Baseball Teams

So here's Peter Ueberroth, L.A.'s Olympic champion, chairman of the Newport Beach investor company the Contrarian Group, sharing his office with someone else -- his border collie, Koot, for Kootenai, the Idaho county where Ueberroth found him abandoned. Koot can be regarded as a small-scale version of the rescues that Ueberroth has been called on to make in his career. Besides formidably managing the 1984 Games, he has ridden to the help of South Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, run Major League Baseball and arranged the buyback of the Pebble Beach golf course from the Japanese.

The spring baseball schedule had Burroughs High School's varsity team playing its cross-town rival Burbank High this past Friday in what should have been the last game of the regular season. But the contest, which might have launched Burroughs into the playoffs, never happened. The team's season ended in mid-April, thanks to a boneheaded move by an assistant coach and a series of consequences that make for a rich little drama on crime and punishment. According to Burroughs High Principal Emilio Urioste, the team was in Arizona back in mid-March when said assistant coach — reportedly in his mid-20s — provided beer to some of the players.

It's pure speculation and gratuitous hype to label a 15-year-old freshman baseball player as a "can't miss" professional prospect. But identifying a top freshman and pointing out that he has the physical and mental maturity to be an immediate varsity standout is fair game, and 6-foot-3, 175-pound freshman Jack Flaherty of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake deserves the early attention. He has the cool, calm, confident demeanor of a young Trevor Plouffe, who started as a freshman for Encino Crespi and went on to become a first-round draft choice of the Minnesota Twins.

Rk. School, playoff division; previous ranking in parentheses 1. EDISON SS-1 (9-1) def. Huntington Beach, 2-0; Newport Harbor, 9-3; at Los Alamitos, Wednesday (1) 2. BISHOP AMAT SS-4 (6-2) vs. St. Monica, Monday (2) 3. VISTA MURRIETA SS-1 (9-1) def. Murrieta Valley, 12-4; Temecula Valley, 12-7; at Chaparral, Monday (5) 4. VALENCIA SS-1 (6-1) def. Golden Valley, 10-0; vs. Hart, Wednesday (7) 5. LONG BEACH WILSON SS-1 (7-3) def. Compton, 26-0; Palos Verdes, 5-2; at Lakewood, Tuesday (8)

With Dodger Dogs going for half price, Nancy Bea Hefley playing the organ and the USC and UCLA bands playing their schools' fight songs, the baseball game Sunday at Dodger Stadium between USC and UCLA produced an entertaining atmosphere for the crowd of 11,680. It also gave a struggling USC team an opportunity to regain its bearings and create some excitement among its fans after a 2-0 victory over the Bruins thanks to an energetic performance from closer Chad Smith, who struck out Dean Espy with the bases loaded in the eighth and then ran off the field to the roar of the crowd.

Eric Sondheimer's preseason high school baseball rankings. Rk. School, playoff division (2010 record); March 4 opener 1. Mission Viejo, SS-2 (18-10); at Capistrano Valley in Newport Elks tournament 2. El Dorado SS-1 (19-12); vs. Marina in Loara tournament 3. El Toro SS-1 (23-7); vs. Villa Park in Loara tournament 4. Alemany SS-2 (19-9); vs. Palmdale in Southern California Showdown 5. Chaminade SS-2 (25-7); vs. Rio Mesa in Southern California Showdown 6. Mater Dei SS-1 (20-10)

Occidental College baseball coach Jason Hawkins' eyes lit up when he learned who was coming to the Eagle Rock campus. Ty Cobb was enrolling. "When you hear about someone with that name, c'mon, you're excited, right?" Hawkins said. Cobb is the 19-year-old great-grandson of Ty Cobb, the legendary Detroit Tigers outfielder and Baseball Hall of Famer who is considered one of the game's all-time best players. The 6-foot-5 Occidental freshman is a left-hander who pitched and played first base at his high school in Atherton, Calif.

Six teenagers giggle and debate how to move a bush on a trolley without dropping it. Others, wearing batting gloves, lift bricks and wipe away ants and spiders crawling up their arms. Another tediously rolls his rake along a dirt field looking for rocks and nails. All are members of the San Juan Capistrano JSerra baseball team. Carrying shovels instead of bats and wearing shorts instead of sliding pants, they spent three days in September helping clean horse stalls and move heavy materials while sprucing up the Shea Center, which was founded in 1978 to serve as a therapeutic riding center for individuals with disabilities.

Doug McMasters keeps a framed photograph of nine former players on his desk at work. Dozens of others cover much of his bedroom wall. And he rents two storage units for his collection of Arcadia Astros hats, pants, jerseys and other gear. "I can't throw an Astros shirt away," says McMasters, 46. "I think I bleed blue and orange. " For 20 years, McMasters has coached the Astros, a summer baseball team for 15- to 19-year-olds. He has no children but jokes that he has hundreds ?

Saul Toledo, who played on and later wrote about Latino baseball teams during a celebrated era for the sport in East Los Angeles, has died. He was 90. Toledo died Sept. 28 of a heart attack at Downey Regional Medical Center, said Terry Cannon, executive director of the Baseball Reliquary, an organization whose historical projects have included documenting the history of Latinos and baseball in Southern California. Beginning in the 1940s, Toledo played on teams sponsored by local merchants.