05/25/04

LC040525

Coverage of Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is
made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company.

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

A story of then and now. The Boys of Crenshaw talk about the
championship year many thought would be their ticket out of
South Los Angeles.

Marvin McWhorter>> Baseball got me an education. I mean, it
got me to where I am today. Without baseball, I don't know what
would have really happened, to be honest.

Val>> And then, new efforts to save the Salton Sea, an oasis of
wildlife once thought to be doomed.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> They were strong and talented and, for a while, the whole
world seemed to be theirs. So what ever happened to an
exceptional group of athletes from Crenshaw High School?
Baseball was their ticket out and it made one of them a
superstar, but even Darryl Strawberry fell victim to the life
that he and his Crenshaw teammates once seemed destined to leave
behind. Toni Guinyard takes us back to the place where it all
began when the Boys of Crenshaw High were kings.

Toni Guinyard>> At Crenshaw High School, the game of baseball
once packed the stands and demanded the community's attention.
Times have changed, but the sport still has a home here. After
all, this field is where the talents of former Crenshaw High
athlete turned major league standout Darryl Strawberry caught
the attention of the sports world.

Brooks Hurst>> You know, as the season progressed, the word got
out to the scouts and to the community and we packed that place.

Toni Guinyard>> Rightly or wrongly, sports represent a way out
of this neighborhood and a way into a different life.

Fernando Becker>> My family thought I was going to make it to
the pros. That's everybody's dream to make it to the pros and
everybody's banking on that, but the reality was that
everybody's not going to make it. It was sometime a hard
reality for everybody to come to the realization of that, hey,
you're not going to make it.

Toni Guinyard>> Athletes who once played for the team more than
two decades ago are now looking back and talking about how their
lives used to be then and how their lives are now.

Brooks Hurst>> It's the best team I've ever seen, but I'm sure
there are people all over the country, great baseball teams, who
would've probably liked to play us and that would have been fun.
I don't think too many people could pitch to us.

Toni Guinyard>> The professional and personal successes and
failures of the 1979 Crenshaw High baseball team is chronicled
in the book "The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of
Crenshaw". Author Michael Sokolove set out to explore the
belief that making it big in sports is the way for an inner city
kid to escape the only world they know.

Michael Sokolove>> I was interested in looking at that from the
inside out and using this team, this 1979 Crenshaw High baseball
team, which was an amazing team, by the way, possibly the
greatest high school baseball team ever, and looking at this
group of men to examine that myth, to explore that myth, and see
what it felt like to them, if they believed in it, if it worked
for them, if it worked against them.

Toni Guinyard>> Two of the young men, Chris Brown and Darryl
Strawberry, became major league all-stars, but it was Strawberry
that commanded the media's attention first with his impressive
talent on the field followed by his exploits off the field
involving drugs, alcohol and violence. It ultimately ended his
baseball career.

Michael Sokolove>> You know, he was a prince of the physical
world, but on the other hand, Darryl was just cheated
emotionally. You know, Darryl did not have the emotional makeup
to really succeed in the realm that people thought he should
succeed in and in the grand way that people thought. And then
you have these other men who, in most cases, were more devoted
to their sport and who had the capacity to do other things sort
of emotionally and mentally that Darryl was not capable of.

Toni Guinyard>> Fernando Becker, Marvin McWhorter and Reggie
Dymally were part of the 1979 championship team. We invited
them to speak with us about their lives and baseball.

Fernando Becker>> There's one thing I'll still always have in
my blood is baseball.

Toni Guinyard>> The players and their former coach, Brooks
Hurst, met us at what was once their home away from home, the
baseball field at Crenshaw High. We watched a game being played
that day and we listened as the men recalled how things used to
be.

Brooks Hurst>> I was dedicating a lot of time of my own on
Saturdays to the program and I had kids who were playing pro
ball who never came back to help us out. I didn't like that.
That might have been one of the things that made me somewhat
bitter.

Marvin McWhorter>> Baseball got me an education. I mean, it
got me to where I am today. Without baseball, I don't know what
would have really happened, to be honest.

Reggie Dymally>> I learned more about discipline and how to be
focused and how to set your goals and work at those goals to
fulfill your dreams and stuff because baseball to me was just a
stepping stone. I did it because I loved it, but I learned more
about discipline and being focused and I had a passion for it.

Michael Sokolove>> I mean, they were really great. Reggie
Dymally was the MVP of the high school league in the same year
that Darryl Strawberry was the first draft choice in the whole
nation.

Toni Guinyard>> Dymally was the only player on the 1979 team to
go directly to a four-year college after high school.

