by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the 1870s dawned and Los Angeles was in the early stages of its first major growth boom, the sport of baseball was gradually assuming more importance among Angel City athletes, including William Workman Temple, whose father, F.P.F. Temple and grandfather William Workman, were among the area’s elite as bankers, businesspersons, farmers and ranchers.
One of the reoccurring concerns in media reports about the sport were common injuries, as evidenced by the 28 March 1871 issue of the Los Angeles Star, which noted that,
The City Base Ball Club was out exercising on Sunday evening, in the upper part of the city [likely in modern Chinatown or near the Elysian Hills upon which Dodger Stadium sits). One of the young men, being in the wrong place, or in the right place at the wrong time, struck the bat so forcibly with his head, that he was knocked senseless, and remained so for some time. We saw a statement some time since of the damage to person sustained by base ballers. We do not recollect the precise figure, but the result of a Donnybrook Fair [slang for a brawl or riot] in broken heads, patched face, and colored peepers [black eyes], was nothing compared to it.
In the Star‘s edition of 29 July, there was a brief report that “a young man in Washington has had an eye knocked out while playing base-ball” and it warned readers, “let this be a warning to all who feel a yearning for this base and deadly game.”
Temple, who turned 20 in 1871 and, after completing high school at Santa Clara College in the Bay Area returned home to the family’s Rancho La Merced at the Whittier Narrows east of Los Angeles and briefly was a member of the Phoenix Base Ball Club, headed back north by February.
The Anaheim Gazette of the 25th reported that “William Temple, Esq., of Los Angeles, son of F.P.F. Temple, Esq., has been elected Vice President of the Wide Awake Base Ball Club of Oakland.” The paper added that “Mr. Temple is a law student in San Francisco,” working with the firm of Thornton and Williams, “but resides in Oakland with his brother T[homas] W. Temple, Esq., a student in the University [of California, which opened just a couple of years prior].”
William played first base and right field for the Wide Awakes and he was almost certainly the “T” who sent a letter to the Star from San Francisco on 16 April to report on the team’s contesting “for the champion bat [trophy?] of the State” against the defending champion Eagles of San Francisco. After expressing confidence in his team’s chances and discussing its practices and uniform, the writer offered some advice to his Angel City acquaintances:
I hope our worthy contemporaries in Los Angeles will arouse from their present state of lethargy, summon up their dropping spirits, and enter boldly into the Base Ball arena. What is to prevent them? They have the metal, and with a little practice a first class club can be easily established, and who knows but at no distant day their brows may be crowned with victorious wreaths, and the champion bat, the emblem of superiority; be lodged within their hands.
Once the spring term was over and Thomas left the University, William moved to San Francisco to continue his reading of the law with the firm. Soon, he went east to study at Harvard’s prestigious law school (his nephew Thomas W. II, did the same in the late 1920s) and then to the Inns of Court in London before being called to Los Angeles to deal with the disaster involving the Temple and Workman bank. Whether he continued to play baseball during any of this period is not known.
That lethargy William alluded to in his missive seemed to be corroborated by a pair of short remarks by the Star early in 1872, despite a note on the 5th that “the boys are becoming much excited over the subject of base ball since the abatement of the rains” and that a pair of teams were to be established. The number of the 13th, however, stated that “the boys have given up base ball and have introduced stilts, as a means of pastime” while a couple of weeks later the paper told readers that “the boys in the vicinity of the zanjas [open water ditches] have instituted a new game of play by navigating the zanjas on rafts” and did so by taking fence boards for propelling their craft—this, it was added, meant that “since the commencement of this new sport base ball is at a discount.”
The 12 February issue included the note that “the spring sports have begun; the favorite pastime of the boys is flying kites on the gills, playing base ball on the plains, and fishing on the Los Angeles river.” As to organized teams, the Star of 14 May remarked that “Los Angeles is in need of a baseball club” along with militias, a second Republican newspaper, a library [which was founded later in the year with Thomas Temple as a trustee] and more entities.
