Softball Game Is Pitched as Way to Ease Tension : Simi Valley: The organizer of the matchup with an L.A. team wants to show that the community isn’t racist.

In one of the more unusual community service projects spawned by the Los Angeles riots, a Simi Valley woman is organizing a softball game that will pit Simi Valley police officers against residents of South-Central Los Angeles.

Susan Davenport, 43, said she hopes the game, set for Aug. 1 in a Simi Valley park, will draw 1,000 spectators and will help improve relations between the two communities.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions about people from Simi Valley and about people from South-Central,” Davenport said.

The game will show South-Central residents that “Simi Valley is not a racist city,” she said. And Simi Valley residents will see that “not everyone in South-Central Los Angeles is a gang member.”

Davenport said she has received some negative comments from local residents about her plan.

“I think there is some apprehension,” particularly because of the disturbance and arrests that occurred during a recent counterdemonstration to a white supremacist rally there, she said.

But she said the response from residents has been generally enthusiastic.

Mayor Greg Stratton and other officials said they don’t expect outbreaks of racial hostilities at the game, which will be free to spectators.

Davenport, an accountant at an Inglewood computer company, got the idea for the softball game after discussing the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial and the ensuing riots with a black co-worker.

Her co-worker, Jan Hardy, 38, coaches the softball team for KJLH-FM, a small South-Central Los Angeles radio station owned by pop singer Stevie Wonder.

Hardy said she initially said “no way” when Davenport suggested a softball game between the KJLH team and Simi Valley residents.

But Hardy warmed up to the idea as a way to dispel negative stereotypes of blacks.

Hardy’s softball team has six men and seven women, including herself. While the team has included whites and Latinos in the past, all the current players are black.

“I want the residents of Simi Valley to know we’re human beings just like them,” said Hardy.

Hardy said a softball game is an ideal place for Simi Valley and South-Central residents to mix. “It’s outside, it’s fresh air, it’s not in a stuffy office building where everybody’s going to put on airs,” she said.

The event will also include performances of the Star-Spangled Banner and the African-American National Anthem before the game and a free barbecue after the game.

About 400 to 500 South-Central residents are expected to attend the event, including 250 members of First AME and Bethel AME churches in Los Angeles, Hardy said.

It was Hardy who suggested that the Simi Valley team include local police officers. She wants to send the message that South-Central residents “still respect police officers,” Hardy said.

Simi Valley Police Detective Gene Hostetler, 43, who is organizing the game’s home team, said some officers have told him not to expect a lot of local residents to turn out for the event.

But generally, “everybody’s enthused about playing,” he said.

His team will probably have four women and eight men. About half the players will be police officers and the rest local residents.

Although Hostetler agreed that the main purpose of the game is to ease tensions between South-Central and Simi Valley residents, he’s a little concerned because he doesn’t know the caliber of the opposing team.

“If we beat them, it’ll be a fluke,” Hostetler said. “Half those people I’ve got on my team haven’t played in years.”

But he added that he doesn’t expect either side to get upset if their team gets clobbered.

“It’s not going to be a grudge match,” Hostetler said. “Whoever wins, wins.”

The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Rancho Santa Susana Community Park. Businesses or individuals interested in helping sponsor the event should call publicist Alyssa Sheppard at (213) 759-3636.