Meet the Redondo Union Sea Hawks

You know you’ve been doing this for a while when you start coming back to the same venues for season-ending events – and it’s a different season.

In late May, in Event # 15 on the “It’s Game Time Somewhere” Tour, I visited Cypress College to take in the spectacle that was the CIF Southern Section Boys Volleyball Championships. Now half a year and 57 events later, there I was again – only this time to witness the distaff side do battle.

While one of the Boys Championships featured a school not too far away from the rustic home office of the IGTS Tour, the Girls Championships went one step further in terms of providing a rooting interest. The featured bout (there’s that boxing influence sneaking in again…) of the day-long volleyball extravaganza was the Division 1AA Championship match-up between heavily favored Long Beach Polytechnic High School and Redondo Union High School.

Long Beach Poly has spent a good bit of time this season at #1 in the MaxPreps Freeman Rankings. Not #1 in SoCal. Not #1 in the state of California. No, we’re talking #1 in the entire U.S. of A. Their appearance in the title game was, how shall I say it…not exactly breaking news. In fact, they had lost just one game in their combined play-off matches prior to the finals – and that by a score of 25 to 23. So they’re fairly good.
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John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” is playing on the P.A. system. I’m sitting in the grandstand at an internationally recognized and beloved sporting event. I’ve parked, secured admission and had a little lunch in preparation for the Little League World Series International Championship game. Total cost thus far? Let me see…parking…plus ticket…add in a hot dog and a Powerade…total the column, carry the remainder…OK, if my math is correct, that comes out to a grand total of $4.50.

I haven’t even seen a pitch yet and this is already one of the best events on the “It’s Game Time Somewhere” Tour schedule to date. But then again, any day that starts with meeting a sportscasting legend certainly does get things rolling in the right direction.
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Back when I was kid, when we played the game with stuffed brontosaurus skins and woolly mammoth tusks, there was a single three-syllable word that encapsulated all of my fondest baseball dreams: Williamsport.

I barely knew that Williamsport was an actual place, let alone how to find it on a map. It was more like a concept whose existence you took on faith. Much like Valhalla to ancient warriors.

You went there only if you persevered, played your absolute best, and had the gods of baseball smiling down on you at just the right time. Every kid that ever played Little League knew that each August, just one All-Star team from each of four U.S. regions (now eight regions) was able to play their way to Williamsport, Pennsylvania and the Little League World Series.
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Conspiracy theorists, listen up – I think I’ve got one you can sink your teeth into.

Theoretically, the somewhat oxymoronically named University High School is called that because of its location adjacent to the University of California, Irvine. But it could just be a clever ruse. See, when the bus pulls into the school parking lot to pick up the UHS boy’s tennis team and transport it to their matches, who would be the wiser if by some “snafu” in communications the UCI tennis team happened to board. An honest mistake. I mean, they’re right next door. And if caught, they could always laugh it off as an innocent joke. After all, Will Ferrell is a University High graduate. I mean, how else can you explain a team winning the CIF Southern Section Division 1 Championship by a margin of 17-1?
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Blair Field, in the heart of Long Beach’s famed Recreation Park, is home to Long Beach State’s baseball team, the Dirtbags. Yes, I said the Dirtbags. I can imagine that this makes for interesting recruiting challenges. How do you start that conversation? “Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, we think your son has what it takes to be a Dirtbag…”
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