HEARTFELT DONOR: A dismal situation is looking...
HEARTFELT DONOR: A dismal situation is looking brighter for the West Fullerton Bobby Sox League, which lost most of its equipment in burglaries and vandalism to its storage shed. After receiving an outpouring of donations, opening ceremonies for the 180-player organization are back on for March 31. An elderly blind man’s offering touched the heart of Cindy Barton, league president. “He gave us a 50-year-old catcher’s mitt, a Yogi Berra antique bat as well as several old softball bats that had been sitting around for years,” Barton said. The league plans to showcase the memorabilia.
STILL GOING: The best of Orange County’s youth soccer teams are in their eighth month of competition at the AYSO Section 11 tournament in Whittier. Boys’ and girls’ teams from Long Beach to the Mexican border won league titles, then area and regional tournaments to advance to the section finals. Orange County has 18 of 24 teams in the two-week competition, including all four in the boys’ 9- and 10-year-old division. Mission Viejo and Newport Beach will face off alongside Huntington Beach and Buena Park in the semifinals on Saturday, with the winners deciding the title that afternoon.
IN VOGUE: The fastest-growing youth sport these days is roller hockey. At Stuart’s Roller World indoor facility in Fullerton (above), 60 teams with players age 4 to 16 play one-hour games on weekends and practice on weekdays. “When we started in December of 1993, there were only about 300 kids,” general manager Stefan Teodorescu said. “Now it has almost doubled, with nearly 600 playing.”
WATER PARK: The Lake Field for North and South Mission Viejo Little League teams lived up to its name again when four feet of rainwater covered the surface. The field, which is used as a flood-control basin, was six feet under earlier this winter. The city had the diamonds ready to go for opening day earlier this month, but downpours have put the season on hold indefinitely. “The city is doing the best it can,” said league President Diana Walden. “But every time we get two or three storms in a row, it floods again.”