Unified Costa Mesa Little League set to play ball
For the first time in 25 years, Costa Mesa has just one Little League organization.
There will be no more spirited Mayor’s Cup rivalry games, which pitted Costa Mesa American Little League against Costa Mesa National Little League, but now there is unity.
Costa Mesa Little League is ready to take the field for 2021, with practices starting next week and an Opening Day — minus the traditional ceremony that goes with it — scheduled for April 10.
Costa Mesa American and Costa Mesa National have combined forces for one unified league that features 49 teams over seven divisions. About 500 kids are registered for the league, making it the largest in District 62, Costa Mesa Little League President Brian Rottschafer said.
“Before the 2020 season started, there were some questions about whether this could happen,” Rottschafer said. “Once the season ended early, that’s what we worked on over the pandemic, among other things. It had to be approved by the Little League in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and obviously by the district and the region. They signed off on it, and now we’ve got the whole city all playing one Little League, which is pretty cool.”
Costa Mesa American had been formed in 1996 as an offshoot of Costa Mesa National. Costa Mesa American was headquartered at Costa Mesa High School, while Costa Mesa National used fields at TeWinkle Middle School.
The league boundaries, which were generally west of Fairview Avenue for Costa Mesa National and east of Fairview for Costa Mesa American, were seen as equitable at the time.
In recent years, however, the membership of each league had been going in opposite directions.
Rottschafer, who was previously the Costa Mesa American president, said that league had been growing 10-15% each year pre-COVID-19. The Costa Mesa National numbers had been cut in half over roughly the same period of time, to about 215 players, longtime CMNLL player agent Stephanie Joyce said.
A Little League rule change in 2014 let players compete in either the league where they lived or the league where they attended school. Since many of the students on the westside of Costa Mesa went to school in Huntington Beach, they jumped ship to Seaview Little League, which is located in Surf City.
Other students on the westside, who attended Davis Magnet School adjacent to Costa Mesa High, switched to Costa Mesa American.
For years, Joyce said, Costa Mesa National had made the best of its role as the smallest league in District 62. But after the rule change, Costa Mesa National lost 40% of its registrants.
“At that point, the league shrank to drastic proportions,” Joyce said. “From 2014 to the 2019 season, it was scratch and claw to keep the league alive and active. There was a year there where we only had one Majors [Division] team.”
Joyce, who is no longer involved with the new league, said she and CMNLL President C.K. Green went to District 62 President Mark Groh in January 2020. They successfully presented the case that Costa Mesa would be better off with one Little League organization.
Just more than a year later, Costa Mesa Little League is getting ready to play ball. The united league should help Costa Mesa teams advance further in the postseason Tournament of Champions and District 62 All-Star Tournament.
“It was very easy to overhear when you would walk around the TOC or All-Star fields,” Joyce said. “People would say, ‘That’s just Costa Mesa.’ It was sad for our kids. While maybe we didn’t have a large pool of really good players, we had some truly excellent players. We just didn’t have enough of them to make a difference. It will be nice to see that reversed. Kids can be proud to be out there and from Costa Mesa now.”
Rottschafer said the unified league is working with local nonprofit Costa Mesa United to renovate the fields at TeWinkle. He added that those fields will be called the National campus, while the former CMALL fields will be called the American campus, a tip of the cap to the former leagues.
Green is staying on as Costa Mesa Little League board member at-large. He’s also coaching a Minor B team this year.
He said combining Costa Mesa American and Costa Mesa National was always something that was talked about, sometimes in jokes and sometimes just in passing. But now, it’s a reality.
“I think it’s great for kids in the city of Costa Mesa and great for baseball,” Green said.
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