Babe Ruth Team Plans Legal Action to Halt Series

The Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Babe Ruth baseball team for 13-year-olds, beaten out of a chance to play for the national championship by a Pasadena team found to be using illegal players--including a pitcher who allegedly drove a car to one game--plans to take legal action to get the team into the tournament.

Cindy Kramer, manager of the Valley team, said the team likely will seek a temporary restraining order early next week in an effort to halt the national tournament in Houma, La., which is scheduled to begin Friday. Mike Udell, father of one of the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks team members, said he was conferring with attorneys.

The Pasadena team defeated Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks in the state tournament July 20 in El Centro. In the title game, Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks players, coaches and fans questioned the eligibility of three Pasadena players, including the pitcher, who was more than six feet tall and weighed about 210 pounds, Udell said. The left-handed pitcher was throwing fastballs in the 80-m.p.h. range, according to Kramer, and threw more than 150 pitches in a complete-game performance.

“There is no way that kid was 13 years old,” said Mark Richards, whose son, Brandon, plays on the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks team.

A protest was filed with state Babe Ruth officials the day after the game. Nancy Glenn, the state Babe Ruth commissioner, ruled that the Pasadena team was not violating any regulations.

“She told us all the birth certificates must have checked out because the team had already made it so far in the tournament,” Richards said. “In essence, she just assumed everything must be OK.”

Glenn, a Babe Ruth official for the past 20 years, said Friday that an investigation during the state tournament indicated that all birth certificates of the Pasadena players appeared to be valid.

“We have no way of knowing if big kids are 13 or not,” she said. “In 20 years this has never happened before.”

Stan Saunders, president of the Pasadena chapter of Babe Ruth, said he disbanded the Pasadena team immediately after confirming the use of three illegal players.

A team from Bakersfield, which lost to Pasadena in the title game of the Western regional tournament earlier this month, will represent the West in the Babe Ruth national tournament next week instead of the Pasadena team.

The planned legal action, according to Kramer, will ask that Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks be allowed to play Bakersfield next week, with the winner of that game advancing to the national championship tournament.

However, Glenn said the decision to send Bakersfield will stand because Babe Ruth rules specify that the last team to play a disqualified team replaces the disqualified team.

“A game between Bakersfield and Van Nuys just will not happen,” she said. “Our rules governing disqualification are very clear.”

Saunders said such action was outside his jurisdiction.

“What I did find was the fact that three boys on the roster of the Pasadena team never played,” said Saunders, who became head of the Pasadena chapter just 10 days before the scandal surfaced. “Those three roster spots were filled by three other boys, and the same birth certificates were used. As soon as I found that out, the team was terminated and I notified the national headquarters.”

The coach of the Pasadena team, Ray Campos, admitted, according to Saunders, that he used the phony birth certificates to allow better players on the team. Campos was unavailable for comment.

“Ray told me he felt he was doing the right thing,” Saunders said. “He said he didn’t have enough talent to keep winning and he felt the three new boys would help him. He said he felt he was helping kids from the barrio, kids who wouldn’t have gotten such a chance otherwise.”

Saunders said he was continuing the investigation. He said he does not yet have proof that the three players illegally added to the roster were older than 13.

“My son and one other player saw this pitcher drive to the ballpark in El Centro,” Richards said. “He has no doubt about it. The kid was even wearing his uniform when he got out of the car. My kid didn’t think much about it, not until the same kid starts pitching against him a little while later.”