Chaminade Plays Follow the Leader : Eagles Hire Baca Amid Hopes He Eventually Will Be Joined by Several of His Players From Champion Little League Team

Chaminade High has secured the services of the man who heads the “Most Wanted List” in Northridge, hiring Larry Baca to coach its freshman baseball team.

Baca relishes the challenge, but he must fit it in among his family, his business and a social calendar that has been in a whirl since he piloted the Northridge Little League team to the national championship in August.

“One reason they were after me is that a lot of kids from the Little League team will go to Chaminade,” he said.

“Good ballplayers potentially will go there that could give them the strongest team in the area in a few years.”

Chaminade Athletic Director Ed Croson said that Baca, 49, was hired because of his coaching ability, not his drawing power.

“He is a proven winner, he can lead kids,” Croson said. “Anything else . . . is icing on the cake.”

Baca’s three years as an American Legion coach are probably more useful than his having coached the nation’s best band of 12-year-olds. And most of his 15 years as a Little League coach have been spent at the 15-year-old level, the age of most freshmen.

It is not only Chaminade that wishes to capitalize on Baca’s baseball knowledge. He has been hired as a technical adviser to teach baseball fundamentals to the actors in “Three Wishes,” a feature film starring Patrick Swayze.

In addition, Baca, assistant coach George Saul and several players from the Northridge team, completed an instructional video titled, “The Earthquake Kids” that will be available for holiday shoppers.

The 12-year-old movers and shakers will remain in the spotlight at least through New Years Day, when they will ride atop the Arco float in the Rose Parade. As something of a warm-up, they rode in the recent Verdugo Days parade.

And they will be featured Saturday at the Rose Bowl during the halftime show of the football game between UCLA and Stanford.

High school is just around the corner for many of the Northridge players.

Team members Nathaniel Dunlap, Justin Gentile, Spencer Gordon, Jonathan Higashi and Michael Nesbit are eighth-graders at Chaminade Middle School.

They probably will attend Chaminade High, and others might join them now that Baca has been hired.