Baseball Alumni Gather to Bid Farewell to Proud Tradition

Rarely has Griffith Park witnessed as much history as it did last Thursday, when a host of Los Angeles City College baseball legends came to say goodbye.

Former players, coaches and current scouts gathered at LACC’s final home game of the season to bid farewell to a 63-year-old program.

A baseball tradition that developed 27 major league players and one entertainer--rap star Hammer--grew nearer to a close with each passing inning of the game against Compton College.

“It’s a disaster and disgrace to baseball to cut this program out,” said Fate Young, a scout for the Seattle Mariners whose sons Delwyn and Selwyn graduated from LACC. “Somebody isn’t thinking right.”

Young, who lives in the Mojave Desert, drives over 125 miles every weekend to watch LACC’s players in hopes of finding the next Ken Griffey Jr. Young, 63, has been scouting since 1962.

“It’s a shame because this (decision) is going to last forever,” Young said. “We went through the same thing nine years ago, where the program was dropped but the board of trustees and chancellor recommended it be kept, and the president decided to reinstate it,” said Phil Pote. “It doesn’t look like that will happen again.”

Pote, 62, also a scout for the Seattle Mariners, played at LACC from 1952-53 and coached from 1978-89. He has been a scout for 30 years.

During his career, Pote has coached and developed many talented players, such as 1983 graduate R.J. Johnson. “There were seven players drafted off my team,” said Johnson, who played in the Athletics’ minor league organization, “Stanley Burrell (Hammer) was one of our worst players, but he could run and throw.”

The 32-year-old Johnson, a sales director at the Avon car rental company, said that if it weren’t for baseball he would have been a victim of the streets.

“I probably would have been a gangster,” Johnson said. “Baseball was all I had. Lots of kids have nowhere to turn. Now, they won’t have the chance I had.”

Especially in inner-city Los Angeles, where community college baseball is almost extinct.

“This is going to deprive inner-city kids of a place to go,” said Bill Thayer, who coached at LACC from 1966-71. “Football went eight years ago and now baseball is gone.”

The central city community colleges--Santa Monica, L.A. Trade Tech, West L.A., L.A. Southwest and LACC--are all now without baseball programs. East L.A. is the only school in the area fielding a team.

“You’re taking away opportunities from kids who can’t afford four-year colleges,” said George Genovese, a 31-year scout currently with the Los Angeles Dodgers. “These are kids from lower economic families, and now they have nowhere to go.”

“Baseball brought people out (and) helped them to get an education,” said Larry Berlin, who graduated in 1978. “It’s a program worth saving because it means so much to the people.”