Years from now, when Seth Hernandez is pitching in the major leagues and pro baseball commentators are debating just how good he might become, those who saw him throw during his two years of high school baseball at Corona High will gladly offer their fondest memories.
The statistics are impressive enough: In 53 1/3 innings this season, he struck out 105, gave up 19 hits and three earned runs for an ERA of 0.39. The most impressive statistic was walking only seven batters while using a 99-mph fastball. It showed his pinpoint control and how much he had improved over his junior season, when he walked 15 in 56 innings.
“That was his goal,” coach Andy Wise said. “What are we going to do to get better?”
His pitching mechanics became more consistent, generating the kind of power and accuracy to cause people to repeatedly use the word “special” in describing him on the mound. There also was the time he hit two three-run homers in the Panthers’ Southern Section Division 1 playoff victory over Los Osos.
Seth Hernandez of Corona.
(Nick Koza)
He wasn’t perfect, though, losing 2-0 to St. John Bosco in the Division 1 semifinals, finishing his high school career with an 18-1 pitching record for two seasons. He didn’t mope. He didn’t make excuses afterward. He knew there would be more challenges ahead.
“I’m still a kid,” he said.
For a season of excellence, Hernandez has been named The Times’ baseball player of the year for the second consecutive season. He’s expected to be a high pick in next month’s amateur draft. He also was named the Gatorade national player of the year.
One of his strengths for years has been his ability to perform while being watched by scouts, fans and opponents. He’s comfortable in his environment, used to the attention and is particularly ready to begin his pro career and keep on a path toward pitching in the big leagues.
With Southern California having produced first-round draft picks such as Paul Skenes (El Toro), Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran), Trevor Bauer (Hart), Max Fried (Harvard-Westlake) and Jack Flaherty (Harvard-Westlake) in recent years, it’s pretty clear that Hernandez’s resume fits in well and offers confidence in his abilities.
He’s also glad he decided to play high school baseball after being home-schooled.
“At the end of the day, I have brothers for life and I’ll never forget the memories I spent with them,” he said of his high school days.
Palisades High baseball coach Mike Voelkel, who is in his 18th season, said he’s been promised a new field after bulldozers did what they do best — removed anything remaining of the Palisades baseball field two weeks ago.
It just won’t be him coaching, because he’ll be long retired when a new field is built. The Los Angeles Unified School District is estimating 2029 when a new field will be completed, but everyone knows LAUSD estimates to finish building something are rarely accurate.
Palisades High’s baseball field is no more.
(Craig Weston)
LAUSD will be putting temporary bungalow classrooms on the space to help the school rebuild from the Palisades fire. The rapid leveling of the field happened despite some wanting an alternative plan. The school had bungalows before the fire but they were destroyed. Suddenly the field became the lead option.
Here’s the statement from an LAUSD spokesperson: “There were 21 classrooms destroyed in the fire that were housed in both permanent and portable buildings. Temporary portable classrooms have been placed on the baseball field and will be utilized until permanent structures are erected — which is expected to be complete in Q4-2028. At that time the portable classrooms on the baseball field will be removed and the baseball field will be reconstructed, which is anticipated to be completed in 2029.”
This season the baseball team has been traveling to various sites for games and practices because the campus is closed. No plan has been announced for what they will do next year. Not having a field will not encourage baseball players to stick around at a school holding classes at the old Sears building in Santa Monica.
For alumni, the destruction of the field is disturbing. Millions of dollars were invested for improvements, including netting, fencing, pitching machines and batting cages. Rick Poulos, who had two sons play baseball at Palisades, said he helped put in “very expensive protective poles and netting.”
All gone.
“It is an integral part of the community,” he said.
Darryl Strawberry once hit a ball onto Sunset Boulevard during his playing days at Crenshaw High.
The whole Western League is facing a challenge with four of the seven schools having no baseball fields. Only Venice, Fairfax and Westchester have playable fields on campus at the moment.
Voelkel got one last look at his field when he was escorted to check out things in his office before the bulldozers cleared everything.
“I think I can go to heaven with my head held high with the blood, sweat and tears put into that field,” he said.
