College Park High grad breaks into the show against the San Francisco Giants

When Christian Encarnacion-Strand was a freshman at College Park High School in the fall of 2014 the school’s baseball coach Andy Tarpley nicknamed him “Rook.” The confident newcomer told the coach he would break into a senior-laden starting lineup of players who had won a North Coast Section championship the previous spring and was to be ranked preseason No. 1 in the nation by USA Today.

Now, nine years later, Encarnacion-Strand indeed is a rookie with the Cincinnati Reds after making his major league debut last month, hitting a three-run pinch hit homer off the San Francisco Giants in his fourth MLB plate appearance.

Encarnacion-Strand was in the midst of a sensational minor league season when he finally got the call to come up to the big club on July 16 from the Reds’ AAA Louisville team.

First to hear the news late that Sunday afternoon were his family including Uncle Casey

Concord responds to grand jury report about CNWS ‘missteps’

The Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury didn’t mince words, titling its recent report on Concord’s actions regarding the weapons station development “A Promise Unfulfilled.”

“Now, seventeen years after Concord was designated as the Local Reuse Authority (LRA), little has been achieved and the project is once again at a crossroads,” foreperson Cynthia Roberts wrote in the June report.

In response, the city refutes the grand jury’s basic premise about progress at the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS).

“The report title and this statement demonstrates a lack of understanding as to how much progress the LRA has made working with the community, stakeholders, local agencies, regulators and the U.S. Navy on this complicated project,” wrote Guy Bjerke, Concord’s director of Economic Development and Base Reuse.

Bjerke noted several milestones made by the City Council, acting as the LRA, including:

Two years away from celebrating the 50th anniversary of its opening, the Concord Pavilion has a new naming sponsor with the venue now called the Toyota Pavilion at Concord.

The outdoor venue on Kirker Pass Road opened in May 1975 and is now operated by international concert promotion company Live Nation and currently hosts over 1000,000 visitors a year at concerts and community events. The Concord City Council recently approved an agreement with Live Nation for a 4-1/2-year sponsorship that is estimated to pay the city $613,895.

Concord is receiving 25% of the total revenue Toyota is paying for the naming rights to Live Nation. An estimated $250,000 is coming off the top of the $2.7 million deal to pay for the changing of all signage reflecting the new name around the area and on the Pavilion site.

Toyota can opt out of the agreement after the 2025 season, by which time the city will have received about $304,312. Only $12,500 is coming to Concord in 2023 as the signage costs will all be incurred in the near term.

Opened as the Concord Pavilion, the facility is owned by the city of Concord but has had a contract with Live Nation to operate the venue since 2000, after Bill Graham Presents had run programming there since 1985. From 2000 to 2006 the facility was called the Chronicle Pavilion and from 2006-13 the Sleep Train Pavilion. In the 1970s and 1980s the Concord Pavilion season (but not the venue) was titled with beer sponsors Michelob, Stroh’s and Budweiser.

When the management contract was up for renewal with Live Nation after the 2013 season, then mayor Dan Helix was insistent the venue revert to its heritage title of Concord Pavilion. That was in effect until this July 1 when the name was changed after Live Nation arranged the sponsorship with the local Northern California Toyota Dealers Association, which comprises 58 local Toyota dealers in the northern half of the state, including Concord Toyota.

That agreement completed in December 2013 guarantees the city a minimum annual payment of $800,000. The contrast with Live Nation mandates 75 concerts drawing a minimum of 3000 attendance each over every five-year period, including the new five-year extension from 2024-28). That is an average of 15 shows each year, which is exactly the number currently

• Adopting a Reuse Plan and Environmental Impact Report in 2010, followed by adoption of the Reuse Area Plan and environmental amendments into the city’s General Plan in 2012.

• Consulting with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in 2017 about development of the 5,000+ acres. Assisting the Navy in 2017 in support of a future property transfer.

• Preparing a conceptual plan for a Tournament Sports Complex and facilitating the Blue-Ribbon Committee’s Campus District Vision Framework in 2018-’19.

The Blue Devils hold virtually every Drum Corps International World Championship record but until last Saturday night in Indianapolis performing for a crowd of 23,000, they could not claim to have won three consecutive world championships.

Capping off a second consecutive undefeated season, the Concord corps lived up to its reputation as the finest drum corps in the world when the Blue Devils won their 21st DCI championship and in the process matched the threepeats of The Cavaliers (2000-02) and The Cadets (1984-86).

It’s been nearly 1500 days since the Blue Devils last lost a competition, which came in the preliminary round of the 2019 World Finals before the Concord corps rebounded to win the semi-final and final night’s competitions. The pandemic eliminated the 2020 and 2021 seasons, but the Blue Devils haven’t missed a beat, retaining their top form the past two summers.

With 21 World Championships they have won more than twice as many as any other corp. The Blue Devils won 10 of the past 15 DCI finals and have not placed lower than second since 2007. This year’s winning score of 98.975 was slightly off their all-time finals record in 2014 of 99.65.

This year’s program “The Cut Outs” was inspired by the work of French visual artist Henri Matisse and featured music from such diverse composers as Joni Mitchell, Yugo Kanno, TesseracT, James Newton Howard and Dave Glyde.

“There’s so much hard work that we put into the show and in the summer,” Blue Devils drum major Corey Castillo said after Saturday’s final results were announced. “When you think about the Blue Devils’ legacy, it’s a really high standard. There’s a lot of pressure to uphold that, but I think we really did that successfully this year.”

A Corps Director Pat Seidling says, “We never talk about our winning streak or past championships. We want our members to have a good, positive experience and not get wrapped up in records.”