Michael Sokolove>> Reggie Dymally, beautiful ball player,
beautiful ball player. It was the ticket out to the University
of Hawaii, a baseball scholarship for Reggie Dymally. Reggie
Dymally got to the University of Hawaii, very bright guy, signed
up for history classes, computer classes, all this great stuff.
The coach looked at his schedule and changed his schedule to
teaching football, teaching basketball and some kind of military
class where he had to learn to shoot guns. Reggie said I didn't
leave inner city Los Angeles to go to Hawaii and learn how to
shoot a gun. That's pretty much what I was trying to get away
from.

Toni Guinyard>> Most of the players have moved on and built new
lives. Fernando Becker now works for San Diego State University
and serves in the Army National Guard. Marvin McWhorter is a
supervisor with the Los Angeles County Probation Department.
Reggie Dymally is a certified chef and catering company owner.

Michael Sokolove>> It did hurt a little bit though when you
lost that pro dream.

Reggie Dymally>> Oh, yeah, of course. That is true, yes, of
course. I mean, of course, I wanted to play. I loved cooking a
little bit more, so it wasn't like I lost something. I just
felt, okay, I did what I had to do. One of my goals was to get
drafted and I did, so, you know, I fulfilled my dream. I knew
there were other things whether baseball worked out or not.

Marvin McWhorter>> Of course, not making it in baseball is
disappointing, but I'm like Reggie. You know, your dream is to
get drafted by a team and you do that and it's like you're one
of the few fortunate people who had that opportunity. A lot of
people never have that opportunity.

Toni Guinyard>> They put aside their big league dreams while
some of their former teammates mourned the death of their
baseball careers.

Michael Sokolove>> It threw Carl into a tailspin. Carl had no
other plan and Carl ended up pretty much on the streets on crack
and Carl was one of the first people in California convicted on
the Three Strikes law.

Toni Guinyard>> Carl Jones was sentenced to twenty-five years
to life.

Michael Sokolove>> Carl's three offenses are breaking and
entering, no one home; breaking and entering, no one home;
breaking into Crenshaw High School and stealing, at most, a pair
of shoes.

>> You remember me? Tell me you don't remember me.

>> Vaguely.

>> What you mean vaguely? I was with the team. What you mean
vaguely? I was the one (laughter).

Toni Guinyard>> Tahitha Jones Moore is Carl Jones' sister. Her
son, his nephew, now plays for Crenshaw High. His presence on
the field, in some ways, marks the beginning of a new era yet,
at the same time, it's a continuation of times past.

Marvin McWhorter>> I didn't even know Fernando was a Hispanic
until the book came out really (laughter). You know, I thought
he was just one of us.

Fernando Becker>> A lot of people still don't know I'm
Hispanic.

>> You speak Spanish?

Fernando Becker>> No (laughter).

Toni Guinyard>> They laugh now. No pressures of baseball
hanging overhead. "The Ticket Out" has placed these men back in
the spotlight. There are book signings to attend, old
friendships to renew.

>> Hey, girls, how you doing?

Toni Guinyard>> Thanks to an author who thought their story was
worth telling.

Michael Sokolove>> You know, I just went out and did what
writers do. I went out there with my notebook and my humanity
and said, you know, tell me your stories.

Val>> The Crenshaw team was so strong that even the bench
warmers were drafted into major league baseball and two of the
players, Darryl Strawberry and Chris Brown, became teammates
again, playing for the National League in the All-Star game.

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Val>> The war in Iraq has divided the American public, but it
has also caused divisions between America and our traditional
allies, in particular, the United States and France. Relations
became especially strained when France refused to send soldiers
to fight alongside American troops in Iraq. Recently the French
Ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, spoke at
Town Hall Los Angeles and I talked with him about relations
between the U.S. and France and his perspective on the war.
Basic question: was there anything that could have been done
before the invasion of Iraq to convince France to join in that
effort?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> France is not a pacifist
country. We did participate in the first Gulf war. We fully
participated in the war in Afghanistan and we still maintain
troops in Afghanistan will be in charge of the troops in Kabul
and we have special forces on the border fighting with yours
against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But for Iraq, we considered
one year ago that the war was not necessary at that time for one
good reason. The inspectors of the United Nations were
deployed. They were doing a good job and so we considered, with
a majority of the Security Council, that the U.N. inspection
should have continued.

Val>> Do you think now that the war has unfolded and weapons of
mass destruction have not been found, do you feel in a sense
vindicated?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> No, no. We are (inaudible) by
the situation in Iraq. What is at stake in Iraq is huge. Not
only the future of the Iraqi people, but also the future of the
whole Middle East. Even more important, in our view, the future
of the relations between the Muslim world and the West. Because
what is at stake is huge, we want to help. We would like to see
at the end of June a real transfer of responsibilities and
sovereignty to the Iraqi people with a new government, a new
Iraqi leadership, a sense of empowerment for the Iraqi people
and, very important for all, for the United Nations.