Truman H. Rose was the principal of the boys’ department of Los Angeles public schools and then superintendent, as well as vice-president of the inaugural Teachers’ Institute, with merchant and memoirist Harris Newmark crediting him with a signal role in the establishment of the high school. Rose had detractors and a letter published in the 17 July edition of the Star by “A Former Pupil” rushed to the educator’s defense, writing,
Before Dr. Rose came here the scholars were about as much like a band of Mustangs as they were scholars, under the discipline of a man who might as well try to train monkeys to read; but when Dr. Rose came here a change came over the boys. We came and went to school like gentlemen; he bought us new desks, made new blackboards for us, bought us a base ball and bat so that we would stop gambling with marbles and tops [and more].
Some evidence of a renewed interest in baseball came at the end of September when the anniversary parade and picnic of the Angel City’s volunteer fire department was held, including the processing through the streets of the downtown followed by the gathering for the picnic at Sycamore Grove, now a city park, in Highland Park on the banks of the Arroyo Seco.
Among the activities there were catching a greased pig, climbing a greased wood pole, foot and sack races, target shooting and “a grand base ball match between married and single men—sides chosen on the ground.” The Star of 1 October recapped the match and it joked that “everything except polygamy was overlooked in the selection of sides.” The married men, fielding but eight players, won easily, 8-3, and the paper concluded that “celibacy received a set-back and connubial bliss came out triumphant.” Of the surnames of the combatants, such names as Gard (George, probably, who had a long career in law enforcement), Lander and Bandini (a member of that well-known Californio family was involved in the early days of the sport in the city, back in 1860) stand out.
A few days later, in its edition of the 4th, the Star printed some “BASE ADVICE” purported to comprise “a base ball player’s advice to his son”:
Keep good company. Don’t strike too low. Avoid the touch of base men. Keep your temper, and don’t get put out easily. Late hours are bad. Do not stay out too long, or go on bats; but if you do get caught out foul, make a short stop and a clean run home. Be careful of your conversation. Little pitchers often have long ears. Don’t marry for money. A brilliant catch often burns your fingers. So conduct your game of life, that when your last inning comes, you will have a clean score.
The dawn of 1873 brought a brief note from the Star of 13 January that “the young men spent the afternoon yesterday playing base ball on the hill,” this apparently being Fort Moore Hill close to the site of the soon-to-be-opened high school and added that the game was to be “under the Code,” presumably according to established national rules. There was not another located mentioned for the year until the newly founded Los Angeles Herald, in its 25 November number observed that “a base ball club is on the tapis [currently under discussion)” and that “a good strong organization ought to be formed.”
As 1874 debuted, the Star, in its 6 January number, tried a bit of humor in stating that “there was a game of base ball played near our house Sunday” and “there is a little game of base bawl at our house every night.” In a more serious vein, the 12 May edition of the Herald implored,
Have we no young men in the city who are ambitious of the glories and broken fingers of base ball? A good club of this kind would furnish some pleasant amusement for all concerned and an occasional job for the doctor. Let’s have a base ball club.
At the end of August the Star of the 29th told readers, “we understand that a match of base ball is to be played on Fort Hill, to-morrow, by somo [some] of our young men” and by fall, it was reported that the Los Angeles Base Ball Club was established and issued “a rather fear-inspiring challenge” to a team in San Diego.
The Herald of 7 October, though, cited the San Diego Union (as did the Los Angeles Express of the same day) as remarking that the southern squad “is not large enough yet to warrant them in attaching such a prodigy as this Club seems to be” with that latter paper reprinting portions of the challenge, including statements that the Angel City team’s pitcher “can now through a ball with such swiftness that it cannot be seen unless covered with phosphorus,” while its velocity was such that it would “burn the ball to ashes, so that the astonished catcher finds nothing in his hands but a mass of cinders.”
The latter player, to handle this, worked at “breaking pig-iron in the foundry” and, to get this hands ready for the pitcher’s prodigious hurling, “allows a two hundred ton trip hammer to fall on them twelve hours a day.” This meant that “they are now about the size of a windmill” so that, “if a ball gets by them it will be by traversing the atmosphere of an adjoining county.”
