Friday, May 15, 2026

Altadena’s Little League Refused To Fold After the Fire. A New Film Shows What Happened Next.

[photo credit: Going for Home]

What happened over the next nine months is the subject of “Going for Home,” an 82-minute documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Eric Simonson that will screen free at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Loma Alta Park in Altadena.

The film follows the league through a season played in the shadow of the fire, capturing both the on-field action and the off-field struggles of families navigating displacement, insurance battles and soil contamination scares that nearly shut the season down.

The season was made possible in part by West Pasadena Little League, which opened its fields so Central Altadena’s nearly 20 teams could practice and play. That cross-community partnership anchored a season that produced an ending no one expected: the Braves, a team of 10- and 11-year-olds from one of the area’s smaller programs, won the District 17 Tournament of Champions on June 3, 2025, beating the Arcadia Brooklyn Dodgers 3-2 for the first division title in league history.

“It’s a story about underdogs,” said Simonson, a Glendale-based filmmaker whose documentary short “A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin” won the Oscar in 2006. “This was a really bold step for them to defy the fire, all the effects of the fires, and say we’re going to hold our season anyway. It means that much to be together.”

Simonson and his wife, producer Sue Cremin, a Yale School of Drama graduate who also received two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her performance in “The Father” at Pasadena Playhouse, spent nine months filming the season. The couple knew the league from when their own son played in it about a decade ago, according to the Los Angeles Times. Violent Femmes founding member Gordon Gano composed the original score.

The documentary balances raw, emotional interviews of families still grappling with the fire’s aftermath with lighter moments from the dugout — kids tripping over ball buckets or cheering on teammates. In the end, Cremin said, it is a film about “people fighting for joy.”

“It was an escape,” Cremin said. “It was community.”

One young player captured the stakes simply in the film’s trailer: “When I found out that we were gonna play, I was like ‘Yay! I get something to take my mind off the fire.'”

The documentary premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February and has since screened at the Pasadena International Film Festival and at Pasadena City College, where UCLA’s Center X partnered with PCC to host the first screening for players and families on March 14.

But Saturday’s outdoor screening at Loma Alta Park marks the film’s community debut in Altadena itself — and it carries particular weight. The park, which reopened in May 2025 as the first Altadena park restored after the fire, is now home to Central Altadena Little League, playing on two Dodgers Dreamfields built through a $400,000 investment by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation in collaboration with Los Angeles County Parks.

Robert “Trey” Milton III, a lifelong Altadena resident and former Central Altadena Little League player who helped organize the league’s post-fire return, said the Braves’ championship felt almost predestined.

“Kind of like when the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl after Katrina, we were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be awesome if some special moment happened this year?'” Milton said. “And then it did. It was exciting.”

Matthew Milton, Robert’s brother and an assistant coach for the Braves, said his players found something on the diamond that the fire had taken from every other part of their lives.

“They dug deep within themselves,” said Milton, whose son Titus played on the championship-winning team. “They were able to really just take a deep breath, not think about their home not being there. … They were able to say, ‘Let’s have fun right here, let’s work hard. … Here’s my joy.'”

That joy coexists with reality. Brian Gardner, a Central Altadena coach who lost his home in the fire, put it plainly.

“When you get on the field, you’re not worried about bills and insurance and the banks,” Gardner said. “But it’s still a fight every single day.”

“Going for Home” screens at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at Loma Alta Park, 3330 N. Lincoln Ave., Altadena, CA 91001. Admission is free. More information is available at goingforhomefilm.com.

“It was just incredible what they were able to pull off,” Simonson said. “And we felt lucky to be there. It’s one of those magical moments that a documentary filmmaker prays for, hopes for, to capture those moments.”