THE OPPOSITE FIELD

A journalist turned Little League commissioner reflects on the role of his son’s team in their lives and their community.

Los Angeles Magazine senior writer Katz was never interested in the glitz or glamour of Los Angeles. A transplant from Oregon, he started as a gang reporter, immersed himself in rough immigrant neighborhoods and, most transformingly, married the local barmaid, an illegal Nicaraguan immigrant with a son she hadn’t seen in years. Though the marriage didn’t last, it produced Max, around whom Katz’s world revolves. From the time Max could walk, the author took him to La Loma, the local park in colorful Monterey Park, and Little League became a major part of their lives. The league—mostly Mexican kids in an Asian-dominated neighborhood—was riddled with problems, from a lack of equipment to delinquent parents, but it was everything to Katz and his son. So important, in fact, that when the league started to unravel, Katz stepped in, putting his career on hold to serve as the commissioner. The Little League years weren’t easy. Katz watched his immigrant stepson struggle, his marriage dissolve and his mother, a prominent Oregon politician, succumb to cancer. But the author also built deep roots in the community and allowed himself to fall in love again, all while trying to create a safe, nurturing environment for Max. Katz’s writing is warm but admirably unsentimental. Even at the most clichéd moments—like when Max, a burgeoning teenager, eschewed Little League for skateboarding and girls—Katz takes it in stride. The bond between the author and his son is touching, but the real story is the community as a whole, and how, as an outsider, Katz came to have such a very natural role in it.

A surprisingly complex, well-crafted story—much deeper than the average baseball memoir.