Saturday Danny Mahoney and his father Mike entered the seventh ring of hell out in the Mojave Desert. Or maybe it was just Purgatory.
Everything was cool the day before as the Serra High point guard and his dad enjoyed the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas where they were staying as Mahoney competed in the Adidas Super 64 basketball tourney.
Mahoney played against the Dallas Mustangs, IEBP All-Stars and Stark Basketball Academy from Ohio. Then he enjoyed hanging out with friends from different AAU teams like the Roadrunners. It was all good … as the young people are wont to say.
Well, dad and son eventually left Vegas at 4 a.m. Saturday bound for San Mateo, but stopped on their way in a speck of a desert town called Baker — home of the world’s tallest Thermometer — for a snack. Sustenance achieved, they returned to their 2000 Safari Van and (criminy!) the engine wouldn't turn over.
Recalled Mahoney: ”It was 105 degress at around 7 a.m. now. The Triple-A guy told us that we had a problem with the engine and he couldn’t do anything to fix it. He towed us to another area about two miles away. There we had to wait for a man who owned the auto parts shop named Felipe to help us out."
(Mahoney at this point Saturday began tweeting about his experience. The missives caught the PrepCat’s attention as I used to live in the High Desert near where the Mahoneys were stranded — Victorville to be exact. But I digress).
Continued our hero: “We took all of our luggage from the trip and also personal items from when my sister and I were small and put them in a cardboard box which ended up weighing around 70 pounds. From there, we found a ride from a 19-year-old kid named Tyler. We had to pay him to take us to a place about 70 miles away, called Barstow.
(Ah Barstow, home of not only a Starbucks, but the Route 66 Mother Road Museum. Know it well).
"We sat in his three-seat old Chevy truck, and made our way across the Mojave Desert," Mahoney said. "Now at about 11:30 a.m. it was up to nearly 115 degrees. We eventually arrived in Barstow and said goodbye to our friend Tyler.”
But wait … who exactly was Tyler?
“He was just some random guy,” Mahoney said. “He stopped in Baker too. We told him we’d give him $100 if he gave us a ride."
From there the Mahoneys dawdled in B-Town for an hour, waiting for a Greyhound bus. Eventually they boarded and, after numerous stops, pulled into LA four hours later. Then it was onto San Jose -- another seven hours to the north.
"It was now 11:30 at night and we had finally arrived in San Jose," Mahoney said. "My grandpa had to pick us up and take us back into San Mateo. We got home at around midnight.”
Whew. By 1 a.m., Mahoney was as dead as the Giants' playoff hopes -- hopefully not dreaming about scorpions or eggs frying on the sidewalk or guys named Felipe and Tyler.
The teen got an eyeful on the bus, by the way, including the sight of one bloke who spent a good amount of the journey dancing -- perhaps like a Deadhead or a sign waver or a raver ... who knows.
Said patriarch Mike Mahoney of the adventure: "Everyone at some point in their life should be compelled to take a bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It’s a piece of Americana. We saw some of the most unique individuals in the bus station and on that bus, but everyone was very nice.”
Said Danny: “It was like we were in a movie. Every single thing that could go wrong, did. My dad was serious the whole time but I wasn’t, because I knew I’d be able to look back on it and laugh.”
SHOCKERS ELIMINATED
The San Mateo Shockers split a pair of American Legion state tournament games Monday in Yountville and did not advance to the state title series.
The Shockers defeated the Napa Riverdogs 7-1 Monday morning behind the pitching of Sean Watkins at the Veterans Home of California’s Cleve Borman Field, but lost to Vista Murrieta 13-4 in an afternoon game.
Vista Murrieta, from Riverside County, will play Petaluma for the title and must defeat the Northern Californians twice. The teams begin play at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Against Napa, Watkins allowed just two hits through seven innings and struck out 12. Philip Caulfield had two run-scoring singles for San Mateo and Matt Seubert, Greg Hubbell and Christian Conci had one RBI hit apiece.
BELMONT-REDWOOD SHORES GAMES SET
Pool play games for Belmont-Redwood Shores Little League in the Western Regionals are set. The tournament for Majors' players (ages 11-12) begins Friday, Aug. 2 at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino.
Belmont-Redwood Shores meets Chandler National South of Arizona at 4 p.m. Friday. The game will be televised on ESPN3.
The Peninsula team also plays Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Wednesday could be a good one as Belmont-Redwood Shores meets Eastlake LL of Chula Vista (Southern California) at 8 p.m. at Houghton Stadium. Prime-time games in San Bernardino between NorCal and SoCal teams sometimes draw 8,000 fans or more.
The West Region semifinals are Friday Aug. 9 and can be seen on either ESPN2 or ESPN. The West title game is at 6 p.m. Saturday Aug. 10 and will be televised live on ESPN, with the Northwest Region title game preceding it at 2 p.m.
Briefly: Gilroy wrestler Nikko Villarreal is ranked No. 1 in the state at 138 pounds according to CCS Rank, reports BayPreps.com. ... Valley Christian will have an athletic registration for fall sports and barbecue from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5 on the soccer field. ... St. Ignatius basketball star Trevor Dunbar has confirmed his scholarship offer from Cal State Fullerton.
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John Murphy can be reached at jmurphy@Prep2Prep.com and you can follow him on Twitter @PrepCat
