Planning Their Root

What would you give up to see your kid in The Show, to go to the mecca of Little League baseball known as Williamsport?

Anything, said parents for the Cypress Federal Little League all-stars, who beat a team from Woodinville, Wash., 3-1 Thursday night to advance to the World Series, which begins Sunday in Pennsylvania.

“I had a sinking feeling throughout the game that I might have bought my plane tickets in haste,” said Jim Pepperdine, whose son Bryan is a catcher on the team. “But now we’re going to Williamsport, we’re going to take drives through some beautiful country and have a great time.”

A couple of weeks ago, after the team clinched the Southern California championship, eager parents--jinx factor be damned--began scrambling to arrange vacations, book flights and reserve hotel rooms near Williamsport.

With car rentals and other expenses, parents guess they will spend about $1,000 a person to go to the series, but who’s counting? And what are credit cards for anyway?

“Everyone we’ve talked to, including us, was maxing out everything and saying, ‘The hell with it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This is never going to happen again.’ We’re all working people, and we’re all in the same boat together,” said Kevin Wesley, 42, whose son Zach is a team pitcher.

Still, Wesley and other parents say they wish that the Little League organization had helped with travel arrangements--perhaps arranging a block of discounted airline seats or hotel rooms.

Little League officials said it would be difficult to schedule travel for parents of teams from four international and four U.S. cities, coordinating all the schedules and price-range preferences.

“Some teams have very few parents [who come]; some bring about half the town,” said Little League spokesman Lance Van Auken in Williamsport.

Little League does not arrange for discount travel or financial assistance for parents of the ballplayers, he said. Parents of players on teams that advance through the ranks understand that they will be responsible for their own travel arrangements and costs, he said.

Cypress parents said they anticipated the Williamsport trip and made their arrangements. Still, they said, it would be nice if Little League helped out.

The organization’s Western Regional headquarters in San Bernardino, where Thursday’s game was played, gave parents a discount code to book USAir tickets. But those who looked into the offer said the fares were no cheaper than regular prices and would require standby status. So families set out on their own.

No one wanted to buy airline tickets at the last minute, without a seven-day advance, and pay $1,600 or more. So parents went ahead and bought nonrefundable tickets that come with a hefty fee of $75 or so for any changes.

Most lodgings in the area have been booked for weeks, so team backers are grabbing any rooms they can--even those that are more than an hour’s drive away from Williamsport.

Candy Baratelle, a single mom, said she could not miss seeing her son Nick play in the World Series, even if it meant taking a red-eye flight into Philadelphia and driving 200 miles to her hotel.

“We all scrambled a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Said Cindy Biseno, who wants to see her son Logan Carrillo play: “Everyone’s just grabbing and booking their own. What do you do? You wait, you pay $1,700. . . . There’s no way I was going to stay home.”

Instead, she booked her fight nine days ago for $321 round trip on American Airlines.

Pat Cassa and his family would have gone to Williamsport anyway because they have nonrefundable tickets, he said. Cassa, his wife, Katherine, and their son Jeffrey got round-trip tickets for $364 each earlier this month. Cassa said he has been putting travel money aside to make sure he could watch his son Pat Jr. on the field.

He wishes the family could fly together, but Little League flies the team out on a designated plane.

“I think Little League needs to look at whole packages so parents can fly with their kids,” he said.

Times staff writer Renee Tawa contributed to this report.

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