Dino Quintero had heat stroke one day and a home run stroke the next.
The Los Altos High graduate smacked two homers Aug. 14 to help the Santa Clara Red Sox beat Houston 15-2 in the championship game of the Palomino World Series in Greensboro, N.C.
A day earlier, a case of heat stroke forced Quintero to leave in the sixth inning of Santa Clara's 5-4 pool-play win over Lansing, Mich.
"It was really hot and humid, and I felt faint," Quintero said. "I had to go to the hospital to get an IV. But I was fine the next day."
That he was. Not only did Quintero hit two homers in the championship, but he drilled both of them in the same inning. The center fielder led off the bottom of the first with a solo shot and then hit a three-run blast when he came up again.
"That's never happened to me before," Quintero said. "I'd never even hit two in a game this season. It was just a high for the rest of the game."
The Red Sox sent 12 batters to the plate in the first inning and scored eight runs, putting Houston in a hole too deep to escape from.
"After we scored those eight runs, I knew we had the game under control," said Quintero, a Mountain View resident. "We were real fired up."
By the time the game was called in the middle of the sixth inning on the 10-run rule, every Red Sox player had at least one hit. Quintero went 4-for-4 and St. Francis High senior Larry Cummings was 2-for-2. The other local player on the 18-and-under team, St. Francis grad Garrett Cook, hit a single. Santa Clara had 15 hits in all.
Starting pitcher Kyle Madej of De Anza College earned the win, allowing five hits and two runs in four innings of work.
The Palomino World Series was an eight-team tournament that lasted four days. Santa Clara advanced to the championship by winning its four-team pool with a 3-0 record. Houston went into the title game undefeated in its pool as well.
For the series, Quintero batted .500 (7-for-14) with four extra-base hits and six RBI. Of course, his best performance came in the championship game, which he called "a dream come true."
Quintero hopes to fulfill some more dreams next spring when he starts his second season with Mission College. The 19-year-old batted .400 as a freshman and started in center field. Another season like that, and Quintero may get a chance to play at Santa Clara University or Long Beach State - two schools he's interested in transferring to in the fall of 2000.