Shaikin: From Sherman Oaks Little League to Game 1: Jack Flaherty's local ties shine

The weathered white banner is attached to a fence. The batting cage is behind the fence. The snack bar is just a few meters away.

The banner honors a 2005 championship team – the Dodgers, no less – in the Sherman Oaks Little League. The banner lists the team's 12 players, including Jack Flaherty.

For the thousands of kids who play youth baseball every year in Sherman Oaks and elsewhere, the real Dodgers are the wish, the dream, the goal.

For the first time in 58 years, a pitcher who grew up in Los Angeles will start a World Series game for the Dodgers. Flaherty is the Dodgers' Game 1 starter on Friday at Dodger Stadium, about 17 miles from Sherman Oaks Little League.

Flaherty follows Hall of Famer Don Drysdale, whose childhood home was about three miles from the Sherman Oaks fields. Drysdale, a Van Nuys High graduate, started in the World Series for the Dodgers in 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966.

Flaherty wasn't overly sentimental as he explained what it means to him to start Game 1 for his hometown team.

“I get to pitch first,” he said. “It will be fun. It will be exciting. I look forward to it.

“There is no stage bigger than this. It's what we all wanted as children. That’s the position we wanted to be in.”

A sign honoring the championship in which Jack Flaherty's Little League team played.

(Bill Shaikin / Los Angeles Times)

New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton played at Notre Dame High, a mile from Sherman Oaks Little League. In 2014, during his time with the Miami Marlins, he said all of his childhood friends asked him the same question: When are you coming home to the Dodgers?

“All the time,” Stanton said at the time. “They say, 'You have to play for us.'

The Yankees nixed that and traded for Stanton in 2017. The Yankees also signed pitcher Gerrit Cole as a free agent in 2019.

Cole, who grew up in Orange County and turned down offers from the Dodgers and Angels, is the Yankees' starting pitcher in Game 1.

It would be overly dramatic to say that Flaherty was destined to pitch for the Dodgers. After all, they are his fourth major league team.

But on the day the Dodgers traded for Flaherty in July, his mother, Eileen, posted a picture on Instagram: Jack as a toddler, dressed in a Dodgers onesie and an oversized Dodgers hat.

What doesn't a mother do for her child? On the outside of the Sherman Oaks Little League concession stand, a plaque honors “the incredible volunteers who have put in countless hours to create a great place for our children.” One of the award winners: Eileen Flaherty.

When it came time for Little League Night at Dodger Stadium, Flaherty was there.

“We would be sitting in left field,” he said. “It felt like it was always against the Giants. (Barry) Bonds was simply booed left and right. That was something.”

Even Bonds said that. In 2005, the same year Flaherty and his Little League teammates won that banner, Bonds said this: “Dodger Stadium is the best show I've ever seen in baseball.” They say “Barry sucks” louder than anyone else out there. And guess what? . . You have to have serious talent for 53,000 people to say you suck.”

Flaherty was 9.

Mark Hartman, the coach of the Little League championship team, said Flaherty was a happy boy off the field but never on the field.

“He was always very dedicated and had a passion for baseball,” Hartman said. “From the age of seven, he almost intimidated adults because he was so intense. He had this aura about him.”

Flaherty said some of his Little League teammates were in the audience at the National League championship series. He counts her among his circle of family and close friends who can relieve any pressure by changing the subject to the NFL and college football.

“It feels like you’re 15 years old again,” he said.

Doug Urbach, whose son Tyler played with Flaherty at Harvard-Westlake High, said he and Eileen Flaherty shared carpool duties until the boys were old enough to drive.

Urbach said he was surprised and touched when Flaherty wrote his name on the “Stand Up to Cancer” cards distributed to players and shown on national television in 2019 while battling lymphoma. (Urbach said his cancer treatment was successful.)

Hartman's son Jack played with Flaherty on the Little League championship team. Hartman said Jack even lived with the Flahertys for a while one summer. Of course, Jack Hartman is 100% behind Jack Flaherty in this World Series.

Except, well, not quite 100%. Jack Hartman played college ball at the University of Pennsylvania. One of his teammates: Jake Cousins, now a reliever for the Yankees.