Prevailing With Little Leaguers, Life

Leave it to a 12-year-old to put Little League baseball into proper perspective.

With coaches and parents feeling nervous before a district tournament game this week, an Encino player warming up in the outfield made a polite request.

“Could you please clean up the dog poop?” he asked.

Replied the smiling groundskeeper, “It’s OK, I wouldn’t want to step into it either.”

Could you imagine a Dodger outfielder reacting as calmly if he encountered a similar obstacle at Dodger Stadium?

I came to Northridge Little League to watch the best 12-year-old pitcher in District 40, Mike “Big Unit” Diaz of San Val. He didn’t disappoint, striking out 10 batters in four innings as San Val defeated Encino, 12-0.

Players shook hands, there were no insults of the umpires and no one filed a protest challenging Diaz’s age or residence.

After enduring the ugliness of last season, when forfeits and accusations of cheating rocked District 40, I wanted to write a positive story on Little League baseball.

George Colon, the 21-year-old manager of San Val, reaffirmed my belief that good things are happening.

How someone so young was given responsibility to take charge of a group of rambunctious 11- and 12-year-olds provides a clue to Colon’s character.

“He’s a real nice guy,” Diaz said. “He’s a good coach. He knows a lot about baseball.”

Colon knows even more about life.

He could have been another statistic in a 500-page government report.

As a sophomore at Poly High, he got his girlfriend pregnant.

At 16, he was a father.

His own father made it clear his life had changed, whether he was ready or not.

“You think you’re a man now?” his father told him sternly. “Don’t think you’re going to get any government aid. You’re going to get a job and support her.”

Colon quit the Poly baseball team as a junior and went to work. He tried to play baseball again the next season, but there was no spot for him.

“I had no uniform,” Poly Coach Chuck Schwal said.

Colon kept showing up to games, sitting in the stands, rooting for his friends.

When Poly lost a couple players to grades, Schwal let Colon back on the team.

Colon juggled school, baseball and work. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., he went to school. From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. he was at baseball practice or games. From 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., he worked as a bus boy for a pizza restaurant.

“He changed his life,” Poly junior varsity coach Jimmy Ikeda said. “He got a new set of friends and took on greater responsibility.”

Said Schwal: “He just loved to play the game. He took the losses heavier than anybody. He really turned it around from being in trouble to being a good father and good kid.”

Colon made peace with his girlfriend’s parents. He married his girlfriend, Erica, on Aug. 10, 1996. They have two children, Ashley, 5, and George, 2. They live in a Sun Valley apartment. Colon works installing central air conditioning.

“He’s a good guy,” former Poly teammate Ray Montenegro said. “He went the right way.”

Colon was an assistant coach for an all-star team of 9- and 10-year-olds last season before guiding his 11- and 12-year-old team to a league title this season at San Val.

He looks no older than a high school student and has the energy to run laps with his own players.

“As far as yelling, I never yell at them or discourage them,” he said.

Two of his San Val players--Ramon Soto and Saul De La Torre--are younger brothers of ex-Poly players who played with Colon in 1995.

Diaz is a cousin of Burroughs pitcher Jesse Perez. He has lived with the Perez family since his mother died following an automobile accident when he was eight months old.

Schwal said the San Val players couldn’t have a better manager to learn from.

“Yeah, he’s a role model,” Schwal said. “He knows something about life.”

San Val has never won the District 40 championship. Located a couple blocks from Poly, San Val doesn’t have the pristine fields of Encino, the large facilities of Northridge or the money of Woodland Hills.

But things are changing. The gophers are gone, there are new fences, improved infields and a new electronic scoreboard is going up.

The players have proven themselves in victories over Encino, Sherman Oaks and San Fernando.

Next up is a game Monday against unbeaten Woodland Hills at Northridge.

There are no guarantees of a happy ending, but Colon is proof happy endings don’t just occur in fairy tales and movies.

*

Eric Sondheimer’s local column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422.