Baseball Teams

It all started innocently enough. The Cincinnati Reds' leadoff hitter, Mariano Duncan, walked and stole second base. Luis Quinones bunted and beat it out. "I played for one run and I got 14," Manager Pete Rose said. The Reds scored 14 runs on 16 hits, all in the first inning, and went on to beat the Houston Astros, 18-2, Thursday at Cincinnati. The 16 hits set a modern major league record for one inning.

An old coach named Fred "The Fog" Shero once described the relationship between Canadians and their national pastime this way: "Hockey is where we live. … Life is just a place where we spend time between games. " It could feel like that in Southern California over the next few weeks. This is hockey's time to shine with two local teams in the hunt for the Stanley Cup, the Kings fighting to repeat as champions and the Ducks riding one of the better records in the league. The way things have gone for the Lakers and Clippers, and with our baseball teams struggling, the sport from up north could win some new fans.

Eight pitching machines have been stolen from four Westside high schools in the last two months, raising concerns that a theft ring is in operation. Beverly Hills was the first school struck the weekend of Dec. 18-19, when thieves cut a hole into a fence and stole two pitching machines from a batting cage. Culver City had two pitching machines taken Jan. 25 from a locked storage container. On the weekend of Feb.

On the day Frank McCourt surrendered the keys to Dodger Stadium and cashed out, the Dodgers had the best record in the National League. In the year since Mark Walter flashed his cash and Magic Johnson flashed his smile - from May 1 of last year through May 1 of this year - the Dodgers were 83-83. Money can't buy you love, at least in the standings. The Dodgers might be looking up at three teams in the National League West, but "looking up" just might be the best way to describe the state of the franchise.

Freedom of speech returned for Matt Harrington on Tuesday, and he quickly put his constitutional right to use, with his advisor speaking to nine major league teams before noon. Harrington, 19, was unable to talk to any team but the Colorado Rockies, who made him the seventh overall pick last year, until one week before the June 5 draft. Negotiations with the Rockies were contentious and dissolved months ago. The right-handed pitcher from Palmdale High is playing for the St.

Amid reports that Long Beach is making a pitch to keep the Riptide baseball team, the City Council on Monday will consider formalizing the terms of a deal to bring the minor league club to South County. Still contingent on approval from Saddleback College to build a 4,500-seat ball park on campus for the Riptide, the proposal before the City Council would in effect make the city a minority partner with the ballclub.

OMAHA -- Rosenblatt Stadium and the Titan House are only about three miles from the Qwest Center, where Cal State Fullerton will open the NCAA basketball tournament Thursday against Wisconsin, and the Titans are hoping some of the baseball karma reaches that far. "We're going to talk to some of those guys and find out the secret to Omaha," guard Frank Robinson said of the baseball team. "I heard it's Titanville over there so I'm going to call someone and see what they did." The baseball team has appeared at the College World Series at Rosenblatt so often that a group of alumni in 2003 swung a deal to rent out a house across the street every time they came and they have been back in 2004, 2006 and 2007, winning the title in 2004.

Cal State Fullerton is ranked eighth and Cal State Long Beach 11th in the preseason Collegiate Baseball Division I poll, it was announced Sunday. Last season, the Titans finished with a 46-17 record, reaching the championship game of the College World Series before losing to Pepperdine, which is ranked ninth in the preseason poll. Other ranked Southern California teams include USC (12), UCLA (14) and Cal State Northridge (25).

A team of top college baseball players from the United States withdrew Sunday from a tournament in Nicaragua after a window on its bus was shattered and four players were slightly injured during a period of civil unrest. Pitchers Steve Reich of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and John Kelly of the University of Connecticut were cut by flying glass but not seriously injured, team spokesman Mike Lantz said.

ANTELOPE VALLEY CO-COACHES: Tim Fieckert and Joe Watts, second season LAST SEASON: 6-26; eighth in Foothill Conference, 5-19 PLAYERS TO WATCH: When scanning the roster, one name rises to the surface immediately--catcher Jack Cox. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound sophomore was an All-Foothill Conference selection last season after leading the team in several offensive categories. Cox, from Antelope Valley High, batted .353 with seven home runs and 28 runs batted in.

