Little League Seeking Funds for New Home

Board members of Eastview Little League, which advanced to the Little League World Series last August, have founded a separate youth baseball organization to help raise funds for a new baseball facility in San Pedro.

San Pedro Baseball, a nonprofit corporation, has set Sept. 1 as a deadline to raise $1 million for the facility, which would be built on 15 acres owned by the city of Los Angeles at North Gaffey Street near Capitol Drive. The city has agreed to lease the land to San Pedro Baseball for $1 a year, according to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the harbor area.

“This will really cement the (community) feelings among people in San Pedro,” Flores said.

Organizers refer to the new fields as “state of the art.”

“As far as Little League goes, this will be the best complex in Southern California,” said Gary Miley, who doubles as president of both Eastview and San Pedro Baseball. The plan calls for at least four stadiums with sweeping views of Los Angeles Harbor.

Miley said it was necessary to form a separate entity to raise funds because of a conflict with the charter of Eastview Little League.

“The way the charter with Little League is worded, we could have raised all this money, built these fields, and then the Little League organization could have come in and taken it all,” Miley said.

Little League Baseball, headquartered in Williamsport, Pa., also would not sanction a winter baseball program, according to Miley. He said San Pedro Baseball recently completed its first winter league with good results.

“San Pedro Baseball was also founded to provide programs that Little League did not have or could not provide,” he said.

Through a legal agreement, Eastview Little League will be the primary tenant of the new fields, according to the founders of San Pedro Baseball.

Concerns that Eastview will loose its lease at its present site at Gaffey and Capitol prompted a look at alternative sites, Miley said. Eastview now leases the site on a yearly basis for $1 from the adjacent DiCarlo Bakery, but Miley said his organization has information that DiCarlo plans to use the fields for expansion.

A spokesman for Continental Bakery in St. Louis, parent company of DiCarlo, said there are no immediate plans to expand its San Pedro bakery or to cancel its lease with Eastview. However, Miley indicated that even with that reassurance, the DiCarlo site is too small to handle the expected growth of Eastview Little League.

“We turned kids away last year and we turned down 50 kids for our winter league program this year,” he said. “Next year we are looking at turning away 150 kids because we don’t have enough facilities.” He said he hopes the new baseball facility will be ready in time for the 1991 season.

Hardest hit has been Eastview’s Senior League program for ages 13 to 18. About half of the Senior program is played at Fromhold Field in the South Shores neighborhood, with the rest of spread around other South Bay cities.

Flores said the new complex would benefit the entire harbor area.

“We have scattered sites for kids to play baseball. Some are on loan from businesses. . . . This is really the first complex for San Pedro.”

Flores has agreed to help raise funds for the fields and, according to Miley, the complex would be named after her.

“She has opened a lot of doors for us,” Miley said.

About $12,000 has been pledged, according to Miley. All but $2,000 of that was raised this month at a fund-raising dinner featuring Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda.

Flores called the $1-million goal by Sept. 1 “ambitious” but said interest in the community is high.

“We are calling this our ‘Field of Dreams’ and that’s exactly what it is,” said Flores. “The fever has really caught hold.”

According to Miley and Flores, some of the fund-raising will include attempts at securing Olympic Development funds, federal grants and labor trade-offs from the community.

But it will also include a direct appeal to the people of San Pedro, including placement of about one thousand solicitation cans for change at businesses throughout the harbor area.