Protest Ousts Legion Team From Playoff : Camarillo Replaces Woodland Hills

The Woodland Hills American Legion team, the first from the San Fernando Valley to reach the state championship tournament in 10 years, has been disqualified and will be replaced by Camarillo.

A protest filed against Woodland Hills by El Segundo, another team in the state tournament, was upheld late Tuesday night by state American Legion Commissioner Julio Yniquez. The protest charged Woodland Hills with violating the American Legion’s player eligibility rule.

According to Yniquez’s ruling, Woodland Hills will give way to Camarillo, the runner-up in the Sixth Area tournament, which ended Sunday. Woodland Hills was scheduled to play Fullerton, the Fourth Area champion, on Saturday at 4 p.m.

Woodland Hills, the first Valley team to qualify for the tournament since Sylmar in 1976, hopes to reverse the decision in court. Team representatives will seek an injunction today in Los Angeles Superior Court in Van Nuys. The team also has filed an appeal to the American Legion national headquarters in Indianapolis.

Yniquez was unavailable for comment and did not return phone calls Wednesday. But according to Woodland Hills Manager Lee Hersh, Yniquez polled the 12 chairmen of the state’s six American Legion areas on Tuesday night. Nine sided with the El Segundo protest.

“We’re very disturbed,” Hersh said. “We will exercise every legal option available to us, and that’s about all I think I should say. But we’re working out in anticipation of going to Yountville. Nothing’s changed.”

Camarillo Manager Dan Anderson confirmed the ruling. He said Yniquez called him Tuesday night to inform him that Camarillo would replace Woodland Hills at the tournament.

The legion eligibility rule states that a team can draw players from as many schools as it pleases, as long as the total of the schools’ enrollment of sophomores, juniors and seniors does not exceed 3,600 students.

Woodland Hills (35-6) draws players from Calabasas, Canoga Park, Chaminade, Crespi and El Camino Real highs, pushing the team over the enrollment limit, according to the commissioner’s ruling.

The team was undefeated in the District 20 playoffs. After losing its only game of the postseason Sunday morning in the first game of a doubleheader, 9-5, Woodland Hills defeated Camarillo, 19-5, later that afternoon for the Sixth Area tournament championship and the right to play in the state tournament.

Anderson said Camarillo belongs at Yountville.

“We’re willing to go,” he said. “I thought we had the best team at the Sixth Area tournament, 18 kids who can play. We even beat a loaded team once.”

Woodland Hills will be represented in court by attorneys Oskar Stark and Sanford Schulhofer, the fathers of two Woodland Hills players.

The protest is the latest development in an American Legion baseball season that has been played more in ballpoint than in ballparks. It has become the year of the ineligible player.

Part of the problem, some coaches think, is that the legion rule book is confusing.

“It’s so contradictory in what it says, in how you make a team legal,” said Encino South Coach Craig Sherwood, who had a protest upheld this season. “I read the thing through 10 times and I wasn’t sure what rule I was protesting. So I just protested the entire section. After it lists the rules on eligibility, there’s a whole list of exceptions.”

Others protests filed on similar grounds this season include:

Simi Valley’s protest against Westlake, charging the team with using four ineligible players. In an unorthodox compromise, the protest was not allowed, and Westlake made the District 16 playoffs. But two of its players, Ed Hall and Doug Rich, were declared ineligible and didn’t play in the Sixth Area tournament.

Encino South’s detailed, five-page protest against Reseda-Cleveland, charging the team with using at least one ineligible player, Jimmy Wolf. Reseda-Cleveland was knocked from the District 20 playoffs when the protest was upheld.

The forfeit of four District 20 games by Van Nuys because of ineligible players Adam Grant and Jeff Cirillo. The forfeits turned a 12-9 team into an 8-13 team.

Had its protest been upheld, third-place Simi Valley (15-8) would have made the playoffs instead of Westlake (18-6), the second-place team.

Third-place Encino South (9-12) replaced second-place Reseda-Cleveland (11-9) in the playoffs when the latter was forced to forfeit three regular-season wins. Encino South picked up two of those wins, making its record 11-10.

Said Reseda-Cleveland pitcher Tony Margolis: “There’s a lot of political stuff going on. Until we get some rules and regulations for things like this, baseball’s not going to be fun anymore. People will lose interest and the sport’s gonna go way down.”