Hate to be a killjoy, but has anybody pondered when the goose might stop laying those golden eggs? We now live in the land of the Magic Guggenheims and Arte. That sounds like a circus act, and with the way the money has been flowing of late, that might not be an unfair moniker. Those are our two baseball owners, the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. We used to hate the Yankees for doing what our teams are doing. Now, we are them.

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND : Orel Hershiser was cut by his high school baseball team. Orel Hershiser's tale of success as a Major League pitcher is certainly one of an underdog succeeding against great odds. When the Dodgers drafted Hershiser out of Bowling Green in the 17th round of the 1979 MLB Draft, he was the 440th player taken overall and the 195th pitcher. That is well past the time a team would realistically expect to find a quality Major Leaguer and yet after Hershiser retired in 2000 he ended up winning more games than any other pitcher taken in that draft.

Israel might be the name on the front of the jersey, but the Team Israel entry in next week's World Baseball Classic qualifier might well be called Team L.A. Of the 28 players on the roster, three are from Israel and 10 from the Los Angeles area. Israeli baseball officials have stocked the roster with Jewish minor leaguers in the hope of advancing into the main WBC field next year, adding a Ryan Braun or Kevin Youkilis to the roster and attracting enough attention in Israel to generate interest in the sport.

P: Luke Eubank, Newbury Park, Sr. The right-hander threw three no-hitters, had six shutouts and went 11-0 with a 1.01 ERA for the Southern Section Division 1 champions. He signed with Cal State Los Angeles. P: Chris Castellanos, Long Beach Poly, Jr. Beating pro draft picks Shane Watson and Chase DeJong in consecutive starts was a memorable milestone for Castellanos, a left-hander who was 8-2 with an 0.92 ERA and threw a perfect game against Long Beach Wilson. UT: Justin Garza, La Verne Bonita, Sr. Bound for Cal State Fullerton, he was 12-1 with an 0.72 ERA and 25-1 over two seasons.

Winning is important, but so is learning life lessons, so understand the pride Sylmar High baseball Coach Ray Rivera has in his players when he looks at a photo taken at the school prom this month and sees them surrounding the senior prom queen, Candy Guzman . The story behind the photo is that Guzman is a special-needs student who started hanging out with the baseball players at nutrition three years ago. As Rivera tells the story,...

BASEBALL/SOCCER URBAN LEGEND : The first American professional soccer league championship was won by a moonlighting baseball team. While individual players had been paid for games going as far back as 1892, it was not until the early 20th Century that there was the first attempt to form an actual professional football league. The National Football League (not to be confused with the modern NFL) formed (and disbanded) in 1902. It would not be until the American Professional Football Assn.

Residents of Saddleback Valley say that the area's new minor league baseball club should be named after a local band of Indians, any one of several indigenous animals or the NBA's Los Angeles franchise. Those were among dozens of suggestions made this week during a contest to name the team, which begins league play at Saddleback College on May 23. The winner will get a pair of season tickets and bragging rights. All entries must be received by Wednesday.

A basketball gym is not the best place to hold a baseball practice. But the Sonora Raiders have no choice; two days of April rains turned their field into a mudhole. However, coming indoors won't prevent the Raiders from having a productive practice. Not if their coach, Pat Tellers, has anything to say about it. Sonora, which has won two Freeway League titles and the 1995 Southern Section Division II championship in nine years under Tellers, has started slowly this season.

For Magic Johnson and his partners, a long day and a surreal night spilled into the wee hours of the morning. Johnson and Co. awoke Tuesday morning as one of three remaining bidders for the Dodgers, with a final auction set to start Wednesday. Baseball's owners approved all three bidders Tuesday afternoon. Frank McCourt then threw a curveball. The Johnson group's last offer was so much more lucrative than the others that McCourt wanted to take it right then and there. The attorneys on both sides hurriedly completed the documents, the court-appointed mediator blessed the deal, and McCourt congratulated the winners.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are on the brink of a season to remember. This summer should be a game-changer, a franchise-maker, a preview of rosy things to come. All things considered, the Big A should become the Huge A. The second-fiddle role, the little-brother-to-the-Dodgers stuff that has plagued the Angels for so long, should begin to change with this springboard season. Years ago, in his TV commercials for a camera, a long-haired tennis star, Andre Agassi, confirmed a societal axiom: Image is everything.