Earthquake kids grateful their Little League race gave them hope

Twelve-year-old Spencer Gordon was sleeping with his best friend Jared at his Northridge home on Jan. 17, 1994, when he was awakened by what he could only describe as a constant thud.

“It was deafening, you couldn't hear yourself screaming,” Gordon recalls now, thirty years later.

Gordon saw Jared rushing across his bedroom as it shook, hitting the walls. He tried to run, but couldn’t find his footing as the seismic force continued to knock him down. His mirror and dresser fell in front of his door, leaving him and Jared trapped until his father smashed the door open with his shoulder, reached over the dresser, grabbed the kids with one arm and pulled them out as they rode out the rest of the 6.7 magnitude earthquake huddled together in the hallway.

The floor was strewn with broken glass. Everything in the kitchen cabinets—plates, cups, utensils—had fallen into a pile of debris two feet high. The water and electricity had been out for six days. The swimming pool was half empty.

“Everything that could have fallen fell and then broke,” recalls Gordon, now 42. “It was very scary.”

Gordon and his Northridge City Little League teammates now remember that summer as the time when their world was turned upside down until their magical trip to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, brought them deep, cathartic joy.

Interstate 10 split and collapsed above La Ciénaga Boulevard following the Northridge earthquake on January 17, 1994.

(Eric Draper/Associated Press)

Nathaniel Dunlap felt the quake in Riverside, where he was staying for a baseball tournament, with enough force to wake him and his mother. His attempts to contact his father and grandmother, who remained in Northridge, failed. It wasn't until they turned on the television in their hotel room that they realized the quake was centered in his hometown.

To make matters worse, Dunlap and his mother had no way to get home. Several overpasses on Interstates 5, 10, 118 and 210 had collapsed, and the ones that were still standing were packed with people in both directions, either evacuating their homes or trying to get home.

When they finally managed to drive the 85 miles back to Northridge the next day, Dunlap recalled it was like “driving into a war zone.”

“Our house was still standing, but everything in it was destroyed,” he said.

The Dunlap Family – Nathaniel, 5-foot-11, his parents, grandmother and the family dog ​​spent the next three weeks sleeping in a three-person tent in their backyard, unsure of the extent of the structural damage to the home.

A man looks out onto the street from his wallless home in the destroyed Northridge Meadows Apartments.

(Los Angeles Times)

“We lived near Winnetka Park, and if you drove by in the weeks after the earthquake, it was like a tent city,” Dunlap said. “A lot of people were displaced, either because their homes weren’t safe or because a lot of the apartments in the area collapsed or became completely unstable.”

David Teraoka also had no water or electricity in the aftermath of the quake. His family boiled pool water to heat up fast food like instant noodles because everything in their fridge had gone bad. But most of all, Teraoka remembers that there was really nothing for the kids to do during that time.

“Everything related to entertainment was closed, malls, cinemas… I remember feeling horrified when I saw some of these buildings destroyed and other things closed,” he said. [Life] “It definitely wasn't normal for a really long time.”

It wasn't until about a month later, when Teraoka was finally able to return to playing baseball, that this feeling began to return to normal.

“It was so refreshing… to be able to go to the baseball field with my friends… it was like a good kind of escape,” he said. “I can definitely say it was therapeutic.”

A boy runs past cars crushed by a collapsed apartment building during the Northridge earthquake.

(Roland Otero/Los Angeles Times)

Coach Larry Baca noticed a change in his players' demeanor once they returned to the field.

“The whole time I spent on the baseball field was a lot of fun,” Gordon said. “My teammates were great and funny. We were all playing pranks and jokes… We all loved each other, too.”

“It was great,” Baca said. “They were so happy because they felt calm when they came to the baseball field. They knew their roof wasn’t going to collapse.” [on top of them.]”

Baca also knew how talented they were. He knew that once the All-Star season rolled around that summer, the Northridge City Little League would be a hit.

They had a lineup that featured a solid one- through nine-base hitter, including a particularly strong cleanup hitter in Gordon, two dominant aces on the mound in Dunlap and Justin Gentile — and in Gentile’s case, a first baseman who could also hit hard in games when he wasn’t playing — a great defensive mind in catcher Jonathan Higashi, a silky-smooth shortstop in Matt Fisher and a young first baseman named Matt Cassel, who would go on to a 14-year career as an NFL center fielder. They also had depth, with Teraoka’s bat providing a spark off the bench.

The only real difference separating the 1994 team from the 1993 team was that now, as 11- and 12-year-olds, they had the opportunity to reach the pinnacle of youth sports: the World Junior Championships in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Some kids who had been around for years knew this, and made it a goal since the first All-Star practice when the team gathered on the field and each player signed a plywood plaque that read, “Northridge goes all the way.”

“We were definitely confident in our ability,” Dunlap said. “We knew we had something really special.”

Thus, the legend of the earthquake children began.

After a dominant 20-0 winning streak in district, section and regional tournaments to reach Williamsport, the goal of winning a championship is closer than ever.

