KIDS TAKING A SWING AT FRESH STARTS.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
The kid swung the bat as hard as he could, then watched - stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. - as the softball softball, variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Invented (1888) in Chicago as an indoor game, it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground ball, kitten ball, and, because it was also played by women, ladies' flew over the center fielder's head and landed on the dirt running track. A home run. He sprinted to first base, still holding the bat as the crowd began to yell. How was he supposed to know he should drop the bat and take his time running the bases? They didn't play softball in the tough L.A. neighborhood where the kid grew up. So you couldn't blame the kid for stopping at second base and wondering what he'd done wrong. ``It was the first time in my life people yelled at me for doing something right,'' said Steven, 17. It's called cheering, son. Steven's a member of the Pac Lodge Sluggers, which went undefeated in 12 games this year to win the championship of the Placement and Group Home League. Never heard of it? Not too many people have. I'd like to tell you the full names of the players and show you their faces, but that would be against the law. The kids playing in this league are all juvenile wards of the court. They've either done something wrong or had something wrong done to them. Most grew up in tough, inner-city neighborhoods, where a good day meant getting home Getting Home (Simplified Chinese: 落叶归根; Traditional Chinese: 落葉歸根; Pinyin: in one piece. I stopped by the Woodland Hills campus Monday to visit with the Pacific Lodge The Pacific lodge style of architecture is based loosely on vague notions of cedar lodges and log cabin dwellings of early inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. Boys Home championship softball team, which had just been awarded $5,000 from the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. to buy new sports equipment. The foundation may be the best thing that came out of the 1984 Olympic Games Olympic games, premier athletic meeting of ancient Greece, and, in modern times, series of international sports contests. The Olympics of Ancient Greece Although records cannot verify games earlier than 776 B.C. held in Los Angeles. Surplus revenue from the Games has been used to buy equipment for needy and troubled kids. Those worn baseball gloves the Pac Lodge Sluggers used this season and the plastic ones handed out to kids on Glove Night at Dodger Stadium • • [ were finally going in the trash. So were the lopsided lop·sid·ed adj. 1. Heavier, larger, or higher on one side than on the other. 2. Sagging or leaning to one side. 3. softballs, ripped T-shirts, and holey tennis shoes tennis shoes npl → zapatillas fpl de tenis tennis shoes npl → (chaussures fpl de) tennis mpl tennis shoes tennis they wore during their undefeated, championship season. They were going to get real uniforms and new equipment. ``Before I got here, I had never been on a sports team of any kind,'' said David, 17, who's been at the home for six months. Team sports just weren't on the neighborhood agenda where he lived. Both David and Steven knelt at home plate and smoothed out the dirt the team had picked up from Dodger Stadium earlier this year. Magic dirt Magic Dirt is an Australian rock band. Formed in 1992 in Geelong, Victoria and continuing to this day, they have become one of the longest running - while far from the most commercially successful - bands to come out the Australian Music scene in the 1990s. , some say. ``The Dodgers were putting new dirt in their infield and we asked if we could use some of the old dirt for our field,'' said Larry Flowers, a counselor at the home. Flowers and a few of the players drove down to the stadium in the home's old pickup truck and loaded up the red clay Dodger dirt. You would have thought they were bringing home gold. ``The boys were so excited to be putting in dirt used in Dodger Stadium on our old softball field,'' said Kristin Sanders, associate director of development. ``It made them feel special, and that's something most of these kids have never felt before.'' Now, nobody's saying Dodger dirt was responsible for their undefeated season, but there was some magic going on that old softball field at the home. ``We came together as a team, which is something none of us ever did in our old neighborhoods,'' Steven said. ``I guess that's why we're here, to learn new things, and turn our lives around. Do some positive things for a change.'' Learn what cheering, not yelling, sounds like. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Two wards of the Pacific Lodge Boys Home in Woodland Hills stand on dirt reaped from Dodger Stadium at their own field's home plate. Tina Burch/Staff Photographer |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion