Issue date: April 01, 1998

Not-so-Little League

As 1,600 boys and girls sign up for local teams, coaches and parents sweat over finding fields to play on.

By JENNIFER DESAI

It's been said that spring turns young men's fancies to the thought of love, but even a cursory look around area parks shows you what the season's really all about.

Baseball.

With Menlo-Atherton Little League opening its season last Saturday and the Alpine/West Menlo league's scheduled to open April 18, local boys and girls, ages 6 to 14, are suiting up for another year of T-Ball, pitching machine, Triple-A, Majors and softball.

But with some 800 kids in the Alpine league and another 800 to 1,000 in M-A, the big challenge is finding places for them to play.

The two leagues cover wide areas: Menlo-Atherton is open to kids living in Menlo Park east of El Camino Real and all of Atherton; Alpine covers all of Portola Valley and Woodside, and Menlo Park west of El Camino Real. But in all that space, playing fields are scarce: construction at Laurel school has closed out one of M-A's perennial venues, adult leagues and other spring sports compete for space, and the Little League teams whose practices were curtailed or postponed by winter rains are itching to get out onto dry fields.

Meanwhile, League leaders are wrestling with other issues, including concern about excessive emphasis on winning at the expense of learning and having fun, and continued controversy over a proposal to build a baseball field in Atherton's Holbrook-Palmer Park.

"Kids can learn a lot about life through Little League, using baseball as the vehicle," says Alpine League President Jim Kauffman. "It's a great activity, which makes up for the headaches of organizing it."

Alpine league

Alpine is dealing with parking problems at Ford Field in Portola Valley, where the town has dumped in the parking lot 10,000 cubic yards of mud and debris cleared from roads in the storms.

The league, which lost two months of practice time at Ford Field, also plays at five school fields -- Las Lomitas, La Entrada, Corte Madera, Hillview and Oak Knoll -- plus three other fields: McCovey field in Woodside, Portola Valley Town Center, and Woodside Priory. All "have been affected in some way by the rains," Mr. Kauffman says.

And this year, Easter and Passover fall on the weekend of April 11 -- the original opening weekend -- causing the league to push its opening day forward by one week.

The new schedule won't cramp Alpine as much as it might have in other years. Woodside Priory is allowing the league to use an additional field for girls' softball. "Now that we have that field, we don't need a 10-week season; the nine weeks we have will be enough," says Mr. Kauffman.

M-A League

For the Menlo-Atherton Little League, the problem isn't rain; it's a shortage of playing fields.

The shortage is compounded by the loss of a playing field at Laurel School due to construction there.

League officials are concerned the problem will grow as the population of kids eligible to play increases. "In terms of the 6 and 7 year olds alone, we're probably up 25 percent in enrollment," says Jeff Morris, a Little League board member and parent.

The T-ball division, for ages 6 to 8, will field 14 teams this year, with 14 or so members each; the Pitching Machine division, which plays at Encinal School, must use both fields to accommodate its members, ages 8 and 9; Triple-A, ages 9 to 11, share fields with St. Joseph's School teams; and Majors division, ages 11 to 14, plays at Burgess Park, competing with the Women's Soccer League for field time.

"We're just out of fields," Mr. Morris says. "We have kids practicing early Sunday mornings, and I mean early, because that's the only free time. This problem isn't going to go away."

To ease the shortage, league officials have proposed building a Little League field in Atherton's Holbrook-Palmer Park. The league just received its draft proposal back from City Manager Don Guluzzy, and is formulating a written response with "suggestions for narrowing the gap" between league proposals and town concerns about parking and noise, Mr. Morris says.

"We're doing everything possible to have this field in place by 1999," he says.

The league has already spent some $25,000 on environmental reviews and mediation, Mr. Morris says, and if the $100,000 field is constructed, "It'll be about the most expensive little league field ever built."

Community support

Although they are scrambling for playing fields, local Little Leagues have much to be thankful for, say league officials.

Steve Umphreys, president of the M-A league, said he planned to mention the shortage of fields in his opening day speech -- but only to thank representatives from St. Joseph's and Encinal Schools and Burgess Park for allowing the league to use their busy fields. "Some leagues have to pay as much as $20,000 for field use," Mr. Umphreys says. "That would just bankrupt us."

Mr. Kauffman of the Alpine league was careful, too, to underscore the community's support of Little League. "We have 64 teams at present, with 64 businesses and individuals who sponsor a team each," he says.

Finding adults who are willing and qualified to coach remains a challenge. "We try to forge ties with the community, and encourage parents to coach, but we're still always looking for more volunteers," says Mr. Umphreys.

Mr. Kauffman agreed: "Many people who might coach are intimidated because they think they don't know baseball. I tell them to remember it's important to be a role model. The rest you can get from a book."



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