It’s a Whole New Ballgame : Softball: City dwellers and suburbanites bridge a cultural gap and find much in common. And South L.A. beats Simi Valley 6-1.

Gene Hostetler planted his sneakers deep in the dusty red clay of the Simi Valley ball field, waving an aluminum bat above his head.

He was manager of a Simi Valley ballclub assembled Saturday to take on a well-organized South Los Angeles team in a game designed to build unity and improve relations between the two communities following the Los Angeles riots.

He was the team’s pitcher and resident funnyman. But he didn’t fool the kids from the projects bused in to watch a contest billed as America’s Game.

“He’s a cop,” said one black youngster in a voice low enough so only his friends could hear. “That man’s a cop; I know he’s a cop.”

Hostetler is a cop. He’s a detective who works auto theft in Simi Valley, where a jury cleared Los Angeles police officers of wrongdoing in the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King. He also is the one who recruited his fellow police officers and other community members to play softball.

But on the ball field Saturday, he was an easy out.

Hostetler slammed the ball, sending it for a long ride that eventually dropped into the glove of an opposing outfielder. He did the same thing a few innings later. And then he hit into a double-play a few innings after that.

“We’re coming back,” Hostetler said after his team was stung with a 6-1 defeat at the hands of the KJLH-FM All-Stars. “We’re going into South-Central L.A. in November for a rematch.”

Simi Valley police in South Los Angeles? That’s what America’s Game was all about.

A community service project spawned by the Los Angeles riots, the softball game was billed as a competition between city dwellers and suburbanites. But it was more than that.

It was about black people talking to white people. It was about bringing inner-city youngsters who have never been outside of Los Angeles to a place with big parks and a lot of trees. And it was about the healing of two communities, often misunderstood and deeply troubled in recent months.

“This is the way it’s supposed to be,” said Jan Hardy, a black Los Angeles resident who helped bring the ballgame to life. “See all these people talking and eating together? This is the way it should be.”

Susan Davenport, a white Simi Valley resident who works with Hardy at an Inglewood computer company, came up with the idea after she and her co-workers discussed the aftermath of the police beating of King.

Davenport said the game will show residents of Simi Valley that South Los Angeles is made up of more than looters and gang members. And it will show South Los Angeles residents that Simi Valley is not a community of racists.

But Davenport admitted that she had received some negative comments from local residents about the game.

“I think some people were apprehensive that there would be problems,” she said. “But do you see any friction here? There hasn’t been one incident. People are talking to each other and having a good time.”

Hardy initially balked at the idea of a softball competition between the two communities.

“Actually, I said ‘Hell, no!’ ” she explained.

But she eventually warmed up to the idea as a way to dispel negative racial stereotypes.

“You have to start somewhere and this is a good first step,” she said.

In a large grassy park behind the ball field at Rancho Santa Susana Park, the game opened with a color guard composed of Simi Valley Girl Scouts.

A quartet sang the Star-Spangled Banner and the Black National Anthem.

The Rev. Edgar Boyd of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Los Angeles opened the game with a prayer.

“Six months ago, the eyes of the world were focused on Simi Valley, on a trial that separated our communities,” he said. “Now they are focused on Simi Valley, not for division but for unity. We now realize that we may have come to this country in different ships, but we now find ourselves in the same boat.”

Hal Halverson of Simi Valley came to see his granddaughter, Alice Patton, play ball. She works for the Simi Valley Police Department.

“I think this is a real good idea,” said the 79-year-old seated near the bottom of the aluminum bleachers. “Both of the communities need it after that big to-do a few months ago.”

Up a few rows, a trio of junior high school students from Los Angeles admitted they knew little about Simi Valley except that it was the site of the Rodney G. King beating trial.

They were impressed with the city’s wide open spaces.

“This place looks like a place in the mountains where you would have horses,” 13-year-old Angel Jones said. “Our parks are small.”

Myrna Jimenez, 12, said she didn’t know what to expect of Simi Valley.

“We thought it would be kind of weird,” she said. “But it’s nice up here.”