A League of His Very Own : Baseball: Bob Weinstein says he will make his idea a reality.

The kid unloaded his best fastball. Pure left-handed heat, the best he could muster.

Bob Weinstein’s mom caught the ball with a flick of her glove and tossed it back.

Standing in the driveway between two homes in Brooklyn, N.Y., Pearl Weinstein taught her young son about the duality of baseball and growing up. Pearls of wisdom, if you will.

“The same lady who taught me to play baseball taught me not to quit,” said Weinstein, an investment banker from Chatsworth.

“I’d be ashamed if I failed without having tried. As long as I tried, I’ll never be ashamed if it doesn’t work.”

Weinstein’s work in progress is the independent Golden State League of Professional Baseball, a proposed Valley-based minor league he hopes will begin play in six California cities next summer.

Weinstein, 51, could have bailed out on the plan a dozen times over the past few months, which have been filled with delays and disappointment. But Weinstein doesn’t roll over easily.

“He’s irrepressible,” said Jack Rudofsky, an attorney who lives in Weinstein’s neighborhood. “The guy’s chock full of energy. He’s got a bad back and a bad leg, but he’s a dynamo.”

Weinstein, at 5-foot-10, is slight of build and doesn’t much look like a mover and shaker. An auto accident 34 years ago has made walking a less-than-fluid affair. A two-pack-a-day smoking habit, since kicked, contributed to a near-fatal heart attack three years ago. He doesn’t have much hair left, either, but has youthful enthusiasm by the bushel.

He’ll likely need it--plus a healthy sense of humor and a thick skin--to get the sluggish project off the ground.

The seed for this self-possessed project was planted 10 years ago when a neighbor approached Weinstein about investing $5,000 in a double-A team. Weinstein would have owned 10% of the franchise. . .now reportedly worth an estimated $5 million.

When it comes to business, he doesn’t misfire very often. Weinstein has run the Chatsworth-based D/R Government Financing, which specializes in making small business loans, since 1967. The firm works in conjunction with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“Bob is a deal-maker,” said John Streit, an officer in the San Diego SBA office.

At various times during his business career, Weinstein has owned restaurants, a furniture store and worked as a stock broker. He spent more than 20 years listening to the pleas of folks trying to secure loans. Now he’s on the other side of the desk, hawking his own wares.

“It didn’t surprise me (when he came up with the GSL idea),” said Rudofsky, who has known Weinstein for 25 years. “He’s entrepreneurial. He has a capacity to see the bigger picture.”

Business has made Weinstein a baseball pragmatist, but he started as a romantic. Weinstein grew up near Ebbets Field, home of his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers.

His mother’s favorite keepsake was a foul ball off the bat of former Dodger Cookie Lavagetto. It conked her squarely in the eye.

Weinstein’s uncle owned a DeSoto dealership located just beyond the outfield fence on Bedford Avenue.

“Duke Snider and Ted Kluszewski kept smashing the showroom windows (with home runs),” Weinstein said.

The Dodgers, of course, eventually moved West, where the appetite for baseball was considerable. Still is, Weinstein figures.

California, despite a population of 30 million, is represented in the minors only by the 10-team California League. Weinstein desperately wants to fill the perceived void.

Streit said Weinstein has a reputation in SBA circles as a tireless worker with a solid reputation.

“He’s one of those guys who’s fearless when it comes to trying new things,” Streit said. “He’s always been up front. He hasn’t pitched me any curveballs.”

Life threw plenty of them Weinstein’s way as a youngster. His father died of a heart attack when he was 5, so his mother taught him the game. He was a solid player before a nasty car accident in 1960, during his senior year in high school in New Jersey.

Weinstein’s left foot was crushed and his spine was injured. He walks with a slight limp.

Five back surgeries later, through sheer determination, he somehow manages to play golf.

That kind of grit and mettle will be compulsory if Weinstein is to deliver his GSL project.

Months of delays and snags have tested Weinstein’s patience, and in July he went over the edge. Weinstein thought he’d reached a verbal agreement with Lancaster about finding a stadium site, which would have given the GSL its first toe-hold. Not so. Believing he’d been misled by Lancaster officials, Weinstein called a press conference.

He claimed officials had failed to negotiate in good faith, adding, “Lancaster wants to play ostrich.”

The following week, Lancaster fired a salvo of its own. Lyle Norton, the director of Parks, Recreation and Arts, torched Weinstein in a two-page memo to City Manager Jim Gilley, which became public. Norton said Weinstein misrepresented the status of his negotiations with other cities.

Another Lancaster official said Weinstein was full of “empty promises.”

Weinstein has a credibility problem because he won’t reveal the source of his supposed $50 million nest egg. Weinstein’s attorney said the funding is predicated on whether the league lands letters of intent from advertisers and cities.

Streit expressed surprise at the reported size of Weinstein’s GSL seed money.

“That’s a big hunk of change, even for somebody with his connections,” Streit said. “When Merv Griffin retired, somebody said they’d read somewhere that he was a billionaire and asked him how he’d done it.

“Griffin said, ‘Not with my own money.’ I doubt Bob’s doing this with his own money.”

All Weinstein is asking of various city governments is a chance to fail. He’ll be the fall guy if the GSL bankroll isn’t as extensive as he claims.

“Whoever said baseball is a microcosm of life was right,” he said. “It’s taught me that it’s never over till it’s over. We’re gonna play ball.”