The Empire strikes out -- happily

WHEN THE Inland Empire finally falls, it won’t be the gridlock, the chunky-style smog or the meth epidemic that does us in. What’s pulling us apart is Major League Baseball. Every year’s pennant race brings the region closer to a peanuts-and-Crackerjack cataclysm.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties have reached a combined population of about 4 million, but we have no team of our own to rally behind. Instead, my home turf has become Southern California’s baseball battleground as refugees from the coastal real estate market continue to pour in. Dodger Blue flows into Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana and other San Bernardino County ‘burbs. Angels-obsessed Orange County exiles are overtaking Corona and the western edge of Riverside. And then comes a curveball: San Diegans are pushing north into Riverside County, bringing with them their oft-tested faith in the Padres.

As the waves of SoCal refugees overlap, many of our local boomtowns have no obvious favorite team, accentuating the Inland Empire’s already troubling lack of an identity. People move here because they have to, beating a strategic retreat from the coast’s inflated home prices. Their allegiances lie with the hometowns and home teams they hope to return to, someday, when the housing market corrects. They spend big hunks of their time commuting to their jobs and pastimes closer to the shore, further slowing their assimilation into the Empire.

With our new homes squeezed closer together than the bumpers on the 91 Freeway during rush hour, I fear tensions are bound to rise. This long, hot summer of baseball could provide the kindling. All it would take to ignite full civil strife is a World Series matchup between the Dodgers and the Angels.

The Empire was already on edge, enduring constant mockery from the coast. L.A. and O.C. have the Pacific; we’ve got the Salton Sea. They’ve got the Getty; we have the Wigwam Motel. And we all know Perris ain’t Paris.

Nobody’s going to build a big-league stadium and save our region’s self-image. There are no fields of dreams in the Inland Empire, only future subdivisions. Our one hope is for residents to face reality, plant roots and accept their lots (even with the junkers parked on the front lawn).

No matter how many people move here, the coastal counties will always consider the I.E. to be a minor-league region. And it is, quite literally. The Inland Empire is home to four of SoCal’s five minor-league baseball teams in the California League -- in Adelanto, Lake Elsinore, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino. They’re all just single-A clubs, and the best players can be plucked away at any time.

To draw fans to these low-stakes games, folksy fun becomes as important as hits and runs. My favorite team, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, features dinosaur mascots strutting their stuff atop dugouts, and fans from the stands are drawn into all sorts of kooky contests. The players are so poor that the audience passes a hat to collect money when someone hits a homer; most live with host families to avoid paying rent. And yet these guys sure look as if they’re having more fun than those scratch-and-spit soreheads in the major leagues.

Most of our minor-league guys won’t make it to the majors, just like most of us won’t break into the real estate market in Santa Monica or San Clemente. But after the shock wears off, we learn to like our landlocked minor-league lives. So you win, L.A. and O.C. But we keep on playing. That’s how the Inland Empire strikes back.