Notebook / Gary Klein : La Canada All-Star Team to Play Baseball in Finland

A youth baseball team from the La Canada-Flintridge area will open play today in the Baltic Cup tournament in Helsinki, Finland.

The 23-member team, composed of 15- to 18-year-old players selected from local Babe Ruth and Colt teams, will also play a game in Moscow on July 10.

Fletcher Hull, who runs the La Canada Senior Babe Ruth team, is the manager of the all-star team.

Glendale College pitcher Mike Larsen, who had a staff-low 3.31 earned-run average last season, and Matt Whisenant, an All-Southern Section pitcher at La Canada High who was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 15th round of the amateur draft, are among the players making the trip.

Hot on their trail: With a preponderance of high school all-star football games, the summer months are anything but a vacation for college football coaches searching for recruits.

The first Burbank-Glendale All-Star game held Saturday at Burroughs High was one of six such showcases that will be played before the end of August.

Others include: the 605 Game, the San Gabriel Valley Hall of Fame game, the Central City All-Star game, the Los Angeles vs. San Diego game and the Shrine Game.

A real recruiting war: Coaches from local junior college weren’t the only ones recruiting at the Glendale-Burbank game.

The U. S. Marine Corps and representatives from the Army set up shop just inside the stadium hoping to attract players and fans alike.

“On the average, we’ll get four or five follow-up calls next week from people we talked to at the game,” said Marine Corps Sgt. Jose Galvan, who passed out information at the game. “We’re just like the coaches who are here trying to recruit for their school. We’re just a bigger school.”

Fight on: While most of the players in the Burbank-Glendale game were hoping their performances would catch the eye of college coaches, at least one player said he had a scholarship waiting.

Cesar Chaparro, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound lineman who graduated from Pater Noster, said he earned an engineering scholarship to USC and that his participation in the all-star game was probably his football swan song.

Nevertheless, Chaparro hopes his selection on the Glendale roster, along with those of high school teammates Robert Rivera and Jerry Razo, will help blaze a trail for future Pater Noster players.

“We’ve got good talent at our school, we just need more people to come out and participate,” Chaparro said. “I’m hoping that one day in the future, the school would get as big as Loyola so we can kick their butt.”

Phantom kick: Glen Nash hobbled off the field during the fourth quarter of the Glendale-Burbank game with a bad right ankle and a worse case of the blues.

Nash, a 6-4, 245-pound nose guard from Crescenta Valley High, was upset because someone had fallen on his already swollen ankle as Sam Cooper missed an extra-point kick that would have put Burbank ahead, 20-19.

Nash didn’t realize that the kick had been missed and he lay on his back near the end of the Glendale bench for about a minute. Finally, he got up and let fly with a shout of joy.

“I looked up at the scoreboard to see how much time was left and I saw the score was tied,” said Nash, who will play at Pasadena City College next season. “With all that was happening to me on the field, I didn’t realize the guy had missed the kick.”