Alumni Watch

Bip Roberts, one of best baseballers ever to don a Titans uni(class of 1981), was at the game the other day versus Dougherty Valley HS where the Titans rolled to a 9-1 victory in their first official game of the 2025 season.

It was great catching up with Bip, who has recently retired from the NBC Bay Area Network after a 2 decade long stint as the pre and post game analyst for first the Giants and then later the A's.   Today, after so many years in and around the game of baseball, he is happily working hard on his passion projects all of which help communities around the USA . Besides keeping busy with these community minded projects, Bip is a man of strong Faith, a loving  Dad and Grandfather, and always ready and willing to give some free coaching advice.  Bip, by the way, was also the coach of the Skyline Titans in the mid teens(2000s) for a few years bringing some old school coaching experience to his players.  During his coaching tenure at Skyline, he also is known for having those nice sunken dugouts built at the Skyline Baseball field. 

Bip credits a lot of his baseball success to growing up in baseball-rich Oakland back in the 70s and 80s where there were so many good players and teams. One fact to share....Seafood Grotto, a 10-12 year old team that Bip played on, had 7 future professional baseball players.  Amazing and pretty much sums up how good Oakland baseball was back then.

Of course, when Bip arrived at Skyline in the Fall of 1978, he gave a lot of credit to the late Coach Joe Panella, who really helped mentor and coach Bip to a higher level where he played 3 years varsity as the starting SS.  After a successful High School career, Bip went on to Chabot college and later was drafted by the Pirates...eventually Bip made it to the Big Leagues by 1985 with the Padres where he went on to a very successful 12 year career in the Bigs.

Some of his amazing stats to share...in 1202 games over 12 seasons, Roberts posted a .294 batting average (1220-for-4147) with 663 runs, 203 doubles, 31 triples, 30 home runs, 352 RBI, 264 stolen bases, 396 bases on balls, .358 on-base percentage and .380 slugging percentage. He finished his career with a .976 fielding percentage. In 16 postseason games, he hit .246 (15-for-61) with 4 runs, 5 doubles, 5 RBI, 3 stolen bases and 5 walks.

A great run by Bip indeed...who repped not only the Titans so well, but also the City of Oakland.

Great seeing you Bip and keep on making the World a better place for all that you do!

Recently On The HILL!

Surprise surprise, who would have thought that the Titan players would get a visit from none other than potential Hall of Famer from Alameda, Jimmy Rollins.

The 17 year Major Leaguer with over 2000 games mostly at SS, Jimmy Rollins had some 2400+ hits and 234 home runs.

He is a long-time friend of Coach Marcel Johnson and it was great of him to come up to a practice and talk baseball, and show the kids some skills, especially at the middle infield positions.

New Season!!!

Dear Titan Alum and Fans!

The 2025 season is upon us with the first scrimmages beginning mid Feb vs Head Royce and Monte Vista.

If you look at the schedule, you can see it is a strong schedule versus teams all from towns outside of Oakland.

The reason is unfortunately the OAL is with possibly 3 teams this year...Oakland HS, Oakland Tech and likely Fremont

Kind of sad as "back in the day" the OAL was loaded with talent, but fortunately for the players at Skyline, Coach Johnson has hustled up 

a very competitive schedule this year

According to Coach Johnson, the team is looking good with some young talent coming into the program.  This year he also has some strong coaching behind him including his son

Osirus, a 2018 2nd round pick of the Florida Marlins.  Osirus is excited to be with the kids and teach them all that he knows.    

Other BIG news is the field at Skyline has a new makeover...As you can see by the photos, a new infield was recently installed along with a new backstop and a green screen along the outfield fence to help the batter among other things.  The Alumni Booster Club, led by Will Mingram, was able to get it all done in time for the season.

We thank Will for all his efforts to spearhead this much overdue makeover of the field.

So please, come out this year and cheer on the Titans...We have high hopes for our Titans!!

I will keep you advised during the season of updates on the team and any Alumni happenings.

By Thad Ferre, Class of 1984