In a way, why not add up in Iraq what we did right from the
beginning in Afghanistan where we had a kind of national
conference from which emerged a new government with Karzai as
the president and a huge role given to the United Nations with
Lakdhan Brahimi. Why not adopt this kind of Afghan model in
Iraq? Our view was that it would have been better to do it
right after the war, but it's never too late. Let's do it at
the end of June.

Val>> That's a key question. Can it happen on June 30 or, with
this recent uprising and violence, has that derailed any
possibility of a smooth transfer of power within like a few
months. It seems unrealistic, no?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> We consider that there is no
military solution in Iraq.

Val>> No military solution?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> No military solution in Iraq.
We French learned from bitter experiences of the past, for
instance, the Algerian War, that we should never under-estimate
Iraq nationalists. They are a very proud people. They want to
be independent. They don't like to be occupied and there is no
military solution.

What is necessary is a political process. For this political
process, the U.N. with Kofi Annan and Lakdhan Brahimi can help a
lot. Lakdhan Brahimi will be back in a few days time in New
York. He will propose to Kofi Annan and the Security Council a
way forward and we hope that together all the members of the
international community will gather to help the Iraqi people to
build a better future through a political process.

Val>> That's a fairly strong statement to say there is no
military solution, meaning that we're not talking about sending
more American troops over, that we're going in the wrong
direction from your perspective if we're increasing our military
presence?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> We should not, of course,
forget about the security problem, but that's a different issue.
Security must be re-established and, if possible, with and
through the role of the Iraqi police and army.

Val>> Oh, I see. So you distinguish between security and
military. I see.

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> Exactly, exactly. What we
don't approve is the idea of a kind of collective punishment
imposed upon the inhabitants of Fallujah or a kind of military
solution for Sadr and his militia. What we did recognize, of
course, is that there is a need to bring more security to the
Iraqi people and, if possible, with the help and key role given
to the Iraqi police, the Iraqi special forces army, but no
military solution because it is a political problem.

What is necessary now is to give a sense of empowerment to the
Iraqi people. They must recognize at the end of June that the
new leadership is in charge, that the new leadership is
representing the whole Iraqi people, the Shiite, the Sunni and
the Kurds, and leading the country to free and fair elections
with the support of the whole international community.

Val>> Put it in perspective for us. How do you think both
countries will weather this? Will we come to terms eventually
over this or will Iraq continue to be a sore spot for a long
time?

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> Well, last year we've been
through a kind of diplomatic hurricane. One year later, what do
we see? First, that if you put aside for one minute Iraq, we
have only reasons to celebrate a wonderful cooperation.
President Bush will be in Paris on the fifth of June because we
will celebrate and commemorate together D-Day, the landing of
your troops sixty years ago. We will express throughout France
in one voice our gratitude.

We will say with the whole French people, thank you, America.
We will never forget what you did for us. If we are a free
people, it's thanks to you. You wanted France to be a free
people. As a free people, we express our views. Most of the
time, we do agree. From time to time, we disagree, but we have
a common goal. That is to develop and promote all over the
world our shared values, democracy, freedom, liberty.

Val>> Ambassador Levitte, thank you so much for spending some
time with us. We really enjoyed it.

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte>> Thank you.

Val>> Ambassador Jean-David Levitte was a guest of Town Hall
Los Angeles. If you'd like to find out more about Town Hall Los
Angeles and future speakers, you can give them a call or go to
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Val>> It is one of the largest bodies of water in America, but
by all accounts, Southern California's Salton Sea is a sick
place in desperate need of some tender loving care. Now it may
get it. New plans are underway to reverse years of problems
that are turning the Salton Sea into a dead zone. How did it
get that way? As Saul Gonzalez reports, the crisis didn't
happen overnight.

Saul Gonzalez>> The Salton Sea. It is both beautiful and
surreal. It's California's largest lake in the state's hottest,
driest corner. It's a natural wonder created by an accident of
man and it's an ecology under assault, yet teeming with life.
Located 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the Salton Sea looks
like it's been here for millennia, but it's less than a hundred
years old, created in 1905 when a levy near the Colorado River
ruptured. For sixteen months, water cascaded into a bone-dry
ancient lake bed creating this body of water twice the size of
Lake Tahoe and now a thriving wildlife oasis.

Ken Sturm>> This is an extremely diverse and amazing area for
bird life. It's probably one of the most diverse bird life
areas in the United States outside of maybe Texas.

