The Team That Went Under Together
When La Salle High School won the Catholic League baseball championship in 1988 — the program's first CL baseball title since 1959 — the postgame story wasn't about the pitching or the hitting. It was about the hypnosis.
Gabe Blanco was a first-year Spanish teacher at La Salle and a registered hypnotist. Once a week that spring, for about 15 minutes, Joe Parisi — La Salle's third-year baseball coach — let Blanco take his Explorers into a classroom to work on relaxation, focus, visualization, and stress management. Blanco had already been doing the same with La Salle's swimmers (at the suggestion of coach Tony Amand) and the results there had been good enough that Parisi wanted to try it on his baseball team.
In my psychology class last fall, I spent a week talking about stress and stress management and relaxation techniques. With a registered hypnotist on board, I thought it would be neat to have him come in and talk with the kids. They loved it. It was all they talked about for the next two days.
He'd say, 'Just play to the best of your ability. Don't worry about what others want you to do. You have a good team. You're going to do well. Visualize yourself making the play. Getting the hit. Throwing strikes.' Not all of us took it seriously at first. But as time went on, the guys allowed it to work.
1988 — The 5-2 Title
La Salle beat St. John Neumann 5-2 at Temple's Erny Field to win Parisi's first Catholic League championship — the school's first baseball title since 1959. Junior left fielder Bill Watts collected three hits and made a sensational catch to kill a third-inning Neumann rally. Senior right-hander Gene Schall (12-1 entering the game) got the start and held Neumann through the jam before Parisi pulled him when things got tight. La Salle finished off the 5-2 win.