Northridge tied Minnesota’s Brooklyn Central in the first conference game of the World Series. Dunlap was on the mound, and he still remembers his excitement and energy. His fastball was 74 mph (the equivalent of 97 mph in Major League Baseball), but he didn’t have the same control. He gave up four on six hits, and while the offense put up two runs, their winning streak ended when Gordon struck out to end the game. For the first time that summer, Northridge lost.

Gordon felt so sad, he felt the weight of that moment sinking in on him, and he blamed himself for losing to his parents after the game.

“I couldn't perform well,” Gordon said. “I had the opportunity to be a champion, but I failed. I felt like a complete failure.”

The loss sent Northridge to the losers' round of the tournament, but it was still in a very good position. Baca took a moment to pull Gordon aside and remind him of that.

“Get rid of this, we'll get back there, there's nothing stopping us,” Baca told Gordon.

Nicknamed “Smooth” by his players, Bacca was known for sticking with his players at all times. He wasn't quick to replace players, nor was he overly analytical about matchups. He led the team with his best nine players.

“I treated them like football players, not little kids,” Baca said. “… I was a combat soldier. I was a sergeant. So I treated the men the same way, and I treated them with respect.”

That mentality paid off when Gordon, who was one of nine in the first three games of the series, hit a three-run home run in the first inning of the U.S. Championship Game to take an early 3-0 lead over Springfield, Va.

“I realized that if I stayed in the moment, I could accomplish something,” he said. “I believed in myself, I stayed focused and I was able to get through it. … Baseball is a tough game, it’s a game of failure. … It’s always going to keep you humble, and you just have to learn from those moments.”

Those three runs were the only offense of the game. Dunlap was playing again for Northridge, and he had a different motivation for this game.

The day before the U.S. championship, Baca was standing by the payphones in the barracks — where the players and coaches were staying — when he heard Springfield coach George Larry, whom they had once beaten, talking to his mother on the phone.

“we are playing” [Northridge] “We'll play again tomorrow,” Baca heard Larry say. “They have a guy who throws fastballs, but we can hit them.”

When Baca relayed the conversation he had overheard to Dunlap, it excited him.

Dunlap's velocity was down compared to his first start, but he was hitting his spots much better as he pitched a no-hitter in the sixth and final inning.

“Every round was so smooth, it was amazing,” Dunlap recalls.

Springfield ended Dunlap's no-hitter bid in the sixth inning with a line drive to the outfield. The next batter hit a ground ball that bounced hard and nearly spun off Matt Fisher's glove. Suddenly, the tying run was at the plate with one out.

Dunlap struck out the next batter, and then Ethan Larry—son of George Larry, the coach Baca had heard on the phone—came in to bat.

Baka heard George shout to his son, “Watch the curve!”

Baca signaled for Dunlap to throw a fastball. Strike one.

George shouted again on the next pitch, “Watch the curve!”

Baca pointed to another fastball. Strike two.

“Watch the curve!” George shouted for the third time.

Dunlap threw another fastball. Strike three. Northridge City Little League team became champions of the United States.

The team performed a victory lap, running around the field carrying the American flag as a crowd of 20,000 people packed into Howard J. Lamade Stadium chanted “USA! USA! USA!”

“It was like another world,” David Teraoka said. “I felt like a rock star, man.”

Northridge advanced to the World Series against Maracaibo in Venezuela, where their magical run ended in a 4-3 loss and it was time to head home. The players knew they were known as the Earthquake Kids, their games were covered by the media and their highlights were broadcast on SportsCenter, but as the season progressed, they spent more time isolated in the barracks and didn’t fully understand the impact they were having back home in Los Angeles.

At least, until their plane landed.

Talk show host Jay Leno interviews Northridge Little League players on September 5, 1994.

(NBC Universal via Getty Images)

A crowd of people—family, friends, reporters—waited for them at the gate as they arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. Some were holding signs, and almost all were cheering and screaming. As soon as the players passed through the gate, limousines were waiting for them, each one filled with pizza boxes. They were no longer just Northridge stars—they were Earthquake Kids—and they weren’t going home. They were going to K-Earth 101. They were going to Disneyland. They were getting to know each other at Dodger Stadium. They were going to meet Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and then-Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. They were going on Jay Leno’s show. They were going to make a cameo appearance in the 1995 movie “Three Wishes,” starring Patrick Swayze.

They were invited to the Rose Parade. A parade was held in their honor in Northridge, where they were driven down Devonshire Street and Reseda Boulevard in Corvette convertibles.

“I feel so lucky that we were able to experience this,” said Jonathan Higashi. “And the success that we all had, and all the consequences of all these things that not many people have the opportunity to do. We had to do it.”

It’s been 30 years since they achieved their 15 minutes of fame, but the memories of 1994—both good and bad—will forever be etched into the fabric of Northridge. Some people lost their homes, others their lives or loved ones. A generation of Los Angeles residents will forever be haunted by that year. But even though it was brief, a group of 11- and 12-year-olds gave their community something to cheer about, something to be proud of, and most of all, hope.

“It was nice to have something innocent to cling to,” Teraoka said. “For my parents and me, it was a great distraction from the damage to our home and community. As an adult, that’s what I remember now. … As a kid, it was really fun to be in that moment.”

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