Roosevelt’s Last Hurdle: Top-Seeded Chatsworth

Roosevelt High’s baseball team practices at a park that has no mound but plenty of winos. Its star pitcher wears cleats that are falling apart. Few players can afford to buy their own bats.

In contrast, Chatsworth has four game uniforms, a pristine home field with a fancy scoreboard, three batting cages and players who pay private coaches when they need to come out of a slump.

“There’s so many things they have that we don’t have,” Coach Scott Pearson of Roosevelt said.

Despite many obstacles, Roosevelt has become the first inner-city school to reach the City Championship baseball game since Crenshaw in 1979.

The 15th-seeded Roughriders (23-8-1) will play top-seeded Chatsworth (30-2) in tonight’s championship game at Dodger Stadium because they refused to make excuses.

“The kids just worked real hard,” Pearson said.

It’s a breakthrough moment for a school that opened in 1923 and counts former Dodger center fielder Willie Davis and Heisman Trophy winner Mike Garrett among its alumni.

“There’s so much bad publicity East L.A. gets,” Pearson said.

There are real neighborhood problems with gangs, delinquency and truancy, but the 35-year-old Pearson takes great pride in the commitment of his players.

“The kids are tough mentally,” he said. “Instead of having one or two leaders, we’ve had 20 leaders. They’re very respectful and very disciplined.”

Valley teams have won 27 of the last 28 City Championships, but Roosevelt earned respect with playoff victories over Granada Hills Kennedy, Granada Hills and Sun Valley Poly. Those three schools have combined to win 11 City titles and reach Dodger Stadium 18 times.

For once, the boys from Boyle Heights get the chance to play against the best team from the Valley on L.A.’s most hallowed field.

“It’s a big thing,” said Roosevelt pitcher Joram Iboa, who has signed with UC Irvine.

Roosevelt’s success could be evidence that the Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities program is having an impact.

Several Roosevelt players participate in the RBI program that was founded in 1989 by major league scout John Young.

Major league baseball has spent $10 million since 1991 in the program that involves more than 125,000 boys and girls in 160 cities around the world.

Tonight, Roosevelt players with names such as Valdez, Garcia, Gonzalez, Hernandez and Perez will inspire others to follow their path just by stepping onto the field and proving that anything is possible.

“Hopefully, this will get the kids in the community playing more baseball,” Pearson said.