The fabulous Forman bros

Rick went on to play at Cañada College, and transfer for a short stint with the NCAA Division I program at Texas State University before wrapping up his playing career. He returned to coach at Serra, where he served on Chris Houle’s junior-varsity staff for 10 years. It was there he’d get a familiar greeting from his underclassman players, who’d mistake him for Serra’s single-season stolen base king.

“When I was coaching there, every year ... there were players that were like: ‘Coach, you’ve got the record!’” Rick Forman said

“‘No,’” he’d respond, “‘that’s my brother.’”

Rick’s younger brother Brian Forman is, in fact, Serra’s single-season stolen base record holder, swiping 39 bags during his senior year of 1994. He also holds the program record for most steals in a single game, totaling six in non-league play at El Camino.

It’s at this point I get to brag about my place in Serra history, and my connection to the the steals records the fabulous Forman brothers etched into the record books. You see, the Forman boys are like brothers to me. We first met playing South San Francisco Youth Baseball for the great Pee-Wee League team, the PAL Sergeants. I joined as a 10-year-old, with Rick a standout 9-year-old second baseman, and Brian our team’s bat boy.

Not long after, I moved three doors down from the Formans, where our kinship was driven by our love of sports. Our mothers worked together part time at Candlestick Park, and their father, Rich, was one of the great formative male role models in my life, always making time to play street football with us to even out the teams 2-on-2, always he and Brian vs. Rick and me. It was one of the great rivalries in South San Francisco history, I tell you.

Street football was one of the many sports we’d play around the calendar year. We both had basketball courts in our driveways, and hooped frequently. But the staple of our neighborhood sports careers centered around baseball, from playing the game of “strikeout” in our driveways, to tearing up our lawns playing the game more commonly known as “pickle,” however we always referred to it as “baserunners.”

There were a few baserunners fields around the neighborhood, but the one we used most frequently was in the Formans’ backyard. And while we surely didn’t do any intentional landscaping, our constant miles running back and forth carved out not only a base path, but natural dirt cutouts around both makeshift bases. And, while he was younger than us, Brian was by far the most menacing base stealer among us, and inspiring quite a rivalry to boot, as he was, and is, a die-hard Dodgers fan, and would always sport his plastic Dodgers baseball helmet while running the bases.

So, for years I have had fun taking a little bit of credit for Brian’s single-season stolen base record.

“At the time, you don’t know cause we’re stupid kids,” said Rick, who now lives in Sacramento where he and his wife Brenda are raising two daughters, the oldest of whom is getting serious about her volleyball career, “but when you think about it now, and I try to get this across to my daughters ... you don’t realize how much that every day, just getting out to play, it just rides with you.”

Brian recently told me something interesting about his knowledge of his record 39 stolen bases in 1994, that he didn’t know anything about the record at the time.

“Zero recollection,” Brian said. “Zero knowledge. I had no idea.”

It wasn’t until after the season Brian was informed of his historic feat, and still insisted he didn’t deserve the credit. He deferred that to the coaches from his two varsity seasons, which aligned with the two years Pete Jensen stepped away from the program in 1993 and ’94, with Tom Monaghan taking over as the varsity manager. Brian said coaches Rich Jeffries and especially Ken Barbieri were the driving force behind the Padres’ running game.

“Coach Barbieri basically forced me to,” Brian said. “He would get pissed at me if I got on base and I didn’t steal within like two pitches.”

Brian recalled reaching first base one day, and still standing there after one pitch was thrown. He looked over to the dugout and Barbieri threw his hands in the air.

“So, I just stole,” Brian said.

Brian said he lacked confidence when he first cracked the starting lineup as a senior, which tracks with the quiet little kid I remember from the baserunners field who let his foot speed do his talking for him. He didn’t play much as a first-year varsity junior, but hit the ground running as the team’s starting shortstop in 1994 on a fleet-footed team that included a good intrasquad rivalry between senior teammates Bernie Affronti, Brian’s double-play partner on the infield, Greg Millichap and Dustin Delucchi.

“I think as my confidence grew, I started believing in what [Barbieri] was telling me,” Brian said.

Rick was in his sophomore year at Cañada when Brian set the two records, and was at El Camino the day Brian stole six bases. As came as no surprise to me, three of those bases were stolen in one turn on the base paths, with Brian swiping second, third and home.

“When he got to third, I just knew it,” Rick said.

Rick teamed with a stash of speedsters as well, including two other South City boys in Rich Cabell and Knoll Roberts, and Tony Volante also in the mix. The team also had a ton of pop in the batting order with Matt Bazzani and Jason Frisella, whose names appear frequently in the Serra record book. It was the 1991 team that started the most prolific run of CCS championships in Serra history, as the Padres won three titles in four years — one during Rick’s senior season, and back-to-back in 1993 and ’94 during Brian’s two years.

Brian, as it turns out, had a little more championship magic in him, this in his final year of organized baseball. It wasn’t as a player, though he did have a solid four-year Division I career at San Jose State. It was the year he returned to the Spartans as a student-coach in 2000, however, that stands as the greatest season in San Jose State history, as it is the program’s only trip to Omaha, Nebraska to play in the College World Series.

Yes, I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that one too. But I didn’t. That was purely due to the blessed baseball lives of the fabulous Forman brothers.

Terry Bernal is a sports writer for the San Mateo Daily Journal. His views are his own. Reach him by phone at (650) 344-5200 x109, or via email at terry@smdailyjournal.com.