Baseball: It’s an historic day with five former Hart players in the major leagues

On the day five of his former Hart High baseball players could be found playing in the major leagues, with two of them starting on the mound in games, Jim Ozella was dressed on Thursday evening in a T-shirt, black shorts and carrying around a bat ready to hit pregame ground balls and fly balls to his players in a summer league game against El Camino Real.

Ozella, the Hart head coach since 2000, couldn’t have been more proud seeing Trevor Bauer (Cleveland Indians), Trevor Brown (San Francisco Giants), James Shields (Chicago White Sox), Mike Montgomery (Seattle Mariners) and Tyler Glasnow (Pittsburgh Pirates) fulfilling their dreams as major leaguers.

Glasnow, 22, made his debut on the mound for the Pirates on Thursday, allowing three hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings while striking out five in a 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. Bauer started for the Indians, giving up eight hits and five runs against the New York Yankees.

No high school in California and perhaps in the nation has more current major leaguers than Hart.

“It’s really a testament to our kids who have worked real hard to acheive the goals they want to achieve,” Ozella said. “Dreams can come true if you apply yourself, you have talent and work hard at it.

“All five guys had dreams and achieved those dreams. They’ve ovecome a lot of obstacles and they’ve overcome some injuries and they’ve overcome people who said they couldn’t achieve.”

Hart is located in the competitive Santa Clarita Valley, which has lots of talented teams and players. Ozella coached all five players in high school, and he was back getting his current team ready for next week’s Valley Invitational Baseball League playoffs.

Hart defeated two-time defending City Section champion El Camino Real, 4-0, behind sidearmer Brendan Henry.

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