TOMMY LASORDA TO SPEAK AT THE SENIOR LITTLE LEAGUE WESTERN REGIONAL TOURNAMENT

The following article is from guest contributor Sid Robinson from the blog Sid's Side.

UPLAND, Calif. – Eleven champion teams will converge in Ontario and Upland from Aug. 4-11 to determine the best team in the West at the Senior Little League Western Regional Tournament.

The tournament, which will be held at Jay Littleton Field in Ontario and Memorial Park in Upland, is the final event before the Senior Little League World Series in Bangor, Maine, featuring teams with players ages 14-16.

State champion teams from Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern California, Oregon, Southern California and Washington, along with the host team from California District 23, will compete in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to earn a trip to the Senior Little League World Series.

Opening Day activities will begin at Memorial Park with the kick off on Tuesday, Aug. 4, with a pancake breakfast for $3 hosted by the Upland Fire Department from 7-10 a.m. Outback Steakhouse will serve lunch for $5 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame Manager Tommy Lasorda will speak at 10 a.m., along with Upland Mayor John “J.P” Pomierski.

A home run derby featuring two players from each participating team will follow the ceremonies.

Four games are scheduled for every day from Aug. 4-8, with games at each field at 4 and 7 p.m. Two games will be played on Aug. 9, leading up to the tournament semi-finals on Aug. 10 at Jay Littleton Field. The championship game will be played at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

The 4 p.m. Opening Day contests feature Montana against Northern California at Jay Littleton Field and Arizona vs. Southern California at Memorial Park. At 7 p.m., Hawaii will play Oregon at Jay Littleton and Nevada will play the District 23 team at Memorial Park.

Many local organizations have contributed either with financial, service and other non-monitory support. The most notable supporters include Doubletree Hotel, Mark Christopher Chevrolet, Aires Hotel, Pro Nine, Colonies Partners, and the City of Upland.

A complete schedule and more tournament information can be found here.

For more information, contact Ralph Cavallo at (951) 990-4595.



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Peppertree Elementary takes a direct hit from John and Ken

So here's the deal, fair and balanced as possible at this point. John and Ken of KFI AM 640 radio (aka the highest rated talk radio show in the COUNTRY) started the 3 o'clock by announcing that they had just received the best email in the history of the show. That's 20 plus years.

Listen here

The basics of the email were: (this is one side of the story filtered through radio show hosts) Parent of kindergarten teacher tells students to wear pink on "Pink Friday" or they won't get a toy to play with at school. Child worries about pink clothes. Mom dresses child in pink so kid can get a toy. Mom complains to Principal (TY Tibbi) who agrees that bribe kids is not a good idea. Mom tells principal that complaint should be anonymous so as to not incur retribution from teacher to student. Principal tells teacher of complaint and tells teacher the name. Teacher tells class in front of Parent and other parents that because parent (teacher identifies our hero) no one gets a toy. Parent complains to principal that it should have been anonymous. Principal takes teachers side.

Again, this is one side of the story and there may be a perfectly reasonable explanations for all of this. My questions still are...Why is the teachers union using kids to get attention? It looks foolish. For one, I would have worn a Berka to school if I thought I would gain favor with a teacher. Two, kids know nothing about the topic. Teachers should have told there students not to wear pink and that protesting was the teachers job and the kids should stay out of it. If the teacher gets laid off, have the kids failed? Also, I may get laid off soon so if the teachers can have the students wear green next Friday for me that would be great. Green for money right? It's better than pink for pink slips.

So, any Upland teachers want to give me their side of the story...leave a comment.

Edit, to add a little more balance I will says this, even if all of this is true, the principal and teacher are not the devils that J&K would have you believe. It's pretty standard for a boss to tell a subordinate who complains about them. It's kind of up to the subordinate to not let on that they know and just fix the issue. Also, I imagine when belong to a union as strong as the Teacher's Union, going against the union will cause problems so a class with kids with no pink shirts would have been looked upon harshly by the Union.

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Upland National Little League to open Saturday, March 14

The following article is from guest contributor Sid Robinson from the blog Sid's Side.

Upland National Little League will kick off its 56th year Saturday, March 14, at Bob Hargis Field at Colonies Crossroads Stadium, located in Olivedale Park in Upland.

Former Major League pitcher Dave Coggin, who graduated from Upland High School, will speak to the players and families during the opening ceremonies. In 1995, Coggin was a first-round draft pick (30th overall) out of Upland High and played for three years with the National League’s Philadelphia Phillies (2000-2002).

A full day of activities starts at sunrise with team pictures and a pancake breakfast prepared by members of the Upland Fire Department. Opening ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. with team introductions, special presentations and recognition of the top sellers from the league’s candy fundraiser. Those players will be rewarded for their fundraising prowess with a visit to the league’s famous money booth, where each winning child could walk away with hundreds of dollars.

Outback Steakhouse will serve opening day lunch specials beginning at 11 a.m.

The UNLL season is scheduled to open with four major league division games at Olivedale Park on March 14, with the opener set for 12:30 p.m. The junior league division launches its season at the south field at Memorial Park at 1 p.m. Other Upland National divisions begin their regular seasons on Monday, March 16.