That was also the year in which the Dodgers refused to take the field for a late August game to protest racial injustice in the wake of a police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man in Wisconsin.
The summer of racial reckoning, and the Dodgers’ modest role in it, feels like something from the distant past.
Cody Bellinger, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy kneeled before a game against the Giants in July 2020 to protest racial injustice.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Rather than continue to stimulate important conversations, the Dodgers are back to whistling past America’s graveyard, pretending there is nothing hypocritical about visiting President Trump one week and celebrating Jackie Robinson Day the next. Conservative Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham wanted athletes to “shut up and dribble,” and the Dodgers are doing the baseball equivalent of just that.
The opportunity for the Dodgers to regain their stature as agents of change has come and gone, their salute to Robinson on Tuesday reverting to its previous form as a cynical exercise in stealing the valor of a previous generation.
This shift in social climate was subtly pointed out by Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts earlier this month when he explained his decision to visit the Trump White House after declining to do so with the Boston Red Sox in 2019.
“At the time,” Betts told reporters, “the world was a different place.”
The world was in even more of a different place in 2020. Most of the country was in lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Major league teams played 60-game regular seasons in which no fans were allowed in stadiums.
Baseball clubhouses are traditionally white and politically conservative spaces. The pandemic didn’t change that. What changed in the Dodgers locker room was a willingness to listen.
On Aug. 23 of that year, a Black man named Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., leading to demonstrations around the country. Two days later, at a protest in Kenosha, white 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people.
The Dodgers were at Oracle Park on Aug. 26 when they received word of boycotted games in the NBA, as well as Major League Baseball. The only African American player on the team knew what he had to do.
“In my shoes,” Betts said at the time, “I couldn’t play.”
Manager Dave Roberts and third base coach George Lombard also ruled themselves out.
Betts told his teammates he would support them if they played the San Francisco Giants that day. They wouldn’t hear it. They joined his protest.
Starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw said: “As a white player on this team … how can we show support? What is something we can do to help our Black brothers on this team? Once Mookie said he wasn’t going to play … we felt the best thing to do to support him was not playing.”
Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw stood by Mookie Betts, joining his boycott of a game in 2020.
(Associated Press)
Betts was moved by the gesture.
“I’ll always remember this day,” he said. “I’ll always remember this team just having my back.”
Five years later, as Betts said, the world is a different place. Civil rights violations don’t inspire the same amount of outrage as they once did, particularly in baseball clubhouses. Trump’s casual racism has become normalized to such a degree that even former outspoken critic Snoop Dogg was convinced to perform at a pre-inauguration event.
Still the Dodgers’ lone African American player, Betts said earlier this month about his decision to join his team at the White House: “It comes with the territory, being Black in America in a situation like this. It’s a tough spot to be in.”
Tough, presumably, because he didn’t know how his teammates would react if he shared his thoughts. Tough, presumably, because he wondered if he would divide the team by taking a stand.
Reflecting on his refusal to visit Trump with the Red Sox, Betts said, “I regret that because I made it about me. This isn’t about me.”
In other words, this time around, he prioritized the well-being of his team over his personal convictions. The choice was understandable. Betts is a baseball player before he is an activist. His primary objective at this stage of his life is to win another World Series, and creating the perception of a divided team would be counterproductive to that.
Which was why Dodgers owner Mark Walter or president Stan Kasten should have stepped in and told the players they wouldn’t visit the White House, that something more important than baseball was in play. They didn’t, of course. Kasten saying the Dodgers accepted Trump’s invitation because the players wanted to is the kind of spineless buck-passing that has become standard procedure for this front office.
Walter and Kasten had the power to restart a necessary dialogue at a time when the Trump administration not only sent a brown-skinned man without a criminal record to a Salvadoran prison by mistake but also defied a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. They didn’t. Their silence was a betrayal, both to the Dodgers and their history.
Westlake High’s baseball players are running out of ways to celebrate after six consecutive walk-off victories. They’ve been charging out of the dugout and jumping up and down.
“Maybe we have to do some TikTok dances,” said first baseman Mason Charles, who has come through in three of the six walk-off moments.