Saul Gonzalez>> The variety of life here, though, disguises a
troubling fact. This place is dying.

Ken Sturm>> The Salton Sea right now appears to be a sick
ecosystem. In other words, it's not completely failing, but
it's got the flu bad.

Tom Kirk>> My crystal ball is a cloudy one, but I would say
that those are dark clouds right now.

Saul Gonzalez>> Tom Kirk is Director of the Salton Sea
Authority, the regional agency charged with managing the sea.

Tom Kirk>> The crystal ball that I have, and it's fairly
gloomy, shows the sea in about ten or fifteen years losing the
entire fishery and, when the fish go, a lot of the birds that
rely on the fish will have to go as well.

Saul Gonzalez>> To understand what threatens the Salton Sea,
you have to look at what flows into it. The sea's southern
shoreline borders some of California's richest farmland.
Agricultural runoff from these fields help to replenish the
sea's water. It also washes tons of pesticides and other
harmful chemicals into the sea. Another source of pollution is
the American River. It flows up from heavily industrialized
areas on the U.S.-Mexico border and empties directly into the
sea. The river looks inviting, but you wouldn't want to take a
dip in it.

Ken Sturm>> It's often quoted as the most polluted river in the
United States. There have been hundreds of thousands of gallons
of raw sewage, you know, sometimes a day moving up the river and
flowing into the Salton Sea.

Saul Gonzalez>> The Salton Sea's greatest enemy, however, isn't
sewage or agricultural waste. It's salt.

Tom Kirk>> Salinity is the time bomb. We know that there are
other problems with the sea, but salinity is the one thing that,
if we do nothing about, will essentially cripple or perhaps even
kill this resource that we've got here.

Saul Gonzalez>> The sea is already twenty-five percent saltier
than the open ocean. Salt flows into the sea in runoff and
accumulates as the lake's water evaporates. The process is made
worse because this body of water offers no outlet for what flows
into it. It's feared rising salinity levels will kill off the
sea's fish population in ten to fifteen years.

Tom Kirk>> We lose the fish, we lose, obviously, the fishermen,
both human and bird fishermen, and, if we lose those, we lose a
lot of the economic and the environmental qualities that make
the sea a special place.

Saul Gonzalez>> The people who most fear the sea's demise are
those who live in the tiny communities that dot its shores.
They say the sea's decay is in the air.

>> We've smelled that and it's worse the closer you are to it.

>> Go to Johnson's Landing and smell it.

Saul Gonzalez>> When the sea was healthier, its now empty
beaches were a destination for thousands. The only reminders of
that era are the Salton Sea's empty motels, abandoned marinas
and decaying beach clubs, all ghost towns now with ocean views.
So what should now become of this accidental sea? Should it be
allowed to die a slow death or can it be saved? There are two
major proposed plans to do that and maybe through engineering.

Tom Kirk>> One way you could do it is essentially cut off your
arm to save the rest of your body. You dike off part of the
sea, make the healthy part a little bit smaller and concentrate
the salt and other things in a diked area and let them
evaporate. Another way is you exchange water. You pump this
water out somewhere, somehow, and you pump other water in. One
of the most popularly discussed ideas is to get that water from
the Sea of Cortez to the south in Mexico. You could pump this
water out and bring Sea of Cortez water in.

Saul Gonzalez>> Plans to save the sea come with a high cost.

Tom Kirk>> A round-about number would be between $200 million
dollars and $2 billion dollars.

Saul Gonzalez>> Quite a round-about. Why invest that kind of
money in a place so isolated and neglected? It might have as
much to do with development as the environment. Some people
look at the sea's miles of empty beaches and predict Southern
California's next real estate bonanza.

Tom Kirk>> I would see economic development potential with
resort development and perhaps hotels and launching areas and
homes and the like.

Saul Gonzalez>> A new Palm Springs?

Tom Kirk>> A new Palm Springs very close to the existing Palm
Springs.

Saul Gonzalez>> Some question, however, whether a building boom
and environmental restoration can coexist at the sea.

Ken Sturm>> The thing that I find interesting is that large-
scale development is being planned in an area that's the driest
area in the United States just about. I just wonder where
they're going to get the water to supply the condos and resorts
and still maintain the Salton Sea with fisheries that are
worthwhile.

Saul Gonzalez>> For now, concerns like these belong more to the
future than the present. As the clock ticks down, the question
now is whether the Salton Sea can be stopped from becoming a
dead sea before it's too late.

Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at
Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Coverage of Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is
made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, he's the only Persian
politician in 90210 and he's breaking down ethnic stereotypes.

>> They were telling me that it's not the time, you're not
ready, the city's not ready, the community is not ready. Others
have done it. What makes you think you can?

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.