by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Major League Baseball’s Fall Classic, the World Series, began a couple of days ago with the host Milwaukee Brewers, champions of the National League, eking out a 3-2 victory over the winners of the American League crown, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, with Game Two played later today. This seems an opportune time to look at some early history of the sport in Los Angeles, covering the period from 1860 to 1878, with a prior post examining the playing of the game in that last year in the recently established Angel City neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
The first documented contest of America’s Pastime is acknowledged by MLB to have been played at Hoboken, New Jersey in 1846, after which the game gradually became popular through the nation. It is worth noting that the rules were very different than the modern version of the game, including that pitchers tossed the ball underhanded, that fielders did not wear gloves and that a runner could be forced out by a throw to a base or hit with the ball.
It appears that California’s first contest was held in San Francisco in 1860, with that city’s Chronicle of 12 March 1871 welcoming that year’s season with a look back, for the benefit of “those whose stiffening joints or adipose development have forced them to retire from the green field of their triumphs,” to that inaugural game of 22 February, the holiday marking the birthday of George Washington, between the Eagles (which formed in November 1859) and Red Rovers.
The teams met in the Mission District area with the losing squad to pay for a 40-person dinner, but, with the game deadlocked at 33 each at the end of nine innings, “the Rovers raised an objection to the pitching of the Eagles.” The umpire determined that the protest was unjustified, but “the Rovers . . . refused to play another inning, and the game was given to the Eagles.”
The Alta California of 12 March reported that a pair of clubs were formed by employees of newspapers “to play a match at this heathful [sic] old-fashioned sport.” The teams sported the names of the “Eurekas” and the “Guttemberg,” the latter apparently a misspelling of Guttenberg, the inventory of printing press, and met at Arthur Quinn’s field near the Mission Dolores for a game with eight players on a side.
The Alta remarked that the contest “continued in play for nearly three hours—disappointing those who had predicted an early weakening on the part of these followers of a sedentary occupation” and the “Guttembergs” outlasted the “Eurekas” by a score of 51-50. The account concluded that “if not used up by the recent play, they intend melting again very soon.”
Down south at Los Angeles, the Star of 24 March 1860 informed readers,
A club has been formed in this city, for the promotion of the manly art of base ball playing. About fifteen members have been enrolled, who are shortly to inaugurate the sport. They will, no doubt, have lively times—greatly needed just now.
This latter remark seemed to refer to the troubled financial environment, following the end of the Gold Rush by the mid-Fifties and the lack of demand for local cattle, which constituted the backbone of the regional economy, followed by the Depression of 1857. Entertainment and sports are often the biggest distractors from tough times and, apparently, the onset of baseball in the Angel City was expected to do just that.
In its edition of 7 April, the paper noted that,
The Base Ball Club of this city was duly organized this week, by the election of officers, adoption of [a] constitution, by-laws, &c. On Wednesday afternoon [the 4th], they had a fine time of it, and on Monday next [the 9th] they will again take the field. The members evince great enthusiasm in the sport.
Two weeks later, the Star briefly remarked on “FOOT AND BASE BALL,” stating that “these exercises . . . are becoming quite the rage here just now.” A group from Tulare County traveled south to the Angel City to take on some locals in “foot ball,” which was an early version of what Americans term soccer, but the rest of the world calls football. Meanwhile, the paper added, “the Base Ball Club is, of course, in a flourishing condition—the members always eager for a hand” and the account concluded “they have had several days’ exercise, and the game is becoming popular—the schoolboys now occupy their play hours in this health recreation.” Unfortunately, these early references do not mention Club members or provide accounts of any games.
The baseball fad, however, appears to have faded rather quickly as no references to the sport could be found until end of the decade. Perhaps the dire circumstances engendered by immense flooding (a Super El Niño condition like what may be coming this winter) in 1861-1862, followed by the devastation of a two-year drought and a resulting decline in population as the economy worsened were contributory to the lack of interest in supporting the game locally.
It may be, though, that as the region rebounded after the Civil War years and experienced its first boom by the end of the Sixties with a resurgence in residents, that this brought baseball back, this time to stay. An attempt at humor during this time is from the Los Angeles News of 21 July 1869, which printed a short bit about “a man who became so infatuated with the game of base ball that he insists of running the ‘home’ machine on the base ball system.” This meant that “a servant [was] ordered to take the ‘first base,” his wife was designated the umpire, and he was at bat, “his duty to flog the children.” When the youngest of the brood cried, this was considered a “foul bawl,” while, as the servant was found with a boyfriend, she was ordered “to make a ‘short stop’ on such proceedings,” lest she be “caught out” before she returned to the “home base.”
One of the locals who became an enthusiast was William Workman Temple (1851-1917), the third child of Margarita Workman (daughter of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste) and F.P.F. Temple. William attended Santa Clara College for its preparatory high school and, in June 1867, became an honorary member of the Young Original Base Ball Club, with his certificate in the Museum’s artifact collection, though it is not known if by honorary, it meant that he did not participate in the Club’s contests.
The Star of 13 March 1869, however, published an account from “SUBSCRIBER,” presumably William, of “a very interesting and well contested game of base ball” played a week prior at the campus between the Phoenix club of Santa Clara and the “Nemean” squad of the Pacific Institute, likely the Pacific Polytechnical (School) Institute in San Francisco. The home club prevailed 32-23, with Temple, playing first base, scoring a team-leading six runs and it is worth noting that, among his teammates were Latinos from prominent California families, including the Argüellos and Malarins.
