Gang rivals who once played hardball on Valley streets gather for softball, not to win, but just . . . : Playing for Peace

On Day 1,211 of the improbable Peace, there was softball.

Leadoff hitter Miguel Bedoy, his shaved head slicked by the sun, stood ready at the plate on Field No. 2 at Brand Park on Saturday afternoon. Then the 17-year-old San Fernando gang member lifted the first pitch into the blue of the left-center-field sky and sprinted toward first base to the cheers of his teammates.

Two outfielders for Los Angeles County’s Scudder juvenile probation camp team, dressed in white T-shirts, tan camouflage fatigues and black combat boots, converged on the ball.

Would they get it?

Victory in the three games played Saturday at Brand was measured not in runs scored--hardly anyone counted those--but by what the teenage inmates of three juvenile camps got and didn’t get about the significance of the event.

The teams from Scudder, Mendenhall and Munz camps played against mixed squads of present and former members of rival gangs pledged to the often-wobbly Valley Unity Peace Treaty of Oct. 31, 1993. Later, players and spectators mingled for a free cookout.

The idea, said the games’ organizer and treaty originator, William “Blinky” Rodriguez, was to demonstrate to the young inmates that, “Hey, man, there’s still peace out here. The foundation has to be peace.”

The concept of an event in which rival gangs could be given baseball bats and trusted not to use them on one another proved irresistible to half a dozen Valley political leaders.

“Back when Blinky started, I thought he must have been smoking something, and that he’s never going to get these guys to talk to each other instead of shooting each other,” said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills) as he waited for the games to start. “And now they’re playing baseball with each other.”

At a pregame ceremony, prominent pep talkers praised and exhorted the neighborhood teams lined up along the first-base line and the campers mustered militarily at the edge of the infield.

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“This is probably the best investment we could be making in the future safety, the future wholesomeness of our community,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “I can’t think of a better demonstration of what this community ought to be about than to go onto the field, fight hard, compete hard, fight to win. Then, when the game is over, walk off arm-in-arm with mutual respect for the people we’ve just competed against.”

An emotional Rodriguez, who lost a 16-year-old son to gunfire in 1990, implored the players and about 150 spectators to understand that the peace “is about mothers sleeping better at night.”

City Councilman Richard Alarcon noted that, compared to when he was young, playing ball had become a risky proposition as youngsters avoided parks for fear of gang violence. He’d been looking over those waiting to play today, he said, “trying to figure out which one of you is here because you’re not at the Mission cemetery because this peace treaty has been holding.”

San Fernando Mayor Rosa Chacon, speaking for the gang members’ mothers, wives and girlfriends, said, “We need for you guys to stop killing each other. Get those egos and set them aside.”

Then the games started, the neighborhood teams generally having the better of the campers.

A number of spectators with gang backgrounds said the peace, although it has hardly eliminated homicide in the Valley, has changed everyday life. No longer is coming from the wrong neighborhood or showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time so likely to be a capital offense.

“Just yesterday I went to a party, and San Fernando guys and Pacoima guys were shaking hands, giving each other beers and drinking together,” said Jose Lopez, a 22-year-old welder and former Pacoima gang member who now lives in West Hills.

“The peace makes the difference,” he said. “You can go anywhere without worrying. It makes it easier to go to a school in another neighborhood. It takes a lot of the pressure off.”

Lopez showed a scar above his left ear, where in 1990 he’d been shot in the head by a San Fernando gangbanger while walking home from school. “And now, San Fernando, they’re here and I’m shaking their hands,” he shrugged. “You can’t hold a grudge. As long as the violence stops, that’s all that really matters.”

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Robert Polakow, the director of Camp Munz, said it was vital that camp inmates understand what has been happening on the outside. “A lot of our kids do very well at camp, and they get very, very apprehensive about going back out,” he said. “Part of our program is teaching them to cooperate, and this game is showing that you can continue that in the community.”

The campers seemed to get the point. Several said they were comforted by the thought that the communities they were returning to might be more peaceable than before.

“It’s better now than it used to be,” said the 17-year-old catcher for the Camp Munz team. “It makes me feel good inside, the idea of going back to a place that’s safe where you don’t have to worry about people doing something bad to you. All that stuff is dying out.”

Not that the campers got everything, however.

Miguel Bedoy’s fly ball, for example, sailed over the heads of the Camp Scudder outfielders for a double. Bedoy scored on the next play, when the Camp Scudder second baseman failed to get a sharply hit ground ball.

Back on the bench, sweating and accepting the congratulations of teammates, the former inmate of Kirkpatrick juvenile probation camp insisted the day’s game was “all about having fun, and that’s it. I’m just here to play. I’m not here to teach nobody.”