City Administrators Balk at Proposal to Lengthen Prep Baseball Schedule : City Section: Some administrators believe junior-varsity teams would be slighted under coaches’ proposal.

A proposal to salvage the City Section 17-game regular-season baseball schedule, ratification of which was believed to be a formality, has hit a snag.

The plan was formulated by a group of City baseball coaches in September to reinstate the 17-game schedule that had been slashed to 10 games because of budget cuts within the Los Angeles Unified School District. As part of the proposal, the junior-varsity baseball schedule was limited to 14 games to save on transportation costs.

City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness cautiously predicted last month that the plan would be adopted without incident. As it turns out, he was overly optimistic.

Harkness said he made a “unilateral decision” to approve the plan, a move that was second-guessed last month by a handful of City administrators who felt the junior-varsity teams would be shortchanged.

Harkness said that the plan instead will be sent next month to a subcommittee of the Interscholastic Athletics Committee, the section’s ruling body. IAC is expected to vote on the plan Nov. 12.

After the proposal hit a snag, San Fernando High baseball Coach Steve Marden--who was largely responsible for formulating the 17-game plan--was asked to conduct a poll of junior-varsity coaches within the City.

As of Wednesday, Marden said that he had received “no negativism whatsoever” regarding the plan.

Under Marden’s plan, the season would open March 23.

If the lengthier schedule is adopted, games would be played during spring break, Harkness said. Because the district switched to a year-round academic calendar, spring break has been cut from one week to two days. City schools have April 16-17 off, but games would nonetheless be played on Thursday, April 16.

Coaches asked that games be played during the break in order to “keep the continuity of the schedule intact,” Harkness said.