Good morning, San Diego ☀️
Here’s what we have for you today:
- Sweetwater Valley lost their first game at the Little League World Series, but this isn’t the end for the players.
- The city of San Diego is settling for $10 million in a lawsuit brought by a La Jolla homeowners association and condominium owner over a sinkhole from a failed stormwater pipe.
Andrew Keatts
General manager and editor
Top story
A Toros game is like a ‘concert with baseball.’ Now it’s more – how an Encinitas native and some big names are guiding Tijuana’s playoff push
Led by an Encinitas-bred former major leaguer, the Toros de Tijuana are heading to the Mexican Baseball League playoffs.
Toros games have a well-earned reputation as “a nine-inning concert with a baseball game going on in the background,” as Phil Evans — a La Costa Canyon graduate who spent parts of four season in the majors with the Mets and Pirates — told our Noah Perkins.
But don’t let the party atmosphere fool you. Those raucous fans are invested. Evans found familiar faces in the clubhouse former Dodgers star Justin Turner and 13-year MLB veteran Wilmer Flores, and the team finished first in the Mexican league’s northern zone, with a 60-31 record.
Cross-border commutes are a way of life for tens of thousands of Tijuana and San Diego residents, including Evans, Turner and Flores. Every day, Evans drives from Encinitas to San Ysidro, walks across the border and catches a cab to the 17,000-seat ballpark in Tijuana’s Capistrano neighborhood.
“I tell them every day, ‘You guys ever think 10 years ago we’d be in TJ together?’” evans said of Turner and Flores. “It’s like a running joke, but we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. And, I mean, we’re still playing ball, so we can’t complain. It’s a funner full-circle moment.”
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Stories you should know about
🥍 The San Diego Seals are ditching Pechanga Arena and moving north to Oceanside’s two-year-old Frontwave Arena: That makes three professional sports teams to bail on the decades-old sports arena in recent years, as city efforts to finalize the Midway Rising redevelopment continue to come up short.
🌮 Jimmy Carter’s Mexican Cafe, a favorite sit-down Mexican restaurant in Hillcrest since 1991, lost its namesake owner last year when he passed away at 82 years old: A year later, our resident foodie says it’s still delivering the same beloved food (but the margaritas might be a tad light on tequila).
🚨 Two Torrey Pines High students are suing the San Dieguito Union High School District over discipline they received for voicing pro-Trump views at an anti-ICE rally on campus: One student alleges in the lawsuit he was interrogated by police and transported to a mental health facility for allegedly looking up queries like “how to dispose of a body,” which he denies ever doing.
What else we’re reading
💰 Feel like you deserve a raise? So did trustees in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. So they granted themselves a 300% raise. (Voice of San Diego)
🏗️ An Emerald Hills resident is suing the city of San Diego over a housing development — which relies on the contentious, now-repealed Footnote 7 — coming to his neighborhood. (KPBS)
What to do this weekend
Need weekend plans? We’ve got you. ⭐ = free
💥 Red Bull breaking competition finals, Broadway Pier (Today, 2 p.m.–4 p.m.)
💿 Temecula Valley Record Fair (Today, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.) ⭐️
🚲 Your only chance to bike over the Coronado Bridge (Sunday, 6 a.m.–2 p.m.)
🚗 National City Cars and Culture Festival (Sunday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.) ⭐️
🤠 North Park Square Dance, Verbatim Books (Sunday. 7 p.m.)