His latest was a bases-loaded single on Friday in the eighth inning of an 8-7 win over Thousand Oaks. He also had a home run in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Lancers 3-2 on Tuesday.
So what has led to this repeated drama?
“It’s kind of unreal,” Charles said. “It’s pretty fun. We’re a very gritty team.”
Westlake‘s record is 14-4 overall and 8-1 in the Marmonte League. As a sophomore, Charles was on the Westlake team that won a 19-inning playoff game. These pressure experiences have done wonders for his confidence.
“I’m going to remember I’ve been through this before and it’s something I can handle,” he said.
Charles was joking that he told his friends to show up late Friday so they wouldn’t miss the fun in the final innings, but they didn’t believe him.
Westlake’s next home game is Wednesday against Oaks Christian. The Warriors could have a new celebratory dance ready just in case.
Standing next to 7-foot center Nate Garcia of Damien High is like reaching the top of a mountain. You feel in awe, especially when you are 5-4. But what’s really intimidating is looking at his size-21 shoes. Two of my shoes could fit in one of his.
In 51 years of coaching, Mike LeDuc never had a 7-footer until last June when he and Garcia went into his office for the annual player measurements. Garcia was listed at 6-11 as a junior, so this was the big moment.
“It was me and him,” Garcia said. “We’re both humble guys. It was, ‘Hey, you’re 7 feet.’”
There was no screaming, no yelling, no band playing music. And yet it was a big moment, since supposedly fewer than 3,000 people in the world are 7-footers.
“It was cool I got to 7 feet but I’m happy wherever I end up,” Garcia said.
Officially, he’s 7 feet ½ inch and possibly still growing since he’s 18 and it’s been months since the last measurement. He’s certainly gotten much better as a basketball player over four seasons and has signed with UC Riverside.
“He’s been coachable and gotten better every year. It’s been a great thing,” LeDuc said.
It’s exciting for LeDuc to work with a big man since he’s been known for working with shooters such as Tracy Murray and Casey Jacobsen. Every basketball coach dreams of a 7-footer walking into the enrollment office.
The funny thing is Garcia came to Damien as a baseball player. He was a pitcher and first baseman. Only after freshman year did he switch his focus to basketball. Imagine if he were playing first base now. Every shortstop who throws the ball high would appreciate his height and reach.
Damien 7-footer Nate Garcia with his size 21 shoes.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
Garcia said he’s always been the tallest member of his classes. As far as the genes in the family, his father is 6-5 and his mother is 5-11. The doctor told his mom from birth he had a chance to reach 7 feet.
No one gave him a talk on how to react when people stare at him walking through an airport or dropping his head to get through a doorway.
“I learned it on my own,” he said. “At first it kind of weirded me out. People would look, then look away and stare out of the corner of their eye. Now I’m used to it.”
LeDuc has appreciated Garcia’s arrival and development. It’s like a breath of fresh air for a veteran coach.
“I feel real lucky,” he said. “It’s the first time my best player has been a center. We had to make a lot of changes and adjustments.”
One priority for LeDuc was getting Garcia to work on free throws, since he was getting fouled a lot and not taking advantage. He’s improved. It’s still pure comedy or just unfair for everyone else on the court when his feet don’t leave the floor while he makes a layup.
He’s gotten so strong that teams guarding him in the post face a decision of whether to play from behind or try to deny him the ball. His improving post moves make him effective and dangerous.
Southern California has had its share of 7-footers. There were three in 2022 — Jazz Gardner of Los Altos, Dennis Evans of Riverside Hillcrest and Sidy Diallo of St. Paul. The influx of players from Africa and China is adding to the list. St. John Bosco’s Howie Wu is listed at 7 feet this season.
Other 7-footers from the past have included Tyson Chandler from Dominguez, Stuart Gray from Granada Hills Kennedy, Paul Mokeski from Crespi, Thomas Welsh from Loyola, Bol Bol from Mater Dei and Christian Koloko and Harold Yu from Sierra Canyon.
Being a 7-footer is rare, and shoes that fit can be rarer.
For LeDuc, whenever Damien takes a flight, the airport walk is always memorable and fun.
“When you’re walking one way, everyone walking the other way gives the look and double take. It’s entertaining,” he said.
