Canoga Park May Flee Field of Screams

Don’t be too hard on the Canoga Park High baseball team if it makes an error or two in its game with Chatsworth this afternoon. It could be a little tough for the players to catch and throw, what with all their fingers being crossed.

If everything falls into place, today’s 2:30 game with Chatsworth will be the last the Hunters play at rustic Lanark Park, where the team has had scores of adventures through the last few decades.

Second-year Coach Jim Smith said it is likely that the team will play its home games next season at the West Hills Recreation Center’s Colt Field. Smith sought to move the Hunters’ games to West Hills this season, but was not granted a use permit until last week.

Smith said that next year he will again seek permission from Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department--which runs the West Hills complex. He has already secured funding to expand the existing Colt structure to high school dimensions.

“With any luck, we’ll be out of Lanark,” Smith said. “We can only hope.”

Don’t expect anyone at Canoga Park to shed a tear over the move.

“I don’t know what it is about Lanark,” Smith said. “But every time people see a ballgame going on, they seem to act real weird.”

Lanark is the pastoral personification of strange. Among the field’s less endearing features:

* No outfield fence: Denizens of the park sometimes roam aimlessly across the outfield during games. El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio said one of his infielders was propositioned by a young lady during a game last Friday.

Said Smith: “I thought she was going to challenge him to a fight or something.”

* No infield grass: Ground balls at Lanark Park bounce about as predictably as a hand grenade and carry twice the wallop. Nice on the eyes when the wind blows, too.

* No pitcher’s mound: Definitely a drawback for visiting pitchers, who routinely have trouble adjusting to throwing from a lower height. Another hurdle is the pair of pitching rubbers located in front of the baseball rubber--the field also is used for youth baseball and softball games.

“When Ray O’Connor was the coach at Taft and they had (former major leaguer) Larry Dierker, Ray went out once and ripped out the other rubber before a game,” said Doug MacKenzie, who survived Lanark as the Hunters’ coach from 1951-1987. “Dierker took a long stride and he couldn’t get used to (the extra pitching rubbers).”

* Its location: Lanark is located approximately two miles from the high school. “It’s about 1.9999 miles from school,” MacKenzie said. Buses, however, cannot be used to transport students distances of less than two miles, so Canoga Park players must find their own transportation. Junior varsity Coach Jeff Davis said he once squeezed eight junior varsity players into his Honda Civic wagon.

“I’ve had kids get to practice wringing wet with sweat and out of breath,” Davis said. “They run all the way from school because they can’t get a ride.”

Safety is also a factor.

“The bottom line is that nobody should have to play at that field,” said John Carlsen, president of the West Valley baseball leagues. “It’s not a healthy environment.”

Carlsen, who coaches a Pop Warner football team that uses Lanark for its practices, says the park is overrun with crime.

“Come out some night when it starts getting dark,” he said. “We have kids that are 8, 9, 10 years old selling drugs. . . . I can’t get any kids to come out for football because we have to practice there.

“We want to help them get out of there. It’s no place for a high school to be playing baseball.”