In November, another account was transmitted in the Star of the 13th, with the introduction of “I hope I am not trespassing on your kindness” in asking for a publication of the piece in “your worthy and wide-spreading paper,” in which the Santa Clara County championship was contended for by the two teams—there were three games in the series. Two days prior, in a game at Santa Clara’s public square, or plaza, taking 2 hours and 15 minutes, Temple’s Phoenix club trouncing the Nemeans, 64-15 (you may have noticed that earned-run averages were somewhat elevated!) with the first baseman scoring eight runs. The final contest was won by Phoenix, 29-13, with Temple on the mound for the title-clinching game.
The fall of 1869 also meant that the phoenix of baseball rose from the ashes of several years of neglect of the sport and the timing was interesting, given that the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which was the first professional team in that its ten members were on salary following the lifting of a ban by the National Association of Base Ball Players on payments, traveled west on the newly completed transcontinental railroad and arrived in San Francisco on 23 September for a series of contests, which they swept to complete an undefeated season of 64-0.
The News of 17 October reported that “the recently organized ‘Energetic Base Ball Club,’ of this city, play a game at three o’clock this evening, at the recreation grounds [at] St. Vincent[‘s] College.” This Roman Catholic institution, established four years prior at the Vicente Lugo Adobe on the east side of the Plaza and now Loyola Marymount University, relocated in 1867 to a new building on 6th Street between Hill and Fort (now Broadway) streets and the “recreation grounds” were part of that campus. Two days later, the Energetics thanked the St. Vincent’s team “for the many courtesies shown them at the match game . . . as also to the college band for the music furnished.”
On the 23rd, the paper published a notice from the Energetics regarding a rematch between the two teams with the “match to be played for a regulation ball, to be provided by the challenging club. In its edition three days later, the News printed what was the first located box score in city history as the St. Vincent’s squad defeated the challengers, 37-24, in a contest lasting two-and-a-half hours.
Among the college nine were players from the families of de la Guerra (Santa Barbara), Pacheco (likely from the Gilroy area south of San Jose), and Bandini (San Diego), while the Energetics included one of the Bilderrain clan from the Angel City. While the paper observed that “victory, this time, perched upon the winners of the college club,” it added that “the Energetics must look to their laurels; they are evidently not to be worn without a struggle.”
There were two further contests comprising an Angel City championship series, with the second game occurring on 24 October and the Star of the 30th recording that the match, taking place at St. Vincent’s field, was won by the home team 34-23. This was in error, however, as the News of 9 November reported that, two days prior,
The third match game of base ball, between the Energetics and St. Vincent’s College club, came off . . . in the presence of a large crowd of lookers on. The game was for the championship, each club having previously won one game. Both clubs showed marked improvement in their playing. The closely contested game resulted in favor of the Energetics by a score of 25 to 20.
A few weeks later, a new team called the California was mentioned as playing a game against the Energetics “in the northern part of the city,” this being the home field of the latter club and presumably being somewhere in the Sonoratown, now Chinatown, section below the Elysian Hills where Dodger Stadium is today. The prize being “for a regulation ball,” as stated in the News of the 16th, “the match game of base ball between the Energetics and Californians . . . was won by the former club” and “the score stood 58 to 13.”
Following the winter season and then the onset of spring, the Star of 12 March 1870 reprinted an article from the December issue of a national magazine called Hours at Home concerning “Physical Culture” and specifically about “that other physical culture which has become a mania in the Northern States” and included “those wonderful base-ball players who break their fingers and sprain their ankles” among other types of sports. The concern of Dr. S.B. Hunt, however, was that,
Athletism [sic] is not the end and aim. It is only the means to a high Christian culture—the development of the sound mind in its necessary congener [relative], the sound body. When we see a pack of school-boys in their wild play . . . we can understand it. All they do lies in the channel of enjoyment, of amusement, happiness, and gratification of an honest pride . . . not the pride which glories over a victory won by boat or ball at the cost of mutilated limbs or overstrained hearts. Good health, sound mind; pure hearts, true religion—these are essentials of comfort.
Several weeks later, reported the News of 29 April 1870, “a new base ball club has just been organized with the name of Phoenix,” and it is no surprise that this team, which included former officers of the Energetics, included William Temple as captain and recycled the name of his former Santa Clara team. Temple, having graduated from that college the previous spring, was back home for a short time at his family’s Rancho La Merced in the Whittier Narrows east of Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, not much could be found about the Angel City Phoenix team, other than that, in mid-July, the Active Base Ball Club of San Bernardino issued a challenge, but the Star remarked that the Los Angeles team “is temporarily disorganized owing to the College vacation,” this perhaps meaning that some games were played during May and June while the school term was still in session, but it was added that “as soon as the absent members return to the city the challenge will doubtless be accepted.” Nothing was located, however, as to whether a match was played.
Another humorous reference to the physical toll of America’s pastime on its players appeared in the Star of 5 June:
It is estimated that at the present moment there are 80,000 black eyes, and 47,922 limbs out of joint, and 1,700 acres of skin peeled off in the United States, from playing base ball.
We’ll return tomorrow with part two, taking our look at early Los Angeles baseball into the 1870s, so be sure to check back with us then.