AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL / WORLD SERIES : Newbury Oaks Discovers How Far One Goes to Reach Fargo

And the Houston Astros were complaining?

The Newbury Oaks baseball team is in the midst of the mother of all trips, and father time is running wild. Around every corner lies another potential stumbling block, not to mention a menacing opponent.

Logistics? This trip seems to have been designed by a monkey with a road map and a crayon.

Today at 8 a.m. (PDT), Newbury Oaks (36-2) will open play in the American Legion World Series at Jack Williams Stadium against Arlington Heights, Ill. It will mark the third tournament in as many weeks in which Newbury Oaks has played the first game.

Coffee, anyone?

“I can’t believe this keeps happening to us,” Newbury Oaks Coach Chuck Fick said.

Except for a couple of not-so-small details, Fick would not mind: His team is ragged from a series of tight and emotional games in last week’s Southwestern regional at Las Vegas, and a number of scheduling snafus cost the team valuable snooze time.

Newbury Oaks swept a doubleheader Sunday to win the regional title, but it did not come easily. After winning an elimination game against Utah late Saturday night, Newbury Oaks came back the following morning at 8:15 and recorded the first of two victories that day, a 10-3 win over Hawaii.

By the time the afternoon game was completed at 4 p.m.--a 15-inning, 5-2 win over host Las Vegas--the team had played 33 innings in 21 hours.

Said catcher Robert Fick, who caught all but two innings of the tournament in 100-degree heat: “I just want to lie down for about a week.”

No such luxury. On Monday’s flight from Las Vegas to the airport in Minneapolis-St. Paul, he tried. And he wasn’t alone.

“Everyone passed out right away,” pitcher Adam West said of the flight. “Even on the 45-minute flight from St. Paul to Fargo, guys were out.”

But moving from Point X to Point Y cost the team some Zs when an organizational oversight forced the team to spend three hours in the Minneapolis terminal. Chuck Fick said he was given faulty flight information by Legion organizers that resulted in the team missing its connection to Fargo.

Something seemed amiss when the team from Gonzalez, La., was seen in the terminal. Newbury Oaks third baseman Ryan Kritscher, who attends college at Southern Mississippi, noticed a classmate from the Gonzales team and asked which flight to Fargo the team was on.

The answer: The one that’s leaving right now.

“We all thought, ‘Hmmm, why aren’t we on that flight?’ ” assistant Wayne Smith said. “Well, it turns out that we should have been.”

As a result, players and coaches spent 2 1/2 more hours in the airport waiting for the next plane. Time didn’t fly, and neither did they.

The Newbury Oaks contingent finally arrived at their hotel in Fargo at 10 p.m. local time, attended a briefing meeting and did not eat dinner until well after midnight.

Complications kept rolling in. Chuck Fick then learned that his team would be expected to be at the field to take pregame infield at 7 a.m. PDT today, an hour before the game is scheduled to begin. Trouble is, opening ceremonies are scheduled for 7:30 and all eight teams in the double-elimination tournament are involved.

“When is my pitcher supposed to get ready?” the coach asked. “How do my guys stay loose?”

There was little time to hang loose Tuesday, either. What coaches had hoped would be a day of rest ended up being another hectic afternoon of running around and nailing down last-minute details.

First, the players walked to a laundry near the hotel in the morning to wash their uniforms and clothes. Team photos were next, followed by a 45-minute practice, followed by a trip to the seamstress so Southwest region-champion patches could be stitched to their jerseys.

A kickoff banquet followed in the evening.

“(Tuesday) wasn’t as kick-back as we thought,” Smith said. “We’ll have to wait until after the banquet before we finally get to take our ties off and kick up our feet.

“I really hoped we’d have some time to settle in.”

Newbury Park will open against Arlington Heights (41-15), a suburb of Chicago and the winner of the Midwestern regional.

Other first-round games today are East Hartford, Conn., (49-8) vs. Medford, Ore., (43-15); Guaynabo, P.R., (30-7) vs. Brooklawn, N.J., (43-7); and Fargo (64-10) against Gonzales (48-9).

Brooklawn is the defending Series champion. Guaynabo, Fargo and Gonzales appeared in the 1989 Series, which was won by Woodland Hills West, the only team from the Valley region to win the title. East Hartford and Gonzales also played in the Series last summer in Boyertown, Pa.

After its marathon game schedule and misadventures on the road, will Newbury Oaks have enough fuel in the tank to make a run at the title?

At least nobody will have spare time to get nervous. Just call them the hard day’s knights.

“We got a day’s rest,” Robert Fick said, laughing. “We’ll be all right.”