EL SEGUNDO HERALD June 22, 2017 Page 5 El Segundo Babe Ruth’s Beavers Repeat Championship Season Story and Photos by Gregg McMullin The 62nd El Segundo Babe Ruth League season has come to an end, as the Beavers defeated the Seals 5-2 in a one-game playoff. On a sundrenched morning, the Beavers defended their title after defeating the Stars a season ago in the playoffs. Under second-year manager Joe Dornblaser, a member of the 1974 El Segundo Babe Ruth all-star team that won the World Series, it capped off an incredible season that saw his team win the first two rounds while narrowly sweeping all three rounds. The Beavers went 12-3 during the season and 13-3 overall with a team that was certainly the class of the league with so many high school players and arguably the top 14-year-old in the league. Throughout the season the Beavers put pressure on their opponents with strong hitting one through nine, solid defense and three players who pitched at some level for their high school teams. To beat the Beavers, you’d have to play a clean game since they capitalized on errors and miscues. Coach Dornblaser’s line-up included Tom Grant, Cameron Dornblaser, Jacob Snelgrove and Jackson Slavens who all played for the high school baseball team. Add in Julian Rodriquez, arguably the top 14-year-old and one of the top players in the league, and you can understand how good this team was. A Warriors Dynasty Has Officially Arrived in the NBA By Adam Serrao The NBA has been a league that is full of dynasties. In fact, since the 1980 season, only 11 different teams have taken home the championship. That’s 11 teams in 37 years. Professional basketball may not necessarily offer the most parity out of all of the other sports, but teams do figure out ways to simply dominate their opponents. Whether it is the people who work in the front office, the MVP players on the roster, or just a little bit of good luck in the air, the National Basketball Association is a league full of teams that create dynasties. This year, the Golden State Warriors proved that they have what it takes to become the league’s next great dynasty. With Kevin Durant now in the fold and as a team that now has a second championship title in the last three years, it won’t be long before the Warriors add their names to the list of greatest basketball teams ever--if they haven’t done so already. One way to tell that Golden State has a truly great and dynamic team is by looking at their opponents’ play in the NBA Finals that just ended last Monday night at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. In the final four games of the series, the Cavaliers finished by scoring 113, 113, 137 and 120 points in each game, respectively. Despite that massive total of 483 points, LeBron and his Cavs lost three of the four games and the entire series in five games to the Warriors. What this year’s NBA Finals has taught basketball fans is that they may currently be watching one of the most high-powered teams that the league has ever seen--if not the most high-powered. If it’s not Klay Thompson getting it done, it’s Steph Curry, Durant, Draymond Green or even one of the role players from off of the bench like Andre Iguodala, for instance. “Winning a championship is so hard,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “And when you do it, you just get nine months of all this work and you can finally let loose.” Two titles in three years is a remarkable feat and as Kerr says, is extremely hard to do. And as history has shown us all, the difficulty lies in a team’s ability to keep a championship roster intact over the long haul. If Shaq and Kobe actually liked each other, who knows how many championships the Lakers would have won together. Relationships, as well as many other things, go a long way in keeping a championship team together. Fortunately for Golden State, members on the roster can now look back on history--like that of Shaq and Kobe’s--and try not to replicate the mistakes that others have created before them. That starts with Kevin Durant, who already has said that he will refuse a max contract from the Warriors in order to keep the core group of guys together. Heading into next season, the only main players under contract on Golden State are Green and Thompson (and a few bench guys). That means that Durant and Curry will have to work something out in order for them and players like Iguodala and Shaun Livingston to return to the team. Durant has a player option that he will not exercise, giving the Warriors added flexibility under the cap. Curry, on the other hand, will most likely get a max deal in the range of $205 million, and deservedly so. With that huge deal on the books, Durant will have to be pretty unselfish and take a pay cut to get the majority of the team back next season. It has been widely reported that Durant is on board with that idea and as he learned from Shaq and Kobe’s feud in Laker Land, unselfishness can go a long way in terms of accumulating championship rings. Both the players and the front office of Golden State are intelligent enough to hold onto the key pieces of the roster in order to form a preeminent dynasty. That dynasty is in the works. The only question is, how long will it remain? As everyone learned from their recent Finals performance, the Warriors are far and away the best team in the league. Despite some games against LeBron’s Cavaliers being close near the end, Golden State has proven to be light years ahead of even Cleveland as far as talent on respective rosters goes. Cavaliers fans may think it’s a bit unfair, but like Draymond Green said during his team’s championship celebration, “You started the superteam, bro!” LeBron has been teaming up with other great players to win championships for the majority of his career. Durant simply followed suit to prove that he (and the Warriors) can be great too. Las Vegas oddsmakers have already made the Warriors overwhelming favorites to win it all again next year. The only thing that can theoretically stop Golden State now is someone like Thompson or Green getting their feelings hurt and wanting to prove that they can win with a different team, which they undoubtedly wouldn’t do singlehandedly. LeBron is certainly going to re-up in the Eastern Conference and try to recruit more All-Star caliber players to join the Cavaliers. If he can’t get that to happen, he’ll move on again and join another team full of superstars to chase another championship. If there’s one thing about LeBron James that’s certain, it’s that he never stands pat. With a high-powered team like the Golden State Warriors that performs so well on both the defensive and offensive sides of the ball, though, it may not even matter what James tries to do in the future. Golden State’s dynasty has arrived. The only players who can stop them now are each other. – Asixlion@earthlink.net • The Beavers celebrate their championship. See Babe Ruth, page 8
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