Feelings

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts . The Newport Harbor Baseball Assn. is a nonprofit that serves kids from of all income levels. Through an agreement between the city of Costa Mesa and Newport-Mesa Unified School District, the league uses several fields owned by the district. While trying to develop young athletes, the baseball association also must raise $100 to $125 per child and an additional $100,000 a year to keep up with the demands of maintaining the Newport-Mesa fields it uses, said Lantz Bell, the group’s president.

I awoke Tuesday morning with the theme of one of television’s longest-airing programs, ABC’s Wide World of Sports, running through my mind as I reflected back on the first week of the drama of human competition here in Vancouver. With all due respect to the Greeks and Chinese (my only other two Olympic experiences), I have never seen so much personal and national pride as I have seen here in our geographical neighbors to the north. This town is simply alive with the electricity of raw human emotion.

Mother’s Market and Kitchen is moving out of the location it’s called home for more than 30 years. But it’s not going far. Mother’s is taking over the old Borders bookstore that closed recently on Newport Boulevard. The new site is under construction by Carlile Coatsworth Architects Inc., and Mother’s is expected to be all moved in by June. “We’re bummed. Mother’s is awesome,” said Eric Santana, the manager of Surfside Sports store, one of the market’s neighbors on 17th Street.

COSTA MESA — Austin Bagby and Trevor Davis battled some sort of stomach virus Saturday, when Newport Harbor High played at Estancia in a nonleague boys’ basketball game. But in the end the Sailors were the ones who left the Eagles feeling ill. Newport Harbor outscored Estancia, 13-3, in overtime to earn a 55-45 victory in a spirited Newport-Mesa District matchup. The Sailors, namely Bagby, worked hard late to gain the advantage and made the Wes Shaw storyline seem like an afterthought.

Newport Coast resident Jim McGee spent thousands of hours over the course of several years negotiating an agreement for Newport Beach to annex the well-heeled Newport Coast area. The deal included about $50 million in benefits, paid out by Newport Beach, for the residents there. The deal went through in 2002, after a group of Newport Coast residents filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to halt the annexation. Today, McGee cites perks like faster response times from Newport Beach police and paramedics as reasons why he’s happy to call himself a Newport Beach resident today.

Local breast-health commentators and experts this week criticized a recent report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which suggested that women between age 40 and 49 who have no personal or family history of cancer don’t need mammograms. “They communicated, in an odd and confusing way, a message that appears to say that we shouldn’t have mammograms for women under the age of 50, and today, particularly in California, we believe it should start at 40,” said Lisa Wolter, executive director of the Orange County affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, based in Costa Mesa.

Local children on Wednesday helped fill what organizers worry will be an empty Spark of Love warehouse, with their donations going to the annual firefighters’ charity toy program. “This is really special because this has been a slow year for gift gathering,” Capt. Jerry Strom told children from Harbor View Elementary, who visited the Corona del Mar fire station to drop off their gifts. He spoke of the large Spark of Love warehouse in Irvine that’s normally packed with toys in December.

Gabriel Cantu never wore a suit in his life. That changed when Working Wardrobes hooked him up with a new suit, two ties, two pairs of pants, a pair of shoes and a belt. The 24-year-old said he felt different when he put on the suit. “I felt good about myself,” he said. “When I put it on, I felt good and confident.” Now his chances at finding a job are much better, Cantu said. That’s what Jerri Rosen had in mind when she started Working Wardrobes, a charity that just moved to a new home in Costa Mesa from Fountain Valley.