Family Retraces Steps to Town

Former Cal State Fullerton student Fahad Al-Rajhi of Saudi Arabia, and his wife, Rafaela, returned to Williamsport, Pa., this week, to cheer on their son Sammy, who plays third base for the Arabian American Little League of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

The Al-Rajhi family is no stranger at Lamade Stadium. They were here in 1995 when their son Gabe was an infielder for Arabian American, which is making its fifth consecutive trip to the World Series.

Little League officials initially reported that Sammy was the first Saudi-born player in the series. Fahad wanted to set the record straight.

“Gabe was the first one,” Al-Rajhi said. “Gabe has a twin brother, Michael, but he did not play.”

Rafaela, 37, who was born in Mexico and raised in Idyllwild, met Fahad, 38, in a tennis class at Mt. San Jacinto College in 1980 and they married shortly thereafter. Fahad attended Fullerton during the 1980-81 school year and the couple lived in Yorba Linda from 1982-84. After Fahad completed his degree in business administration and economics at LaVerne, he returned to his native Saudi Arabia to work in the American-run oil business.

They could be back in 1999. Sammy, 11, is eligible for the team next year.

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It was brought to the attention of Greenville, N.C., Manager Wayne Hardee, whose team plays Cypress at 5 tonight, that Southern Californians can’t empathize with what his players’ families are going through as Hurricane Bonnie churns furiously toward the North Carolina coast.

“We know full well the power and nature of hurricanes,” Hardee said. “We don’t take them lightly. Many of us on this team have families with beach homes [that are in Bonnie’s path], including me.”

Hardee, an attorney, said most family members of his players are in Williamsport. Because of evacuations back home, there’s no way they can get back to North Carolina in time to do anything now.

“All we can hope is that our friends down there will board up our homes for us,” Hardee said.

Almost two years ago to the day, Hurricane Fran, which killed 28 people, hit Greenville, which is 65 miles inland. Hardee called the damage “devastating.” The prospects of another belt from Bonnie has made many people nervous.

“We try not to talk to the team about this,” Hardee said. “They’re aware of [Bonnie]. It affects the fans, but we’re here to play baseball and these are 11- and 12-year-old boys, so we don’t really want to discuss it.”

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The Little League website, https://www.littleleague.org, took 1.1 million hits during the first 32 hours of the series.

According to website manager Dennis Sullivan, in the first 17 hours Monday, an average of 41,000 users were accessing the site at any one time.

A year ago it scored 1.1 million hits during the 10-day period that included the series, Sullivan said. He expects the page to get more than 2.5 million during the seven-day event this year.

“The first time we did the page was in 1995,” Sullivan said. “We threw it up using an old machine to see if anyone could find it and we got 40,000 hits. That told us that there were people interested.”

In 1996 Little League transmitted opening ceremonies and two games over the Internet. This year the site offers photos and statistics of every player, updated hourly. Box scores are available within an hour after a game ends.

The site does not accept advertising and relies on a volunteer staff of 14, mostly college students, to maintain it during the series. Its annual budget, funded by donations, according to Sullivan, is $250,000.

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Add website: On Tuesday Sullivan went on-line with a program that enables fans to send e-mail to each team. In the first few hours, Cypress got 280 letters, which Sullivan presented to Manager Greg Novy.

Among the e-mails were warm wishes to Novy from co-workers at Boeing in Huntington Beach, a note from a former player in the series that told players to enjoy the moment, and a letter from one of the player’s teachers, who reminded him that he still owed her a book report. Citing their privacy, Sullivan, who screens all e-mail sent to players, would not reveal the names of anyone who sent e-mail.

“Not one of them was critical,” he said. “Each one was positive and wished them good luck.”