Kennedy Accentuates Shift in Power

As Granada Hills Kennedy baseball players converged near the mound Saturday afternoon at Dodger Stadium and launched a joyous celebration for winning a record-tying seventh City Section championship, the historic setting offered a glimpse at the dramatic changes that have taken place socially and economically over the last 50 years in Los Angeles.

In 1963, Los Angeles Fremont won its seventh upper-division championship in baseball. It took 43 years for another school to finally catch the Pathfinders, but change has been blowing in the wind for decades.

Kennedy’s 4-2 victory over Chatsworth marked the 33rd time in the last 34 seasons that a San Fernando Valley team has won the City championship.

Shifts in population and economic development have made the communities of Granada Hills, Northridge, Woodland Hills and Chatsworth a baseball paradise, with young boys learning the game from T-ball through high school on well-manicured fields using state-of-the-art equipment and guided by expert coaches.

“The Valley has kind of taken over,” Kennedy Coach Manny Alvarado said.

It wasn’t always that way. Fremont and Coach Les Haserot won six titles from 1939 to 1948. In 1963, Fremont became the last South Los Angeles team to win the championship.

“There was a concentration of some very fine athletes,” said Phil Pote, the Pathfinders’ coach. “Baseball attracted a lot more African American kids because it was a quick track to the pros.”

As new high schools opened in the Valley and other sports grew in popularity, interest in baseball waned in the urban areas. Youth leagues dwindled, fields were allowed to deteriorate if not vanish, and the balance of power shifted.

“It’s a migration to the Valley,” Pote said. “Chatsworth practically has a farm system. From the time kids pick up a bat, it’s a progression to high school. “

Major League Baseball has funded Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities, creating more playing opportunities while helping to renovate facilities. But there’s much more to be done to catch up.

“There’s been about a 30-year hiatus,” Pote said.

Meanwhile, Kennedy, Chatsworth and Woodland Hills El Camino Real keep turning out championship teams and producing fundamentally sound players who know how to win and want to play from dawn ‘til dusk. There were no errors Saturday, an example of coaching and teaching at its best.

Pote, 73, has been a professional scout for 40 years. He understands the meaning of Kennedy equaling Fremont’s championship total.

“It’s the end of an era and a time that will never be again,” he said. “It’s miraculous the record has survived this long.”

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One home run at Dodger Stadium hit by a 15-year-old sophomore might be considered a fluke. But when the same player does it again a year later as a 16-year-old junior, it means he could be a once-in-a-lifetime player.

Matt Dominguez, Chatsworth’s third baseman, hit a sixth-inning home run over the left-field wall, his 28th career home run for the Chancellors. Last season, he hit a home run down the left-field line at Dodger Stadium.

“That was a bomb,” said Kennedy pitcher Fabian Williamson of Dominguez’s latest blast.

The only disappointment for Dominguez is that his team has lost each time in the championship game.

But college coaches and professional scouts can’t wait to finally take a crack at convincing Dominguez to join them next season when he’s a senior.

Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.