Two Cities That Are. . . GOING TO TOWN

You buy a home in the gated community of Canyon Crest in Mission Viejo and you get a baseball field close by. And with a baseball field near enough to hit a homer to, what do you do? You play ball.

Or at least your kids do. Like the seven lucky boys from the California dream of a place whose team just became U.S. Little League champions.

If the South Mission Viejo All-Stars have a hometown, it is in the 600 homes of the subdivision called Canyon Crest, where the kids hang out, the moms play tennis, and fans these days are painting banners and making noisemakers, gearing up to cheer their team during today’s world championship game.

Yes, acknowledge the families in the big houses woven among the community’s hills, they do spend an awful lot of time in their air-conditioned cars and their air-conditioned rec rooms and their air-conditioned malls.

But, they say, between breathless phone conversations with friends about today’s game, the spirit pouring forth from these cul-de-sacs gives lie to those who say suburbanites live isolated lives.

“That’s the thing about Canyon Crest, it overlooks those [ball] fields. You move here, you have kids, and boom,” said Bill Gaggioli, whose son played for years in the same league as this year’s champions.

“It’s a lot more than a bunch of houses. It’s a neighborhood. And sports--baseball, this team--is symbolic of that. So we’re all just hooking in to the excitement. We’re all sharing the reward.”

Canyon Crest is not, of course, the only place in Mission Viejo that can lay claim to one or more of this year’s 100-pound baseball heroes. Almost half the team lives somewhere else in Mission Viejo. And with more than 20,000 kids in the city of about 70,000, you can bet there are a lot of proud parents elsewhere.

But this is the place right next door to the fields where the league plays all year. Dozens of other kids, among the hundreds in the league the all-star team draws from, live in Canyon Crest. Many of them attend nearby Castille Elementary School.

The subdivision is the sort of place where people really believe the maxim that sports is life. The neighborhood, after all, lies right off a street called Olympiad, so named, moms here are quick to point out, for the bicycle racers who whipped up and down the roadway during the 1984 Summer Olympics.

People move here because the Little League is so good, the soccer teams are so good, the gymnastics and swim and diving teams are so good. Greg Louganis grew up not far away. Dads and moms display their trophies from college sports triumphs. Fathers change from suits and ties into jeans in their cars to coach their kids. Moms work the snack bars at games.

Keep the kids busy and tired and healthy, families here say, and they’ll turn out well.

“It’s a collection of memories. I feel that way about baseball,” said Jacky Young, who was busy Friday planning a sign-making party in advance of next Wednesday night’s homecoming celebration for the Little League team.

“My husband, my boys, when they get together, they talk about baseball. It’s something that connects across generations. Sports is a very big part of our lives. When you live here, it’s the mother, the father, the kids, the whole deal, everyone involved.”

For weeks now in Canyon Crest parents of kids on the all-star team have hung banners from their garages and out their windows, in defiance of homeowner association rules, cheering their players on.

Neighbors who don’t have kids, or whose kids don’t play baseball, have caught the spirit too, watching the games on cable at home, and showing up at the local sports bar.

It’s all to be expected in a place where people play golf together, run together, swim together, go to the symphony and the theater together and share season tickets to the Angels and the Mighty Ducks, residents say.

This year, league parents raised more than $26,000 running a volunteer snack bar at the games. The league takes getting involved so seriously that parents with kids in the league who don’t volunteer at the snack bar have to contribute $25 a season.

“You just do it,” Gaggioli said. “This is Mission Viejo.”

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TODAY’S GAME AT WILLIAMSPORT, PA.

Mission Viejo (21-1) vs. Guadalupe, Mexico (26-2)

Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.