Baseball Blues

It should be the best of times for the Moorpark Little League.

After sending a team to the Little League World Series last summer, league organizers recently persuaded the city to lease them two baseball diamonds for the next five years--for a mere $1 a year. And the city agreed to lend the organization half the money it needs to make the ball fields worthy of the all-star contenders who play there.

But when the league hosts its opening ceremony March 16, something will be missing, namely the manager, coach and about half the team that took Moorpark to the national tournament.

A dispute prompted Manager Hector Garcia and Coach Gary Sharpe to leave the Moorpark league for Simi Valley and take six players with them.

They’ve also taken the World Series trophies and banners--and kept them for the six months since the tournament.

Moorpark organizers say they have assurances that the memorabilia will be returned by opening day and feel no animosity toward Garcia and Sharpe.

“It’s about people making choices,” league President Chris Adams said. “They’ll play in Simi this year and have a good experience hopefully. Maybe they’ll decide to come and play with us next year and maybe not, and that’s the way it is.”

With the memory of 11-year-old drowning victim Joel Burchfield spurring them, the Moorpark team defied long odds and emerged as the top contender at the Western Regionals in August, which earned the team a berth at the Little League World Series.

Though they didn’t come home as world champions, Moorpark is the first Little League team in Ventura County history to make it to the tournament in Williamsport, Pa. The success sparked an increase in league membership, but it also prompted a split with the manager and a coach who helped take the team that far.

Garcia and Sharpe could not be reached for comment Friday, but Adams and others said the dispute centered on whether to split up the all-star team for the regular season.

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League rules mandate that a draft be held before the start of each season to ensure the teams are evenly matched. But the all-star manager and coach wanted to leave the winning team intact as they entered the 13- and 14-year-old competition.

Earl Stone, district administrator for the local league, said the point is to keep the play competitive by making sure the best players don’t end up on the same team.

“If you get a powerhouse team, I mean, they’d dominate over there,” he said.

Former league board member Nancy Haas said Garcia also wanted to be reimbursed for travel expenses incurred during last year’s winning season.

“He put in a lot of his own money for travel,” she said. But she added that Little League doesn’t have enough funds to pay for all expenses.

“It’s not going to happen,” she said. “Little League is nonprofit.”

Despite the internal split, the organization recently won a resounding vote of confidence from city officials. Last week, the City Council agreed to lease the league two baseball diamonds at the city’s Poindexter Park.

“They’ll be provided with exclusive use of the park during specific times related to their practices and their games, and we’ll reserve the fields for that purpose,” said Mary Lindley, Moorpark’s director of community services.

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Parents will begin work today, cleaning up the site and doing minor grading to restore the proverbial level playing field.

“The stuff we’re doing right now is necessary to get the season going and also to make the fields safe and workable for us,” Adams said.

Once they receive the city’s interest-free loan of about $3,200, league organizers plan to raise the height of the park’s two backstops and the baseline fences, helping prevent foul balls from injuring bystanders or players on adjacent fields.

In addition, the loan will help pay for installing a temporary outfield fence for the park’s south diamond and an electrical outlet and meter to power a pitching machine.

Organizers will also add a gate in the chain-link fence separating the city’s facilities from four other baseball diamonds and a grassy field used by T-ball players at Chaparral Middle School.

The loan is repayable in three monthly installments starting in March 1999.

“Our long-term objective is to get a snack bar in,” Adams said, adding that revenue generated by refreshment and food sales should help fund park improvements.

The league already runs a snack bar at Chaparral Middle School, but fans must navigate a hazardous route around games in progress to get there, hurting sales, she said.

Despite the defections to the Simi Valley league, Moorpark’s program has seen an increase in its ranks, which include boys and girls from 5 years old to their mid-teens.

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“In the last few years we’ve had around 500 kids,” Adams said. “We’ve increased by around 80 to 90 kids this year.”

Adams said many 13- to 15-year-old players who would have otherwise abandoned Little League for other, more adolescent, pursuits are sticking around. They’re shooting for another chance at the playoffs and the World Series.

Garcia’s new team will play in a Simi Valley boys baseball league not tied to Little League. His players, district administrator Stone said, could lose out on the opportunity to reach the championship for 13-year-olds, played in Michigan.

“The sad part of it is this team had a real good chance to go to Michigan,” he said. “They’re being deprived of a chance to make history.”