A Day for Albums
On this gala occasion, for an hour, it felt as if the circus were coming to town and going to play here for the rest of the season.
This was a moment for the photo albums and a big deposit for the memory banks of younger aficionados and older ones.
With television and still cameras poised, dignitaries were strung across the dais.
Setting the Scene
To sweeten the environment and to bolster slower imaginations a white canopied platform was set up behind home plate, shielding the lucky denizens from a fairly blazing mid-morning ball of sun.
Whether in suits or casual wear, important personages also dotted the kelly-green baseball field, which had been spruced up for the occasion.
The diamond looked as if it had been tightly sealed and scrupulously preserved since the last blue-and-gold West team artfully danced forth and back, across the grass. Other teams have used the field in the interim, but on this occasion, the prodigal team was returning home.
Tempting for a Batter
The 330-feet distances down the right and left field foul lines, and the 400-foot sign in straightaway center, looked temptingly close on a day made for restoring baseball.
The yawning layout seemed as inviting as a Florida or Arizona baseball field in the first hour of spring training.
The crowd, a pleasant mixture of curious, anxious and thrilled observers, was buzzing as if a championship game were about to unfold.
Burke Shines
County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who does not always make personal appearances these days, gave one of her memorable performances.
A year ahead of retirement, she was as sprightly as somebody one-third her age.
Rocky Retirement
It may seem as if the whole world is turning over. Hours before officially entering his own retirement, Rocky Young, Chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, gave his final talk in that capacity.
This was a media event of significant stature.
The RBI League
John Young, the spine of the RBI League Reviving Baseball in the Inner City was introduced as a key figure in restoring baseball to the campus that has to grit its teeth every day to attract even a little bit of attention.
Mr. Youngs league was formed in 1989 to introduce and to spark renewed interest in baseball among minority athletes in city high schools who were being lured away from baseball, into basketball and football.
Besides a score or more of still photographers, television cameras were in evidence, and when was the last time CBS and ABC television visited the lovely grounds of West L.A. College?
Opening Moves
Bob Grant, a stocky, athletic-looking coach and baseball player who is known in baseball circles, will be the first West baseball coach of the new century.
No time-waster, the Westchester High School graduate introduced three young players he has recruited, two from the Westside, including Santa Monica, and one from San Diego.
The 46-or-so-game season of the new era at West is scheduled to open on Jan. 25, six months away, against Los Angeles City College. Mr. Grant said he does not expect the season to end for his embryonic team until the state championships in the final week of May.
Technically, Mr. Grant succeeds the highly successful Coach Artie Harris, who was getting ready to start his second decade in charge of the team when West suddenly defunded the sport.
Changing Leaders and Sox
One year almost to the day after being named chief executive of the campus, Dr. Rocha, an ambitious, energetic visionary who vowed to make a deep imprint on long-struggling West, fulfilled one of his golden promises.
Although it seems to some that the community college inches outside of the Culver City border goes through presidents like rainwater through an inexpensive raincoat, Dr. Rocha is striking even cynics as a keeper.
A talker for sure and now a doer, he crafts promises, verbally sketches dreams, draws large crowds, and when they open their eyes, the audience sees he has made good once again.
Brighter Days Looming?
Returning baseball to the campus is the latest of several signs Dr. Rocha has given that a period of perhaps unprecedented community and media prominence is beckoning to West.
He has shown that he knows people who are wired and can reach such people to brace a campus that historically has fought off lethargy from within and without.
This morning, such an attitude felt like dusty old history that had no place in the upbeat dialogue.
Timing Crucial
Among his other gifts, Dr. Rocha obviously values punctuality.
I am gong to get started right on time, the college president with the matinee star looks said at the appointed hour.
A pitcher in high school and college not that many East Coast summers ago he opened with a patch of personal history.
A Brief Disappointment
I came here over a year ago, and I remember the first time I drove up Albert Vera Drive, said the president. I saw this field. I said to some of my good friends, We play baseball dont we? They said no. I said, We have got to change that. We have got to bring back a baseball team.
After 8 months of meetings, pledges and hirings, Dr. Rocha converted hundreds more new believers in the Rocha Vision today.
