Save Our Youth to take on city leaders

Susan McCormack

COSTA MESA -- Baseball season may be over, but fans need not despair.

They can get the next-best thing this Saturday morning at Lions Park when

members of the Costa Mesa City Council take on staffers from the Save Our

Youth gang intervention center in a long-awaited softball game.

Since 1994, the game has taken place each summer, except for last year,

and the city has won three of the four games. But Oscar Santoyo, Save Our

Youth director, said his team is poised to win this year because several

members of his 25-person team have participated in the event since its

inception, and they are now grown up.

“[Councilman] Joe Erickson’s been talking trash ... saying that they’re

going to win, but we’re pretty confident,” Santoyo said. “This year, some

of these kids are able to actually have some power behind their swing.”

Erickson said his team will include City Manager Allan Roeder, Council

members Libby Cowan and Linda Dixon and several commissioners and

firefighters. Mayor Gary Monahan is not expected to play due to a back

injury.

Erickson is not shy about bragging or riling up his teammates.

“I think we can win, even with our female council members on the team,”

he joked.

Though the game is played in good fun, Erickson and Santoyo said it is

important because it continues the legacy of Roy Alvarado, founder of

Save Our Youth, who died in 1996 after a long battle with cancer.

“Normally, the City Council wouldn’t get a chance to meet these kids,”

Santoyo said. “And when [these kids] see [council members] on the

streets, they have something in common with them -- they played ball

together. So these kids can feel like, ‘hey, I know that guy, and I

played against him. And I beat him.”’

Erickson said the relationship is worth building.

“People tend to put down young people ... but there is no bigger group of

volunteers than Save Our Youth,” he said. “They’re such a good asset to

the community.”

FYI

WHAT: Save Our Youth vs. City Council

WHERE: Lions Park, 570 W. 18th Street

WHEN: 10 a.m. Saturday