Network Says Thanks for the Memories, Vista : Research: ESPN relies on two librarians there for its weekly feature that puts baseball in a historical perspective.

Of all the libraries in all the cities in all the world, ESPN--the giant sports network on cable TV--picked the county library in Vista.

Baseball fans who regularly watch ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” look forward to Friday night’s broadcast of West Coast games and announcer Gary Thorne’s feature called “The Way Back Machine.” The brief segment is a compilation of interesting baseball and historical facts relevant to the day of the broadcast.

Thorne ends the report with a “thanks to the Vista Library” for providing the facts used in “The Way Back Machine.”

Many of ESPN’s millions of international viewers probably had no idea where Vista is until a few weeks ago, when Thorne casually mentioned for the first time that the city, population about 60,000, is near San Diego.

Regardless of whether the network’s audience could point to Vista on a map, one thing is certain: Since the network began using the historical flashbacks two months ago, ESPN’s baseball telecasts have brought international awareness of the 65,000-volume library as a repository of knowledge.

Why did ESPN decide to use the Vista library as its main source for the historical report? Were the Library of Congress and the New York City Library not available or interested in getting their names broadcast over the international airwaves?

“Why not us?” responded Jane Romita, San Diego County regional library director.

The library’s sudden fame comes as a pleasant surprise to Romita, who, in a recent interview, lamented the need for a larger facility, already the largest branch of the county library system. She and her co-workers find pride and amusement in its new status as Vista’s best-known landmark.

“The Way Back Machine” is the brainchild of Thorne, who is an attorney, and Jay Kutlow, ESPN’s producer of West Coast baseball games. Kutlow, of Cardiff, was a history major at Columbia University and formerly worked for the San Diego Padres as assistant director of Diamond Vision, the giant viewing screen in the Padre scoreboard.

Kutlow’s first choice was the library in his hometown. But Cardiff’s library proved too small to handle his weekly request, and he was referred to Vista. Every Wednesday, Kutlow calls Romita or Donna Killam with his request for information to be used during Friday night’s game.

Killam, a reference librarian, usually provides the non-baseball-related information, which Kutlow narrows down to two or three items.

Kutlow has never met the two women who play a key role in the weekly feature, but he is grateful to them. Romita “could have hung up on me the first time I called if she wanted,” he said.

“He calls and tells me what kind of items he’s looking for in terms of historical interest,” Killam said. “His requests are limited to the time when baseball started, onward. I’ll go through the reference books and give him the items. He picks the items he wants to use.”

Although Romita and Killam were aware that ESPN was giving their library credit over the air, they are not fans of the sport and have never watched the games in which the library was mentioned.

“It’s a terrible thing to admit, isn’t it?” Killam said. “On a few occasions, I’ve thought about taping the game. I’ve never heard the credit they’ve given us.”

The baseball trivia and photos used in the historical segment generally come from Kutlow’s extensive collection of baseball and history books.

“Yeah, I guess you could say it’s a way for me to put my history background to use in my television baseball job. After college, I faced the dilemma of what to do with a history degree,” he said.

“The Way Back Machine” is important, Kutlow said, because “it brings light to people.”

“A lot of people have forgotten about history. The main thing we’re trying to do is make you think for even a second. It’s a way of relating baseball historical facts with what happened in American history at the same time.”

Kutlow noted that baseball is a vital part of America and its history, and that games are played despite tragic events--aside from acts of nature--and celebrations. While Gen. George Armstrong Custer was getting beaten big time by the Indians (not the tribe from Cleveland) on June 25, 1876, there were scheduled baseball games being played across the country.

More recently, while Americans shuddered from the Soviet Union’s second atomic bomb test on Oct. 3, 1951, their Cold War fears were momentarily forgotten by Bobby Thomson’s momentous home run on the same day. Thomson’s ninth-inning homer, said by some to be the most famous in baseball history, enabled the New York Giants to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers and win the National League pennant after the Giants won 37 of their last 44 games.

“The challenge for us is to find something of historical interest for” Kutlow, Killam said. “If some of the facts we provide him have to do with baseball, it’s an added plus. We think it’s a great concept. . . . It’s reassuring that there are people who know that librarians do more than just put books on shelves.”