Letters from the editor: Time for a Cinderella season

My daughter just started playing AYSO soccer.

She had two rounds of parks and recreation tot soccer under her belt and did so well we felt she was ready for the bigtime.

But she’s skipping a step — the coed team of mostly 4-year-olds — and going straight to a girls’ team.

A friend’s dad is the coach and he had an opening on his squad. My daughter’s 4, but the other girls are 5 or turning 5. Nevertheless, my wife and I figure she’s ready, and can only get better playing with bigger kids.

At the first practice the girls gathered to name the team. I thought this was cool because in my day, our team names were assigned. I played for toughs like the Rogues, Aztecs and Earthquakes.

So when it came time for the girls to make their pick, I was hoping for something that honored the heritage of “the beautiful game.”
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Commission: Event Room, Not Oasis Center, Should Honor Hart

From Corona del Mar Today

The Newport Beach Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission meeting on Tuesday turned into a “lovefest” for civic leader Evelyn Hart — but in the end, the commissioners decided the Oasis Center that will be opened later this month should not be renamed in her honor.

“I’m in love with Evelyn Hart,” Robert Shelton, a former Newport Beach city manager, told the commissioners. “I’ve been in love with her for more than 50 years. I’m beginning to think this meeting is a lovefest…”

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Mathis puts 16-inning game out of its misery

Jeff Mathis didn’t so much win Wednesday’s game against the Cleveland Indians with his 16th-inning sacrifice fly; he put it out of its misery.

Torii Hunter doubled to lead off the 16th, took third on Alberto Callaspo’s grounder to first base and scored on Mathis’ fly to deep right field to give the Angels a 4-3 victory in a 4-hour, 57-minute marathon that was the 19th game in club history to last 16 innings or more.

But riveting theater it wasn’t. The Angels managed six hits in 49 at-bats, left seven runners in scoring position and squandered several opportunities to win. The Indians, one of the league’s worst offensive teams, left 16 runners on base.

Getting to know alleged murder victim through her surviving work

I never met Marcia Forsberg, who wrote features for this newspaper in the 1970s and 1980s.

Now it looks like I never will.

Her husband of 39 years, Richard Forsberg, was charged this week with killing her in their Rancho Santa Margarita home and hiding her remains in Ventura County. Marcia Forsberg’s body has not been recovered.

She was — or if still alive, is — 61.

Now the only way to get to know Forsberg is through her writing. By rummaging through the Daily Pilot and Los Angeles Times’ archives, I could find only three of her old columns, though she wrote many more pieces for us. But even from this small sample, I feel like I got a sense of her colorful writing style and the enthusiasm she brought to the trade.
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The college conversation: Her daughter is headed off to school

LISA McLAUGHLIN, Daily Pilot columnist

My 5-year-old heads off to kindergarten this week, and even though she’s been in preschool and pre-K for three years, I’m a mess.

This transition is the real deal, and I’m beside myself wondering if I’ll have enough tissues the first day.

She, on the other hand, is ecstatic. The thought of new friends. New clothes. What her new teacher will be like.

And, more than that, she can’t wait to get back to school and learn. The Montessori school that she attended for three years called the time when students were focusing on academics “work,” so she’s really excited for new “work.”
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Ex-girlfriend stabs man with ice pick after hiding in back seat of his car in Yorba Linda, police say

A Yorba Linda man was stabbed several times with an ice pick by his ex-girlfriend, who had been hiding in the back seat of his car before attacking him as he pulled out of a church parking lot, authorities said Tuesday.

The 48-year-old man, whose name was not released, was starting to pull out in his Mercedes-Benz convertible when Elizabeth Cuevas Villanueva, 47, allegedly jumped from the back seat and began stabbing him in the head and shoulders.

He accidentally stepped on the gas and slammed into a tree.

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Ford’s Freeman Thomas, a Laguna resident, has a better idea

The gig: Design director for Ford Motor Co.’s strategic concepts group in Irvine.

Growing up: A Long Beach native, Thomas spent part of his childhood in Norway, Spain and Greece as his father, an air traffic controller for the U.S. Air Force, moved from assignment to assignment. Thomas also spent four years in the Air Force and was stationed in England, “which encouraged my fascination with European culture.”

Early years: Thomas graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1983 and went to work for Porsche. He joined Volkswagen in 1991 and DaimlerChrysler in 1999 and moved to Ford in 2005. “I made the determination that I wouldn’t be anywhere long enough to earn a pension,” Thomas said.

Notable cars: Thomas, 52, worked on the concept for the new Beetle. He created the design for the first Audi TT. At DamilerChrysler (now Chrysler Group), Thomas spearheaded the creation of “an aggressive rear-wheel-drive car,” the Chrysler 300. “The idea is to create a story … a car that immediately creates metaphors when you look at it, and those metaphors should not be appliance, boring and vanilla,” he said. Thomas also did work on the new-generation Explorer unveiled last month.

Polished pebble: The Ford Start concept vehicle is a small, “eco-friendly” car with a 1-liter, turbocharged, three-cylinder engine that puts out 120 horsepower. He said it could get more than 60 miles per gallon, depending on driving conditions. “The basic idea of the car was finding a polished pebble on the sand. You are attracted to that pebble and you want to pick it up and play with it. We want the car to look as if nature had shaped it,” Thomas said. Although there are no production plans for the vehicle, he says it is a serious concept that is “buildable.” Anything else would be a waste of time and Ford’s money, Thomas said. “If we don’t combine design and marketing and engineering into the concept cars, it is a fruitless exercise. You have to be able to make the concept cars that work.”

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It has been a tough season all around for Jeff Mathis

Jeff Mathis‘ batting average dipped below .200 for the first time this season Monday, the Angels catcher’s season-long slump only worsening over the last month.

But that figure wasn’t the one triggering the most concern in the manager’s office.

“What’s probably more disappointing than his offensive side are some of his defensive numbers,” Mike Scioscia said before the Angels played Tampa Bay on Tuesday.

Angels pitchers have a 4.03 earned-run average when Mathis is behind the plate this season, a smidgen higher than the 3.95 ERA they had compiled in games he had caught previously in his career. Mathis has also thrown out 23.1% of attempted base stealers, slightly worse than the 24.6% he threw out last season.

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Smoking Ban Could Include Parks — But Not Sidewalks For Now

From Corona del Mar Today

Newport Beach soon could see a smoking ban at public parks and other outdoor recreational areas, but plans to ban smoking outside restaurants and bars or on public sidewalks will likely not be part of any near-term proposal.

At the Monday meeting of the Environmental Quality Affairs Committee, the group discussed its ongoing efforts to expand the city’s smoking ban. Currently, smoking is not permitted on beaches, piers, public floats, public wharfs, or at Inspiration and Lookout points.

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Canalis: New business and schools pages coming

Readers may notice some changes this week in print and online.

First off, we’ve moved the Schools page from Tuesdays to Sundays, the hope being that more parents can enjoy our In the Classroom feature on what is traditionally a day for families to gather and talk. Lisa McLaughlin certainly inspires that kind of talk with her fantastic column, the College Conversation, which will move from Saturdays to anchor the new Schools page.

To make room for Schools, we moved our On Vacation feature, which shows Daily Pilot readers holding copies of the paper while on vacation, from Sundays to Wednesdays.

Also, we’ve gotten repeated requests to bring back concentrated business coverage. So I am happy to announce that we’ll revive the Business page on Tuesdays. The goal is to have one substantive business feature a week combined with short items on restaurant and retail openings, work promotions and the like.

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