LOS ANGELES —Baseball players don't wear earrings. At least that's how Tommy Lasorda sees it.
While being honored Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium for winning the Babe Ruth baseball World Series, the San Gabriel Valley baseball team learned at least one piece of valuable information.
"I told these kids to get those earrings off," said legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda to a couple of the team's players. "If you want to be a big leaguer, you better look like a big leaguer."
Those were the words Lasorda directed specifically at pitcher Kam Krise, as he greeted the team on the field prior to the game.
"He told me, 'Girls wear earrings and I would never play for him,'" Krise said about the good-natured exchange. "I'm a little sore right now [about the joke], but it was worth it."
While on the field, team members were individually introduced by the PA announcer and had their faces put up on the "Diamond Vision."
San Gabriel took home the 16- to 18-year-old title earlier this summer. It was the program's ninth in its history, and the second in the last three years.
The team is coached by Crescenta Valley High baseball Coach Phil Torres, who played in the Dodgers minor league organization.
"This is a neat way for us to wrap it up," Torres said of the trip to Dodger stadium. "It is an awesome ending for the kids and their families."
The players got a special visit on the field from Pittsburg Pirates pitcher John Grabow, who played on the team when he was a teenager. Grabow joked with the team and posed for a photo.
"Once you play for us, you always play for us," Torres said.
Torres, who tried to avoid any run-ins, like the one Krise had with Lasorda when he was at Spring Training with the Dodgers, didn't completely disagree with the night's lesson.
He told his team to leave their "crap" behind when they made the trip to Ohio for the World Series, he said. "We were clean shaven, no earrings, no flip-flops, and there were a lot of "Yes sirs'," Torres said. "We already had the California rep of being flaky and messy, so I wanted to try and not feed more into that image."
While it was the first time on the field at Dodger Stadium for a majority of the team — which included past and present Crescenta Valley players Krise, Dustin Emmons, Bryan Longpre, George Adrian,Micah Dunham and Zack Torres — the players concluded a season they won't forget.
"The coolest part is all the new relationships that we made," Krise said.
