Little League Tourney Considered a Big Catch for Community : Thousand Oaks: Landing the regional competition is like playing host to the Olympics. Supporters have been preparing for weeks.

Across Thousand Oaks, they’ve geared up for today--the big day.

Parents and friends of Conejo Valley Little Leaguers have printed flyers, cleaned baseball fields, planned meals, organized speakers, and handled countless other details to prepare for the Senior Western Regional Tournament, the biggest Little League tournament ever to come to Ventura County.

To the 14- and 15-year-old baseball players, Little League loyalists say, this is the event of a lifetime. These four teams are the best of the best, culled from towns across California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska and Nevada.

They’ve knocked out scores of opponents to get here, surviving district, sectional, and, last week, divisional tournaments. Whoever wins here goes on to the Senior Little League World Series in Kissimmee, Fla., next week.

“It’s pretty pressure-packed,” said Greg Meade, who coached a Conejo Valley team to the Western Regionals four years ago. “There’s a lot of notoriety as the kids continue to win. They’ve never experienced anything like that.”

The tournament is a major event not only for the boys who play ball, but also for the entire Little League community that plans the week of games and ceremonies.

The Conejo Valley Little League learned last year that it would play host to this year’s Western Regional Tournament, said Joel Silverstein, the tournament’s director and the league’s treasurer.

Landing the Western Regional is the Little League equivalent of playing host to the Olympic Games, Little League parents say, even though no local teams made the finals.

During the last few months, league members have worked at an increasingly hectic pace, trying to get every last detail in place before the first bat is swung.

There’s a publicity chairman, a housing chairman, a transportation chairman and a meals chairman. There’s even a baseball field chairman.

Local Little League coach John Potocar has been in charge of the league’s fields for the last three years. When they get dirty, when the white lines are bent out of shape, he spruces them up. He said the last two weeks have been hectic, trying to get the baseball diamonds at Thousand Oaks High School ready for the tournament.

“We’ve been whacking the weeds, edging all the base pads, cleaning up the trash, hauling away the big debris,” he said. “It’s a lot of work, but then again, it’s all for the kids.”

Like many adults involved in this week’s tournament, Potocar is a dedicated Little League parent.

Two years ago, he managed his elder son’s team, coached his younger son’s team, served on the Conejo Valley Little League board of directors, and--in his spare time--ran his sporting goods store, Circle Ski & Sports in Thousand Oaks.

“Some people drop their kids off at the field for practice and pick them up afterward,” he said. “For others, it’s a full-time job.”

Potocar was a baseball player himself once, playing third baseman and catcher before ending his career at high school graduation. His father, he said, was a semi-pro catcher for the Hollywood Stars, a minor league team. Both of his sons are catchers, he said.

Another busy Little League parent is John Politowski of Oxnard, chief umpire for the Little League district that covers most of Ventura County. Make that former Little League parent: Politowski’s sons finished their Little League careers long ago. Politowski stayed on.

“I’ve been umpiring for 17 years,” he said. “First, my son started playing baseball and I got involved coaching, but I found umpiring more satisfying.”

Since the Conejo Valley Little League landed the tournament, offers to help umpire games have poured in, he said.

Politowski called other chief umpires across Southern California to check up on all who offered their services, gathering recommendations and records of their past umpiring experiences. After about two months, he made his choices.

Politowski staffed the first five games of the tournament with other umpires, leaving the climactic finale for himself. “That’s what happens when you’re the boss,” he said, laughing.

But the all-volunteer effort includes more than coaches and officials. This year, 28 families from the Conejo Valley Little League are welcoming the out-of-town players into their homes, Silverstein said.

Chuck Nester and his wife, Karen, expect to have two to four boys in their Thousand Oaks home this week. “I do it because I like to give back,” Chuck Nester said. “I played in the Conejo Valley Little League years ago, and I have two boys who went through the entire system, from Peanuts to Seniors, so I’m just glad to give back.

“Besides,” he said, “it’s a great honor that we’ve been chosen to host this.”

Nester--a real estate agent who moonlights as a professional baseball announcer--will do the announcing at this week’s tournament.

Chris Osborne and her husband, Skip, of Thousand Oaks also decided to host players at their home. “I just got really interested in baseball after my son played in the Conejo Valley Little League this spring,” Chris Osborne said. The couple’s son, Allen, is 11.

“Maybe someday he’ll get to do something like this, and somebody will host him,” she said.

The local Little League community is still smarting from the wounds of Thursday’s game, when an area team, the Thousand Oaks Senior All-Stars, lost in a divisional tournament to the Mission Viejo team, which will play in the Thousand Oaks tournament instead.

The city of Thousand Oaks has two Little Leagues--Thousand Oaks Little League for families who live east of Moorpark Road, and Conejo Valley Little League for families on the west side, Silverstein said.

Of the three other teams coming to the tournament this week, Silverstein said, one is from Hawaii, another is from Danville in Northern California, and the third is from Henderson, Nev.

By this point, Silverstein said, “There’s so much pressure on the kids to win, because if they lose, the team is over.”

The players, however, are not the only anxious people. Many of the boys’ parents and siblings have given up their free time, and even postponed vacations to follow the winning teams from game to game, he said.

“By the time you reach this tournament, every team’s on a winning streak,” he said. “It’s already become a huge event in these families’ lives.”

Thousand Oaks resident Meade knows exactly what Silverstein means.

Meade coached the legendary--among local Little Leaguers, at least--Conejo Valley team that made it to the 1989 Western Regionals in Las Vegas. He still remembers the crushing moment of defeat.

“The other team scored the winning run on a blown call by this 70-year-old umpire who had volunteered for the job,” Meade said. The older man’s eyesight was going, he maintained.

“We had 15-year-olds that were about ready to climb all over that umpire,” he recalled. “And for the parents . . . well, it was just like letting the air out of a blimp.”

The players Meade coached were the same age as those starting the tournament today--14 and 15 years old. They are the oldest of the Little Leaguers, kids who played baseball all spring on their high school teams, joined a Little League team as soon as school let out, then placed with an All-Star league in July and began doing tournaments.

Younger Little Leaguers have their own circuits and their own national tournaments.

But the seniors are those who have stuck with it and the ones most likely to go on to college or even professional ball, Potocar said. By the time August rolls around, if they are still in the tournament, their life revolves around baseball as they play one game nearly every day of the week, he said.

So do the lives of the parents, coaches and others involved with Little League teams and tournaments. But the payoff, Potocar said, is worth it.

“The rewards from being involved in it are unmeasurable,” he said.

FYI

The Senior Little League Western Regional Tournament begins at 11 a.m. today with opening ceremonies at Thousand Oaks High School’s varsity baseball field.

Games will follow at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. Games will continue at noon and 4 p.m. Monday and at 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. If a seventh game proves necessary, it will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday. All games will be played at the varsity field at Thousand Oaks High School.