The weathered white banner is hooked up to a fence. The batting cage is behind the fence. The snack shack is just a few toes away.
The banner honors a 2005 championship staff — referred to as the Dodgers, no much less — at Sherman Oaks Little League. The banner lists the 12 gamers on the staff, together with Jack Flaherty.
For the 1000’s of children who play youth baseball at Sherman Oaks and elsewhere yearly, the precise Dodgers are the aspiration, the dream, the objective.
For the primary time in 58 years, a pitcher who grew up in Los Angeles will begin a World Sequence sport for the Dodgers. Flaherty is the Dodgers’ Recreation 1 starter Friday at Dodger Stadium, about 17 miles from Sherman Oaks Little League.
Flaherty follows Corridor of Famer Don Drysdale, whose childhood dwelling was about three miles from the Sherman Oaks fields. Drysdale, a Van Nuys Excessive alumnus, made World Sequence begins for the Dodgers in 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966.
Flaherty was not overly sentimental in explaining what beginning Recreation 1 for his hometown staff means to him.
“I get to pitch first,” he stated. “It will be fun. It will be exciting. I’m looking forward to it.
“There’s no bigger stage than this. It is what we all wanted as kids. It is the position we wanted to be in.”
An indication honoring the championship Little League staff Jack Flaherty performed on.
(Invoice Shaikin / Los Angeles Occasions)
Giancarlo Stanton, the New York Yankees’ slugger, performed at Notre Dame Excessive, one mile from Sherman Oaks Little League. In 2014, throughout his time with the Miami Marlins, he stated all his childhood buddies would ask him the identical query: When are you coming dwelling, to the Dodgers?
“All the time,” Stanton stated then. “They’re like, ‘You need to come play for us.’
The Yankees quashed that, trading for Stanton in 2017. The Yankees also signed pitcher Gerrit Cole as a free agent in 2019.
Cole, who grew up in Orange County and spurned bids from the Dodgers and Angels, is the Yankees’ starting pitcher in Game 1.
It would be overly dramatic to say Flaherty was destined to pitch for the Dodgers. They are his fourth major league team, after all.
However, on the day the Dodgers traded for Flaherty in July, his mother, Eileen, posted a picture on Instagram: Jack as a toddler, dressed in a Dodgers romper and an oversize Dodgers cap.
What doesn’t a mother do for her child? On the outside of the snack shack at Sherman Oaks Little League, a plaque honors “the incredible volunteers who have put out countless hours to help create an amazing place for our children.” One of many honorees: Eileen Flaherty.
When it got here time for Little League Evening at Dodger Stadium, Flaherty joined in.
“We’d sit in left field,” he stated. “It felt like it was always against the Giants. [Barry] Bonds would just get booed left and right. That was something.”
Even Bonds stated that. In 2005, the identical 12 months Flaherty and his Little League teammates received that banner, that is what Bonds stated: “Dodger Stadium is the best show I ever go to in all of baseball. They say, ‘Barry sucks’ louder than anybody out there. And you know what?. . . You’ve got to have some serious talent to have 53,000 people saying you suck.”
Flaherty was 9.
Mark Hartman, the coach of that Little League championship staff, stated Flaherty was a jovial child off the sector, however by no means on it.
“He’s always been very intense, with a passion for baseball,” Hartman stated. “From 7 years old, at that age, he almost intimidated adults, because he was so intense. He had this aura about him.”
Flaherty stated a few of his Little League teammates have been within the crowd for the Nationwide League championship collection. He counts them amongst his circle of members of the family and shut buddies who can relieve any stress by altering the topic to the NFL and school soccer.
“It feels like you’re 15 years old again,” he stated.
Doug Urbach, whose son Tyler performed with Flaherty at Harvard-Westlake Excessive, stated he and Eileen Flaherty shared carpool duties till the boys have been sufficiently old to drive.
Urbach stated he was stunned and touched when, whereas battling lymphoma in 2019, Flaherty wrote his identify on the ‘Stand Up to Cancer” cards distributed to players and shown on national television. (Urbach said his cancer treatment was successful.)
Hartman’s son, Jack, performed with Flaherty on that Little League championship staff. Hartman stated Jack even lived with the Flahertys for some time one summer season. So, after all, Jack Hartman is 100% behind Jack Flaherty on this World Sequence.
Besides, properly, not fairly 100%. Jack Hartman performed school ball on the College of Pennsylvania. One among his teammates: Jake Cousins, now a reliever for the Yankees.
