On Pins and Needles : Lack of Mementos Leaves Moorpark Little League Team Scrambling

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Showing up at the Little League World Series without pins to trade is a little like picking up a prom date without a corsage.

Players exchange pins with their opponents before games as a gesture of sportsmanship. Fans also trade avidly, eager to pick up a pin for every team in the World Series.

Hats, T-shirts and jackets are cluttered with the tiny metal mementos of teams that have come to this small town in northern Pennsylvania for Little League’s biggest tournament. Most teams bring 500 to 1,000 pins for trading.

So when Moorpark--a team that willed its way into the World Series with three wins in one day last week--arrived with just 25 pins, it was definitely a problem.

The Moorpark league’s stock of 800 angel pins--worn in memory of Joel Burchfield, the 11-year-old Moorpark Little Leaguer who drowned trying to cross a rain-swollen drainage ditch Jan. 31--had all been given away or traded.

So league organizers turned to the city for help.

“We had no time to have pins made, and the city was the only place to find some that said ‘Moorpark,’ ” said Colleen Hubler, a Moorpark league official and unofficial team pin coordinator.

Organizers were disappointed with the response. The first request brought only 25 from the city’s stockpile of Moorpark 10th anniversary pins, Hubler said.

Upon arriving in Williamsport, she contacted Gary Cabriales, a Moorpark Unified School District trustee, who was able to get another 25 pins Monday from City Manager Steve Kueny before leaving to cheer on the team.

When Councilman Bernardo Perez learned about the situation Tuesday, he sent a rush order of 100 pins expected to arrive today via overnight delivery.

“This is the sort of thing we keep them around for,” Perez said. “Unfortunately, we may have had a problem anticipating how many they needed. I know how important this is to the kids and the parents.”

Hubler said, “It looks like we might have enough. For a while it was like pulling teeth.”

She said she appreciates the efforts of Cabriales and Perez, who had two sons play in Moorpark Little League. But she blames City Hall and Kueny, in particular, for not providing more pins sooner.

“This is the biggest positive thing to happen to Moorpark maybe ever, and the city wouldn’t lift a finger for us,” she said.

Kueny said that each time someone came to him for pins, he gave them what they needed.

“Obviously, the whole town is proud of [the team],” he said. “They have brought a quite a bit of notoriety to Moorpark.”

Most Little Leagues don’t turn to a city for pins, stockpiling their own and doling them out during tournaments. Moorpark, however, is making its first extended trek through tournament play, and was caught unprepared, Hubler said.

The team lost its first game of tournament play, but won, 7-3, on Tuesday against Marshalltown, Iowa.

Henson is a Times staff writer reporting from Williamsport and Baker is a correspondent reporting from Moorpark.

* GAME RESULTS: C1