Bus to Visit Los Angeles Baseball Parks of Past
Wrigley, Gilmore Field Were Homes to Pacific Coast League Teams
Al Parnis wants Southern California baseball fans to remember that the game was a thriving success for several generations in Los Angeles before the Brooklyn Dodgers moved west in 1958.
“My father took the whole family to the (Los Angeles) Angels-(San Francisco) Seals Pacific Coast League playoff game at Wrigley Field in 1947,” the semiretired teacher recalls. “There were 22,500 people there. I don’t know how he got tickets, but I remember it well.”
Those Angels, related in name but not on an organizational chart to Arte Moreno’s current American League team, played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1957, the year before the Dodgers’ move.
Parnis has organized a bus tour to five former baseball sites in Los Angeles. The Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), of which he is a member, is sponsoring the outing, which will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. June 6, starting in front of the LA84 Foundation, 2141 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles.
The bus will stop at Washington and Hill streets, where Washington Park stood; at 38th Street and Santa Fe Avenue in Vernon, once the home of Maier Park; at 42nd Street and Avalon Boulevard, the site of Wrigley Field; at the Los Angeles Coliseum; and at 7800 Beverly Blvd., now the site of CBS Television City, but once the home of Gilmore Field.
Early Home of Los Angeles Angels
Washington Park was the home of the Angels from 1912 until they moved to Wrigley Field during the 1925 season. Maier Park, home of the PCL’s Vernon Tigers, was at 38th and Santa Fe; Wrigley Field housed the Angels from 1925 until 1957 and then was the home of the American League Angels in 1961, their first year.
The Coliseum, better known as the home of USC football and former home of the Los Angeles Rams football team, housed the Dodgers from 1958 through 1961, and Gilmore Field was home of the PCL’s Hollywood Stars from 1939 through 1957.
Other teams played in Los Angeles and nearby cities as long ago as the 1880s. Pasadena and Long Beach were early hotbeds of the game, and the Boston Red Sox had spring training in Redondo Beach in 1911.
Historians Will Offer Perspective
Richard Beverage, national president of SABR and president-founder of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society, will discuss the history of Gilmore Field. Author Ron Selter will cover Washington Park; Parnis will talk about Maier Park, which was also known as Vernon Park; Chuck Carey, past SABR president and researcher, will cover Wrigley Field; and author Andy McCue will discuss the Coliseum.
“I’ve been planning it for a year,” Parnis says. “And there are other former park sites, in Los Angeles, in Venice, in Pasadena, we won’t even have time to visit. They’ve been playing baseball in Los Angeles since the 1800s.”
Parnis is retired from Marina High School in Huntington Beach.
The cost of the five-hour tour is $30. Further information may be obtained by contacting Parnis at arparnis@verizon.net. Checks may be sent to Parnis at P.O. Box 3371, Crestline, CA 92325.
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