Sylmar Team Plagued by Controversy

Four players from the Sylmar Palomino baseball team have been ruled ineligible for the Western Zone tournament, apparently because two players live outside the team’s boundary and because two others filed incorrect registration forms, said Sylmar Coach Larry Kapuscinski.

“They feel we stacked the team,” Kapuscinski said. “We really got a raw deal. I don’t think we are cheating anybody.”

And to make matters worse, the Sylmar players were forced to check out of their San Jose hotel Thursday because the hotel manager considered the team loud and unruly, Kapuscinski added.

Tournament director Joe Gagliardi refused to discuss the reasons that Sylmar players Denny Vigo, Lance Gibson, Mike Roberts and Jared Snyder were disqualified, or which rules the team had violated, but said, “we don’t take action unless there are very, very good reasons for it.”

“The people who run the program and the people who coach the program know exactly what they were doing,” Gagliardi added. “You have got to play by the ground rules and they were abused very, very badly.”

In another controversy, Kapuscinski claimed that after being told that Sylmar’s first game was to start at 8 p.m. Wednesday, game time was changed that afternoon to 5:30 p.m.

Sylmar lost to Ocean View, 10-3, and fell into the elimination bracket of the double-elimination tournament.

“It was very distracting,” said Roberts, who was slated as Sylmar’s starting pitcher before being disqualified about an hour before the game. “We didn’t get to the ball field until game time and we didn’t know who could play and who couldn’t play.”

The zone pays for each teams’ accommodations, but Kapuscinski said that Sylmar has to foot the bill for its new hotel rooms because Gagliardi refuses to pay.

Gagliardi said that each team was told before the tournament that the zone would cease paying for accommodations if a team was removed from its hotel.

“They were told that ahead of time,” Gagliardi said.

Sylmar plays a San Jose Police Athletic League team today at 5:30 p.m.