Joyce and Steven Marganski react to Chula Vista’s Park View Little League team winning the World Series on Sunday. (Earnie Grafton / San Diego Union-Tribune / August 30, 2009) Reporting from Chula Vista, Calif. – When pitcher Kiko Garcia struck out the final Taiwanese batter Sunday, several hundred exuberant fans at Oggi’s Pizza and Brewing Co. were quick to pick up the chant: “We are the champions.” Chula Vista’s Park View Little League team, dubbed the Blue Bombers, beat Taoyuan, Taiwan, 6-3, to climb the tallest mountain in Little League: the world championship at the annual tournament at South Williamsport, Pa. It did so with a come-from-behind victory, snappy fielding, poise and sportsmanship. For a city that often feels overshadowed by more glamorous neighbors, and was dissed by a national magazine as boring, the victory was particularly sweet. No San Diego County team had won a championship at Williamsport since the La Mesa-El Cajon team of 1961 (two members of which were at Oggi’s to cheer for Park View). The last California team to win the world championship was Long Beach in 1993. “This never happened before in Chula Vista,” said Alexjandra Pacheco, 17, at Oggi’s with other members of the cheering squad from Otay Ranch High School. “This is once in a lifetime.” Bulla Graft’s sharp single scored the go-ahead run in the fourth inning and Garcia pitched three-plus scoreless innings of relief in the victory. He completed his team’s comeback from a 3-0 deficit by striking out Yu Chieh Kao. Like many cities that have experienced rapid growth, Chula Vista’s politics often have an old vs. new split — the city’s older neighborhoods are west of Interstate 805, the new master-planned communities and shopping areas — such as the one with Oggi’s — are largely east of I-805. Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox sees the success of Garcia, Andy Rios, Luke Ramirez, Graft and other members of the team as a cohesive factor in the sometimes fractious city. “This is the kind of thing that brings everybody in the community together,” Cox said. Read the entire LA Times article here.