To prepare for barreling baserunners, the first baseman “can let a Government mule kick him in the abdamon [sic] all day without wincing,” while his infield teammate at second “can stand on his head [and] catch a ball with his feet.” Similar fanciful comments were made about other players, leading the San Diego sheet to remark, likely with tongue-in-cheek, that “we rather guess at challenge won’t be accepted immediately.”
An airy rejoinder from the Herald was that San Diegans need not be concerned about the purported prowess because,
The only ball club of which Los Angeles can boast is one composed of the young ladies of the High School, who sometimes employ their half-hour recess with that pleasant game. The “pitcher” throws the ball . . . like the motion of a windlass-crank . . . the ball goes careening through the air with a charming uncertainty of direction, and sometimes lights on the head of an observer who is standing behind the “pitcher,” or it passes through a window of the schoolhouse, or possibly, goes plunk into the extended apron of the “catcher,” who receives it with a little feminine squeal that is perfectly killing to a susceptible young gentleman observer . . . No; Los Angeles is nothing if not modest. We don’t claim that wonderful club, and would recommend our San Diego friends to look further for it. Try Santa Barbara.
The dearth of baseball activity through the first half of 1875 was perhaps most emblematically expressed by the Star, in its number of 13 May, when the paper joked that Coroner Newton P. Richardson “looked pensive” the prior day and it was added that “we can assign no reason, except that there are no base ball clubs in this city, which fact keeps down the death rate a great deal.”
Despite this levity, there was a new boon to the sport later in the year emanating from the newly founded town of Santa Monica. The steamer Colima, which began sailing the coast route of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company two years prior, made the nascent town’s wharf, which was the terminus of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad (of which F.P.F. Temple was its first president and then treasurer), one of its stops and the 8 October issue of the Express noted that “this morning the officers of the Colima were playing base ball at Santa Monica.”
In the paper’s edition four days later, a correspondent subscribed as “Q. Kumber” provided detail of “our fun and fracas on the day the Colima stopped here,” noting that 300 passengers disembarked and devoured the contents of a fruit stand and beer saloon, including the copious consumption of whisky. It was then noted that,
About ten o’clock some one was heard to inquire for a ball, and after making inquiries we found that there were among the passengers a few who had tossed the ball in some of the professional clubs in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and you may be sure Santa Monica was not long in showing her colors. Harry Dupuy, Captain of the Santa Monica Base Ball Club, soon mustered a nine, and after an hour and three-quarters hard playing, the Santa Monicas were the victors by twelve runs, the score standing: Colimas, 15; Santa Monicas, 27.
The correspondent concluded that “money was left in our burg in plentiful quantities” and, aside from “a fight or two,” conditions were relatively peaceful, though, when the Colima departed at 5:30 in the afternoon, it “carried away as drunken a crew of steerage passengers as ever graced the deck of an ocean steamer.”
In the Express of the 16th, it was reported that “Santa Monica is determined to assert herself in every line,” including the formation of the Bonita Base Ball Club, which included Dupuy among 21 members, of which one, Juan Tico, was a Latino and which was to meet soon to elect officers and transact other business. A week later, the paper recorded that election of leadership and added that “the club practiced their first game a few days since and did exceedingly well,” concluding that “the Bonitas have the material for a ‘first-class ‘ base ball club” and it was expected to issue a challenge “to some of the veterans pretty soon.”
In its number of the 29th, the Express remarked on the creation of a volunteer fire company, Crawford Hook and Ladder No. 1, in Santa Monica, with some of its officers being members of the Bonitas. In fact, the paper remarked that the two organizations were holding a joint ball at the Santa Monica Hotel in a week and the Los Angeles volunteer fire department and the Los Angeles Base Ball Club, which presumably shared membership, were to be invited to join in the festivities.
As the year came to a close, the final edition of the Express for 1875 let readers know that a baseball contest was to be held mid-afternoon on the first day of 1876 “at the hill (Beaudry tract),” which would indicate Bunker Hill, “between the Silver Star Club and a picked nine,” this latter meaning an informal agglomeration of players. Speaking of closing, we’ll halt here and return for a final third part of this post taking some early Angel City baseball history to 1878, so look for that soon.