Baseball School Strikes Out With Some Neighbors

Major League Baseball has a vision of an academy where Dodgers past and present will teach the intricacies of the game to the city’s at-risk youths.

But hundreds who live near the proposed northeast Valley site take a darker view of the project, even as city officials hope it will unite the area with the rest of Los Angeles.

At community meetings, academy backers have all but accused the opponents of racism, prompting shouting matches over how the $12-million academy would affect life in an area valued by many people who keep horses.

“People need to stop hoarding property that isn’t even theirs,” said academy supporter and Lake View Terrace resident Richard Townsell, 45. “It’s these issues that keep a certain people up and a certain people oppressed.”

An Executive’s Brainchild

Current plans call for the academy to be built on 22 acres on the northern part of Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace and to open in the fall.

The academy would offer three-month programs aimed at keeping at-risk youths out of trouble, with 180 or so, ages 11 to 15, participating in each session. The classes will cover all aspects of the game--including playing, coaching and grounds keeping--and will be taught by professionals.

The facility would also include a showcase field with lighting and seating for about 700 spectators.

The academy is the dream of Major League Baseball executive Jimmie Lee Solomon, who sees it as a way to help disadvantaged children, just as playing football helped him during his adolescence in rural east Texas.

“If we don’t get a baseball player out of it, maybe we’ll get a baseball fan or an administrator,” said Solomon, senior vice president of operations. “We’re trying to energize people about a sport that’s been dying in the inner cities.”

Major League officials want the facility, which would be the first of its kind in the United States, to be a prototype for academies in other cities. Officials said Los Angeles was selected because of its diversity, baseball history and commitment to the project.

Plans for the academy were first announced in May and the idea won unanimous approval from the City Council. The baseball center would join a cluster of nearby projects under consideration for the recreation area, including a new children’s museum.

The academy’s five fields and classrooms would be constructed on land leased from the Army Corps of Engineers. Currently, the flat plot is being used as a tree nursery.

Major League Baseball will contribute $3 million to building costs and $1 million each year to run the facility. The rest of the money to build the center would likely come from the city and state.

Those who oppose the academy say the community needs to maintain open space to keep its appeal. Politicians are too eager to develop land, ignoring the people who live in the area primarily because they can keep horses on their property, said Lake View Terrace resident Bart Paul.

“The objection isn’t that people want to ride horses on that spot,” said Paul. “There will be that tipping point where so many non-horse owners are in the area that they start complaining about flies or dust or odors. We’re not elitist or racist, we’re just trying to maintain this heritage for our children.”

Change is inevitable, others say, adding that the academy is a positive way to shape an undeveloped area where residents must drive 20 minutes to find a movie theater or shopping mall.

Academy Could Help Area’s Reputation

The area often receives negative attention--and is known to many as the place where Los Angeles police beat Rodney King in 1991. Council President Alex Padilla said the academy would help turn around the image many people have of the area.

“[The academy] represents respect,” Padilla said. “This is the kind of reputation we want our community to have.”

Padilla pushed the Hansen Dam location above the other eight suggested in the Los Angeles area, and Major League officials agreed the site was ideal.

Since the academy would accept children from throughout the city, some northeast Valley residents contend it should be more centrally located so participants from other areas will not have to travel so far. Padilla said he thinks building the academy in an out-of-the-way area better captures the city’s spread-out nature.

Many residents said they have no opinions on the baseball academy because they have not been informed about it. Padilla’s office has tried to contact residents with fliers and through existing neighborhood councils, spokesman David Gershwin said.

Those who do vehemently oppose the project said it is the location that most bothers them. They also say some aspects of the academy are illogical and worry it will turn into a training facility for the Dodgers.

“They should develop the baseball fields they have instead of building a multimillion-dollar complex the kids can only use for three months,” said Joyce Williams, president of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. “Besides, 11-year-olds have no clue what they want to do when they’re 20 and beyond.”

Padilla said the academy’s curriculum will offer youths several baseball-related career choices, rather than letting them believe playing is the only way to be involved in the game.

Preserving the area’s status should be a secondary goal to giving children another way to release their energy, said Solomon.

“It’s not horses who are at risk, it’s our future--those kids,” he said. “A lot of times they go down the wrong path because that’s the only one available. At least now they’ll have the option for something more.”