The mayor needs batting practice

Re “Mayor focuses on crime,” April 15

It’s been years since I coached, but I have some free advice for L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Your batting average will never improve if you continue to just swing for the fences. Villaraigosa has started so many wild initiatives that The Times would need to print a two-page table just to squeeze in the highlights. The travel commitments alone would stagger a normal man, including his campaign swings for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Stay around for a change and finish something. And while you’re at it, take the shackles off the L.A. Police Department, reverse Special Order 40 and start exporting illegal alien gang members back to the lands of their birth instead of letting them infest large swaths of the city. As for me, I’d rather be able to do my errands in safety in 18th Street Gang territory than park under one of the mayor’s million trees while getting mugged.

Gary R. Albin

Long Beach