College of the Sequoias' 1957 state-championship baseball team will be honored before the start of a Central Valley Conference game between the Giants and the Porterville Pirates. The '57 squad was the only COS baseball team to win a state title.

We're all old now," said Jim Garrett, catcher for the 1957 team. "We try to get together while we're still alive. We get to see each other sometimes, but some of the guys we haven't seen since the last reunion."

The team last got together in 1997. The former teammates attended a baseball game and ate dinner at The Depot restaurant in Visalia.

Today, the team will play a round of golf at the Visalia Country Club followed by a return to The Depot. On Saturday after the game, the players plan to go to a sports bar, catch up and swap stories.

Roy Taylor was the team's coach in 1957.

"It was the most local team I had, and it was the best team I had," said Taylor, who won 285 games in 17 years as coach. "I always had kids from out of state, but it turns out that the local kids were the best team I ever had."

Longtime COS coach Bert Holt, who did not start his COS career until 1960 but is familiar with the 1957 team, says he is anxious to hear the old stories.

"As the years go by, the stories get better," Holt said. "If they hit .300 when they played, now it's .340 or .350."

Taylor and Holt both had their numbers retired by COS.

Dick Doepker was one of the '57 team's key pitchers, but he hurt his arm before the playoffs and didn't get a chance to pitch.

"Being a kid from Canada, I didn't know how to throw the curve properly," Doepker said. "I had a heck of a curve, but it wasn't the right way to do it and I paid the price."

He said pitchers Marv Weekley and Jim Hansen picked up the slack.

"They were the ones that won the playoff games in the end," Doepker said.

COS swept San Diego College in a best-of-three series to win the state championship. Hansen pitched a complete game and Garrett scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning on a Bill Ryan single, clinching the title.

Weekley pitched a three-hitter to win the first game of the series.

All but four members of the team are expected to attend the festivities. Three members — Jim Chatham, Buddy Burgess and Ryan — died, and Thurman Zearly had a previous family engagement.

Other surviving members of the 1957 team are: Ernie Tressler, Frank Alves, Ted Hiltel, Bill Key, Mike Guy, Mel Silva, Glen McMillan, Babe Castillo, Paul Morrison, Joe Murillo, Art Browning, Gene Gravez, Joe Hernandez and Mike Wlasichuk.