Big hits, big future, without the big head

The historic home run sailed high over the head of the right fielder

“When you’re in the middle of a game, you never think it’s your car,” Reseda Cleveland’s Andrew Horowitz said with a sigh.

The historic home run bounced off the broken window, rolled underneath a bench near a classroom, and then it started.

The frantic chase for the souvenir of a lifetime. The traditional scrum for a bit of longball memorabilia.

Three people.

Three people swung open the chain-link fence and dashed into a Cleveland High parking lot Tuesday afternoon in search of the homer that gave Chatsworth’s Mike Moustakas the single-season California state high school record.

A 13-year-old boy with a glove, a 12-year-old boy with a grin, and a Culligan Man.

“This is how we roll,” said Dennis Bansmer, a delivery driver for Culligan water.

And what a delightful journey for those who witnessed a record-setting home run that was neither jaded nor inflated.

There was no cynicism here. There was no pouting here. Nobody required four days to circle the bases. Nobody required 40 stitches to retrieve a baseball.

With caps pulled low over regulation heads, with uniforms hanging off regulation bodies, nobody mentioned steroids.

“This isn’t like the Barry Bonds home run chase,” Bansmer said. “Because Moose ain’t juiced.”

In front of several hundred fans jammed around a weathered Cleveland High field, Moustakas spit sunflower seeds and dirtied his jersey and swatted his record 22nd homer, which increased his California career record to 50.

He broke the record in the third inning, but they didn’t stop the game. He hit the ball literally out of the ballpark, over two chain-link fences and into a parking lot, more than 400 feet, but he didn’t even slow his trot.

“We don’t do that here,” Moustakas said with a shrug. “We’re not about records here.”

For Chatsworth, a two-time mythical national champion, it’s all about working for a fifth consecutive appearance in the City Championship game at Dodger Stadium.

“Around here, it’s not about home runs, it’s about winning games,” Moustakas said. “It’s about team.”

Hard to fathom that there is actually a time in their lives when baseball players believe that. Considering Moustakas is about a month from being a millionaire top-10 draft pick -- along with teammate Matt Dominguez -- it’s a refreshing belief indeed.

“No player here is bigger than our team; Mike has been here four years and learned that from the first day,” Chatsworth Coach Tom Meusborn said.

Let Bonds’ fans rely on judges and security guards and auction houses. The Chatsworth fans have wonderfully figured out this home run ball business with common sense, beginning last week when Moustakas hit his career-record 48th homer.

That ball was retrieved by a 13-year-old fan named Chris Shoup. The kid was going to keep it. He was going to add it to his collection of several important Chatsworth home runs.

“Then a man walked up to me with the word ‘Principal’ on his jacket,” Shoup said. “It was pretty easy to figure out what was going to happen next.”

Even though Chatsworth Principal Jeff Davis admittedly had no authority to ask for the ball, he asked for the ball.

“Hey, he’s the principal, I’m going to say no?” Shoup said.

Davis gave the ball to the Moustakas family and bought the kid a Chatsworth cap.

Fast-forward to Tuesday afternoon, when Shoup was wearing that cap as he began chasing Moustakas’ record homer along with 12-year-old Luke Coyle and Bansmer.

The three fans hustled into the parking lot, spotted the ball under the bench, and Coyle dived down to pick it up, and raised it high above his head.

Then he was struck dumb by a vision. An adult stepped in his path waving a $100 bill.

Coyle thought about it for, oh, five seconds, and handed over his souvenir for the money.

“I really wanted that ball,” Coyle said. “But when I saw an actual $100 bill, I was like, ‘C’mon!’ “‘

The adult, a man named Peter Hughes, once taught Mike Moustakas in junior high.

He immediately walked over to Moustakas’ father, who was hanging on the outfield fence with other dads, and handed him the ball.

“I wanted to make sure the ball ended up where it belonged,” Hughes said.

Moustakas’ father, also named Mike, stuck the ball in his pocket but said he wasn’t going to keep it. He promised, instead, to have his son sign it and return it to Hughes.

Said the father: “He was one of my son’s favorite teachers, he meant a lot to my son, so he deserves it.”

Said the son: “It’s just a ball. I’ve got the memories.”

So it goes, just another day at the ballpark, a record-breaking homer breaking the window of the opponent’s car, the ball being purchased by the batter’s former teacher, who gives the ball to the batter, who promptly gives it back.

And No. 756 is supposed to give us chills?

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

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Muscle Mike

Chatsworth’s Mike Moustakas broke the California high school single-season record for home runs. A look at the top five:

22 Mike Moustakas, 2007 Chatsworth

21 Chris Walston, 2002 Lakeside El Capitan

20 Chris Martinez, 1998 Canoga Park Chaminade

20 Alberto Concepcion, 1999 El Segundo

19 Danny Putnam, 2001 San Diego Rancho Bernardo

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Source: CalHi Sports