Vigilantes Are Big Hit in Baseball Opener

MISSION VIEJO —  If there was a keynote address on the occasion of the first official Mission Viejo Vigilantes minor-league baseball game Friday night, it was delivered by home-team pitcher Mike Smith to a couple hundred Little Leaguers on the field before the game.

“Stay in school,” said Smith, a teacher in La Mirada. “Stay off drugs. . . . And don’t be afraid to come up for autographs and talk baseball. I like to talk baseball.” The boys applauded.

“And you don’t have to pay the 20 bucks at Anaheim Stadium.” The parents applauded.

Yes, this was going to be hometown baseball, and if you didn’t get the point, it was hammered home more or less constantly over the public address system.

“And now, Mission Viejo,” shouted the announcer, “are we ready for professional baseball? Are we ready?”

The roughly 3,500 fans who nearly filled the grandstands obliged with a cheer. They were ready.

The park was ready. The Saddleback College baseball field, refurbished with city funds in only four months, was eerily clean and new. The galvanized steel light towers gleamed. The asphalt was as slick and clean as a new blackboard. Scores of potted trees and plants stood upright, fresh and unblemished.

Even Mayor William S. Craycraft was nearly ready. He bounced the ceremonial first pitch to the backstop but succeeded with a second try.

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Actress Susan Anton, one of the owners of the team, was ready to sing the national anthem, and did--most of it--until her wireless microphone began breaking up.

The Varmit, the team mascot--an animal of uncertain species resembling Smokey Bear--loped in from center field on cue but was mobbed by a legion of Little Leaguers.

And one of the sprinklers installed to dampen the infield dirt got stuck and created a puddle at second base.

The lines were long and slow at the concession stands, where Sherman Smith of Mission Viejo said he’d been waiting seemingly forever.

“And I’m not even a baseball fan. I just wanted to see what’s going on.”

Once to the front, fans were snapping up the $2 sodas and $3 nonalcoholic beers (no alcohol allowed), the $3.50 hamburgers and $3.50 pasta salads.

The lines didn’t matter, said 9-year-old D.J. Sommers of San Juan Capistrano, the very first official paying customer through the gates Friday.

Here’s what D.J. thought:

* The pizza tastes great.

* The hot dogs taste excellent.

* The giant pickles really are good.

* The Frisbee-catching dogs were funny.

* The mayor has a weak arm.

“He’s enthusiastic about everything,” said D.J.’s father, Dennis. “This is the best thing that’s happened since the Angels.”

The ballpark was new, but the scene was familiar to at least one fan, Mike Scanlon of Long Beach, who was wearing a hat from back when this team was the Long Beach Riptide. No bitterness, said Scanlon, who had arrived with 14 friends.

For Scanlon, the Frisbee dogs, the sumo wresting between innings, the base path races, the giveaways, the cheerleading, the free massages, were all familiar. He still loves them, he said.

“I gave up my Angels and Padres season tickets after the last strike.”

He likes the new stadium, he says. With the foothills visible behind the outfield fence and trees surrounding the stands, “it’s like Angel Stadium used to be: real relaxing.”

The Vigilante management said they sold out the game--the last 30 tickets going just before the gates opened.

This is so much better than being in Long Beach, said general manager and part owner Paula Powers. There in venerable, city-owned Blair Field, her team was at the bottom of the priority list, she says. One of their games was stopped in the eighth inning because an American Legion game was scheduled to start then, said team publicist David Ayers.

Now in Mission Viejo, with the entire City Council and college Board of Trustees wearing Vigilante jerseys, “we’re treated with some sort of priority, and that’s a pretty nice change,” Powers said.

* STARTING OFF RIGHT

The Vigilantes won their opener, 12-5, Friday night. C1