JetHawks Fever About More Than Baseball

Boys peek through the fence of the new ballpark here, gazing at an outfield as green and crisp as a new dollar bill. Cars idle out front, drivers craning their necks to see.

“We have been waiting a long time,” said Dan Chase, who brought his son and daughter for a look.

Tonight, a capacity crowd of more than 6,000 is expected to press inside the new Lancaster Municipal Stadium--nicknamed “The Hangar”--to watch the inaugural home opener of the Lancaster JetHawks, a Class-A team in the California League. And it is not a stretch to say that, for many residents of this high-desert community, the game amounts to more than sport.

As American educator Jacques Barzun once wrote: “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game--and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.” Barzun was talking about more than the clap of a base hit, more than salted peanuts in the shell.

In the Antelope Valley, where California’s economic woes have hit particularly hard, leaving strip malls deserted and scores of houses in foreclosure, baseball amounts to a rallying cry.

“It’s a bottom-line sociological principle. You’re running up your own flag and that is a source of great pride,” said Jon Johnston, a sociology professor at Pepperdine University. “That’s why people go to war, right? Baseball is a safe war.”

In the Antelope Valley, baseball might also be redemption.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s amazing how much people care about this,” said Christine Snyder, who works in a shopping mall down the street from the stadium. “This is the first thing we’ve had that we can really get into.”

The Hangar stands beside the freeway north of town, visible at a distance by its tall, glittering light posts. Closer, a modern-looking facade of stucco and green iron gates comes into view.

The stadium represents the price Lancaster residents paid to lure their team from Riverside, where it played last season as the Pilots. Although some people do not follow baseball--and could not care less about the team--the City Council voted to foot most of a construction bill that, including land and infrastructure costs, exceeded $14 million.

Councilman Frank Roberts was a cheerleader for the project. Councilman Michael Singer, who insists he was “not voting against baseball,” opposed the deal as financially irresponsible.

In last week’s mayoral election, Roberts defeated Singer and both men cited baseball as a deciding factor.

“When you bring a ball team in, you build them a stadium,” Roberts said. “That’s the way it has to be. The city of Lancaster stepped up to the plate, so to speak.”

The mayor-elect plans to leave during the middle of tonight’s game for a brief swearing-in ceremony at City Hall, then dash back to catch the late innings. After all, baseball has been a part of his political life since he first won a City Council seat four years ago. Roberts promised voters a team of their own for two reasons:

First, to satisfy the large numbers of softball players who congregate at city fields south of downtown; second, and more important, to satisfy the aspirations of a region that included two of the nation’s fastest growing cities.

During the heady 1980s, Lancaster and Palmdale residents wanted all the amenities of Los Angeles, which they called “down below,” including professional sports.

But when aerospace jobs dried up, and real estate values plummeted, the Antelope Valley became most notable for its foreclosures. Nearly half the strip malls have been boarded up, and housing tracts remain unfinished.

People still joke that only the state prison--a 3-year-old facility near the ballpark--enjoys full occupancy.

As a result, some residents complain this is the worst time to spend public money on a ballpark.

“A lot of people feel they had the stadium put over on them,” said Diana Beard-Williams, who still fields angry calls on her local radio talk show. “They may enjoy it, but they wonder about the dollars and cents.”

One of those people is Maria Bridges, whose 16-year-old daughter competes on a high-school swim team.

“With all that money, they could have built an Olympic-sized indoor pool and even more,” the Lancaster resident said. “Our older schools could have used some improvements.”

There is no such talk, however, among listeners to the city’s all-sports radio station. Or from shoppers who make JetHawks caps and shirts the top-selling items at the store where Snyder works.

In front of The Hangar, one fan noted that if politicians had to spend his tax money, at least they spent it on something he enjoys. Another man, Rene Carter, a 39-year-old Little League coach, found a job at the new stadium. After lining up with 2,000 other applicants at a JetHawks job fair, he won a spot working home games as a parking lot attendant.

“I told the kids on my Little League team that I’ll be at the park,” he said. “I’m glad to be a part of it. Everywhere I look, I see people wearing JetHawks stuff. It’s like a fever.”

Even Singer--after voting against the ballpark deal--has been infected. At the team’s public practice earlier this month, he offered $100 to the first player who hit a home run.

“People who worry about how we will pay for this--they still love it,” the councilman said. “If they can afford a ticket, they can go to a game and get a few hours of respite from the cares of life. Like it was during the Depression.”

He and other city officials hope that fans might also take home a dose of civic pride.

Rick Steele, who bought tickets for his wife Lori and their 2-year-old son Trevor, has already bragged to his co-workers in a Woodland Hills office: “I tell them that the JetHawks kicked butt today. They don’t have a team in their local city. There’s no team in Simi Valley.”

That might explain why Lancaster’s municipal art gallery features an acrylic painting of a pitcher in mid-windup, set against the JetHawks’ logo. The logo also adorns a billboard near City Hall.

And it might explain why people have been driving slowly past The Hangar and talking so much about tonight’s opener.

In truth, it will not be the first time that Antelope Valley residents have been entertained by bat-wielding men. In the late 1800s, when varmints plagued the region’s alfalfa fields, residents eagerly gathered to watch weekend “rabbit drives.”

As many as 600 wild rabbits would be corralled and clubbed to death. Southern Pacific railway offered discount fares from Los Angeles. Dances were held afterward in the Palmdale Club.

The drives stopped in the early 1900s.

“Right now, the most there is to do is go to the mall or see a movie and that gets pretty old,” said Marissa Miller, 18, of Palmdale. “That’s why everybody is so happy about the team.”