. When his fastball is on it shows nice late sink. In this game it was 88, but it was up, straight and got hit. He doesn’t have a feel for the change, but he has a good tight breaking ball.  There were some guys (scouts) out there who were paying real close attention to him.”