BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…June 3, 2013:
After coming close in six previous starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Borah High grad Stephen Fife becomes the first native Boisean to win a major league game in 45 years in a 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres. Fife allowed one run on five hits and struck out five over 5 1/3 innings at Dodger Stadium. He had to sweat it out at the end from the dugout, but the Dodgers ended it with a double play, as Yasiel Puig, making his major league debut, doubled a Padre off first base after a fly-out to the rightfield warning track.
Fife, who was a member of the 1999 South Central Boise Little League team that made it to the Little League World Series and later anchored Borah High’s 5A state champions in 2005, was a hard-luck 0-2 the previous year season in his first five big league starts despite a solid ERA of 2.70. He had one start in April of 2013, getting a no-decision at Baltimore. But Fife had been on the disabled list since being scratched from an April 27 start with shoulder bursitis. The Dodgers had enough faith in Fife to put him right back on the hill with the big club upon the end of his injury rehabilitation assignment at Triple-A Albuquerque.
Fife spent parts of three seasons with the Dodgers from 2012-14, going 4-6 with a 3.66 ERA. The only other Boise-born hurler with a big-league victory had been Pat House, who recorded the last of his two career wins for the Houston Astros in 1968. Two other native Boiseans have recorded big league victories since Fife. Former Bishop Kelly pitcher (and linebacker) Josh Osich debuted with the San Francisco Giants in 2015 and picked up the first of his 13 career wins. Boise High grad James Hoyt notched the first of his four MLB victories with the Houston Astros in 2016 as a 29-year-old rookie.
For the record, Larry Jackson, a Boise High grad who won 194 games in a 14-year major league career after starring in baseball and football for Lyle Smith at Boise Junior College, was born in Nampa. Some would also wonder about Vern Law, who won 162 games for Pittsburgh from 1950-67 and was a 20-game winner on the Pirates’ 1960 World Series championship team. But Law was born in Meridian.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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