Upland National is the only Little League in the United States that throughout its 55-year history has never charged a signup fee so that every eligible child wishing to play baseball can do so, regardless of his or her family’s economic situation. Every child in the league is provided with a cap and use of quality uniforms, safe equipment and well-maintained fields, largely because of the generous support of families, the community and sponsors.

Olivedale Park is located at 550 E. Eighth Street in Upland, east of Euclid and west of Campus.

For more information, please contact Ralph Cavallo at (951) 990-4595.

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Concert at Memorial Park for Ill Upland resident

If you want to go mosh for a cause this weekend, the place to be is Memorial Park. A concert is being held to raise funds for lead singer of the band Vinyl Prophets, who has Leukemia and needs your help to be able to afford the 6.5k a month that the medication costs.

So put on you black socks, black shoes, black t-shirt and shorts and head on over.

To listen to some of their music, check out the Myspace.

For more info about the concert, check out DB.

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Get To Know Your Gov't Representative: David Drier

For the life of me, I can't figure out why we let the same people run our government year after year. Democrat or Republican. These guys just get themselves in more pockets every year until they are no longer working for votes but instead are working for donations. What a racket.

Exhibit A, David Drier. Aside from some gerrymandering, Drier has basically "owned" the same District since 1981. That's 28 years of him "representing" us. He's 57 years old so basically he's spent half his life "working for you".

Unfortunately we are what is called a safe seat for the Republicans. We have ourselves to blame. Everyone thinks gov't is a mess except for the guy that represents them. No party should own a seat this way.

Drier was the target of KFI Hosts Jon and Ken's Political Human Sacrifice back in 2004 due to his perceived soft stance on illegal immigration. It was not enough to get him unseated but it sent a message...kind of. He's still in a super safe seat.

Although he's never come out, Drier is rumored to be gay. So much so that openly-gay Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, when asked whether Dreier was passed over for the position of House Majority Leader because of his "moderate" views, told a crowd of reporters "Yes, in the sense that I marched in the moderate pride parade last summer and went to a moderate bar.” Hilarious.

My negative tone is not because of his party, not because he's gay (allegedly), and not because of his stance on illegal immigration, it's just because he doesn't feel a need to represent us anymore. He knows we're going to vote for him because...he knows we won't vote Dem.

Links
Wiki
Drier in da House
Voting Record
Contributors


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Upland Hall of Fame: Frank Pastore

Back in 1986, I was looking at some of my baseball cards to see where some of the Pros lived. Irvine, close. Diamond Bar, closer. Upland! WTF?!. There it was, on the back of the 1986 Topps Traded (not the card pictured) Frank Pastore card.

Keep reading, it'll get good.

I had to go ask my mom to see if I was mistaken or maybe there was a whole bunch of Uplands in some other part of California where baseball players live on every corner. Nope, somehow my mom had even known this. This was at a time when I idolized baseball players. I knew every position player on every team and could give you a pretty close guess of each persons stats were so this new news blew me away.

I heard that he lived near 15th and Campus but I didn't dare roam over there for fear that look like some crazy fanatic.

I promise, keep reading

A few years later I met another Frank Pastore, it was the MLBers father and he was one of the coaches for the Upland Legion 15-16 year old team. Frank Sr. was also one of the old guys that would yell at you if you dared look at a blade of grass at the Memorial Park baseball field the wrong way.

Anyway, back to Frank Jr. Frank would later end up on the business end of a Steve Sax hit back up the box that would end his career. These days he's hosting a religious radio show out out of LA.

To me, and many others in this nation, it's not what Pastore did on the diamond or over the airwaves what makes him a legend. It's the feat that he accomplished in May of 1987 that makes him one of Upland's most important (former?) residents.

He completed the 72 oz. steak meal challenge at the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo, Texas in 9 1/2 minutes. Yikes! 72 oz. is 4 1/2 of meat plus a bread roll with butter, potato, ranch beans, shrimp cocktail, and salad.

His record stood for 21 frikin' years until it was broken by super stomach pro eater Joey Chestnut (the guy that finally beat Kobayashi in the July 4 Nathan's hot dog eating contest) in March of 2008. RINGER!!

As far as I am concerned, Chestnuts record should have an asterisk next to it due to his pro status. Pastore is still the champ.

Frank Pastore's eating prowess, All Things Upland's first Upland Hall of Fame member. ...Read more!

Lets Dine Out...Minor IE Celebrity Sighting!

Lets Dine Out is a local PBS show that critiques IE restaurants that is hosted by Allan Borgen (pictured) and Jeff Williams. Borgen has been with the show since the beginning and Williams is his third co-host at least. I spotted Borgen and his first co-host on a cruise to Ensenada about 5 years ago and I asked him what he thought of Northwoods Steakhouse in Azusa and he told me everything there was too salty. Obviously I promptly removed his show from my Tivo Season Pass list. No one talks trash Northwoods and gets away with it. Just Kidding.

Anyway, on 12/9, I was stopped at the light at Grove and Foothill and who do I see talking to the "Smoker Operator" at The Red Hill BBQ? Mr. Salty himself. Twice in a decade, lucky me. Maybe he'll be talking a little bit about RHBBQ on their radio show on 590AM KTIE this weekend. I'll try to tune in and report back his take.

I'll save my review of RHBBQ for another post.
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