It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. Warren G was on the field, trying to consume… Long Beach Coast baseball.
Friday night’s inaugural Regulators Night should be ruled a success as the Long Beach Coast (15-3) put away the RedPocket Mobiles (1-17) at Blair Field with a 6-3 victory.
The Coast have yet to cool off as the hottest team in the Pioneer League, winning 12 consecutive games and topping the standings.
In addition to throwing out the first pitch, Long Beach native and Long Beach Coast co-owner Warren G kick-started the evening with a live rendition of his 1994 hit song “Regulate.” The crowd stood up in unison from their seats while fans from the concourse flocked to the bleachers to see the rapper in action.
Before the team was officially unveiled as the Coast, the Regulators’ nickname was a popular choice, as evidenced by most fans ditching the signature teal green for the black-and-white Regulators’ uniforms.
Everyone at the ballpark chipped in to maximize the “Regulators Night” experience, including the organist who blasted tracks from the 1990s such as Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise” and Tupac Shakur’s “California Love.”
“Ever since we got to Long Beach, we’ve received nothing but love from the community,” outfielder Emilio Corona said. “As you can kind of see in our home stand, they can change the game, like bands coming out, making noise, being loud, that can definitely have an impact on the outcome. And we’re on a little bit of a roll, so it’s been fun.”
The Coast, leaders of the Pioneer League in total home runs, got their offense going in multiple ways—despite hitting zero home runs this game—by totaling seven hits, four walks and two stolen bases.
“That’s something that we’ve talked about as a team,” Corona said. “I’m not solely relying on the home run ball to score runs and I think that’s something you saw again tonight. We found ways. We’re still hitting balls hard, just trying to find different ways to put up runs.”
After building an early 2-0 lead, Coast starting pitcher Nick Bautista surrendered a two-run home run to outfielder Hector Nieves to tie the game in the third inning. It appeared the Coast would go into another slugfest, but that homer was the only time Bautista allowed the Mob to change the scoreboard on his watch.
Bautista pitched six innings, allowing two earned runs on three hits and three walks, while striking out nine batters.
“I’ve been going through some struggles early in the year, and kind of simplifying, talking with some guys, our coaching staff, who’s kind of getting the whole boat, getting the help from everyone, and just kind of putting it together, had a good night,” Corona said.
In addition to winning the game on the field, Corona described Regulators Night as an awesome experience thanks to the Long Beach fanbase.
“To have Warren G come out here, throw out the first pitch, hang out with all of us was super special, so that’s fun,” Corona said. “Just getting to know the community. I never spent much time down here, but this is an awesome community, and it really showed out a great support.”
The Coast will host a series against the Modesto Roadsters on June 9-14 before heading to Oakland to face the Ballers.
Joshua Min
Reporter
Joshua Min is a senior journalism student at California State University, Long Beach and an assistant copy editor for the school’s newspaper, the Long Beach Current. In his first month with the Current, Joshua’s column “Future U ignores today’s problems, leaving ‘U’ out of the picture” won third place for Best Opinion Piece at the California College Media Association Awards. Aside from his copy editing duties, Joshua loves to cover sports and fill in to report on games whenever necessary.
