Thousand Oaks Big Leaguers win national championship
Thomas Gase tgase@theacorn.com

BIG LEAGUE GREETINGS- Baseball Hall of Famer Sparky Anderson, right, congratulates the Thousand Oaks Big League champions, Cole Kahle, center, and Kyle Jones during a ceremony The Thousand Oaks Big League World Series winners were honored Tuesday at Gardens of the World in Thousand Oaks.

Last year Cole Kahle opted to buy his Thousand Oaks Big League jersey and keep it as a memento. Kahle should have waited a year.

This year's jersey will be a much more important keepsake. Kahle's Thousand Oaks Big League team, made up of players age 18 and under, went undefeated in seven games in South Carolina, beating Puerto Rico 10-0 in the final to win the Big League World Series.

"My coach said last year that I should buy the jersey after we lost the final game as it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing," left fielder Kahle said. "I wouldn't have bought that jersey had I known what would happen this year."

It didn't seem to matter what jersey the opponents were wearing when Thousand Oaks pitcher Max Gutierrez took the mound in South Carolina. Opponents might as well have gone up to bat with toothpicks, as Gutierrez gave up just three hits in 12 innings while striking out 15. And Gutierrez's split-fingered fastball was in full effect in the final game against Puerto Rico, where he went five innings and gave up just three hits.

"Oh my, that thing (the splitfingered fastball) was just dirty," catcher Stephen Notaro said. "Sometimes I couldn't even catch it. I don't think one batter touched it ever, I mean not even a foul ball. I just knew he was going to end the tournament throwing that pitch."

Gutierrez's best game in the tournament may have been

against the East Region team from Delaware. He gave up a hit to the first batter, then proceeded to retire the next 21 batters while striking out nine.

"It was easy this week to pitch with such a great defense behind me," Gutierrez said. "I was just going after the hitters with the fastball, and with that working it was easier to throw the split-fingered fastball, which seemed to do the trick this week."

The Thousand Oaks team was hardly a one-man affair: the players did a great job with the bats. In the seven games in South Carolina, the team seemed to have more hits than Motown, averaging 10 runs a game. And they really showed off their bats against Puerto Rico in the fifth inning of the final game. Up only 2-0 at that point, the team banged out nine consecutive hits, scoring eight more runs to put the team up 100 for a five-inning mercy rule win.

"Every guy on our team from the first through the 13th man contributed in this tournament," Thousand Oaks Coach Matt Ricatto said. "The fifth inning was just a prime example of that.

"It's not as if these teams were bad either. The Puerto Rico team had a player that you could put in a Major League team's infield and

you wouldn't know the difference. It's just that we dominated, and some fans that had been there for a while were saying that our team was the best they had seen in about six or seven years."

For players like Kahle, Notaro, Kellen Fink and Brett Fick, the win is especially sweet after they were a part of the team that lost in the final game last year.

"It's kind of surreal to come home and go to the gym and people are telling me congratulations and telling me the team did great," Fick said. "The team chemistry was great. We were always comfortable with whoever was at bat, whether it be the first three batters or the number nine hitter."

With all the good players on the team, much of the credit for their success goes to manager Ed Kitchen. He's been to the finals six times now, winning three times, two as a head coach and one as an assistant. According to Kitchen, the players did all the work; he was just lucky to coach them.

"I think as individuals, if you go through our team, I would give it about a thousand," Kitchen said. "But when you put all our players together as a team, it's about a ten thousand."