"A lot of long relievers are ashamed to tell their parents what they do. The only nice thing about it is that you get to wear a uniform like everybody else."
Wrigley Field was a ballpark in Los Angeles which served host to
minor league baseball teams in the region for over 30 years, and was the
home park for the Los Angeles Angels in their expansion season of 1961.
This stadium should not be confused with Chicago's
Wrigley Field.
Los
Angeles Angels (PCL, 1925-1957)
Hollywood Stars (PCL, 1926-35, 1938)
Los Angeles Angels (MLB, 1961)
Seating
capacity
22,000
(1925),
20,457 (1961)
Dimensions
Left
Field - 340 ft
Left-Center - 345 ft
Center Field - 412 ft
Right-Center - 345 ft
Right Field - 339 ft
Backstop - 56 ft
The park was built in South Los Angeles in 1925 and was named after
William Wrigley, the chewing gum magnate who owned the first tenants, the
original Los Angeles Angels minor league team. Wrigley also owned the
Chicago Cubs, who play in a more famous park named after him. The Los
Angeles Wrigley Field was built to resemble a Spanish-architecture and
somewhat scaled-down version of the Chicago ballpark, known at the time as
Cubs Park. It was also the first to bear Wrigley's name, as the
Chicago park was named for Wrigley several months after the L.A. park's
opening. At the time, he owned Santa Catalina Island and the Cubs were
doing their spring training in that island's city of Avalon.
Fly
to the site of LA's Wrigley Field!
If you have Google
Earth installed, click here
to be "flown" to the site of Sick's Stad. Of course the
stadium is no longer there, but you can see the old neighborhood.
(If you do not have it installed, get
it from Google. It allows you to view virtually anywhere on
Earth in 3D using satellite imagery.)
Coincidentally or not, one of Wrigley Field's boundary streets was Avalon
Boulevard (east, behind right field and a small parking lot). The other
boundaries of the block were 41st Street (north, behind left field), 42nd
Place (south, behind first base), and San Pedro Street (west, behind third
base and a larger parking lot). Not only did L.A. Wrigley get its name
first, it had more on-site parking than the Chicago version did (or does
now).
For 33 seasons, 1925 to 1957, the park was home to the Angels, and for
11 more seasons, 1926 through 1935 and 1938, it had a second home team in
the rival Hollywood Stars. The Stars then moved to their own new ballpark,
Gilmore Field, just west of the Pan Pacific Auditorium.
With its location near Hollywood, Wrigley Field was a popular place to
film baseball movies. Among the most well known movies filmed there were The
Pride of the Yankees and a movie version of Damn Yankees. It
later found its way into television, serving as the backdrop for the Home
Run Derby series in 1959, a popular show which featured one-on-one
contests between baseball's top home run hitters, which had a brief
revival in 1989 when it aired on ESPN. Episodes of shows as diverse as The
Twilight Zone and The Munsters were also filmed here.
Wrigley Field!
Wrigley Ball Field
in the 1940s.
Postcard
courtesy of LCPC
FIRSTS
at WRIGLEY FIELD
Game
04/27/1961
Twins 4, Angels 2
Umpires
Charlie Berry, Joe Linsalata
Frank Umont, Bob Stewart
Managers
Bill Rigney, Angels
Cookie Lavagetto, Twins
Starting Pitchers
Eli Grba, Angels
Camilo Pascual, Twins
Ceremonial Pitch
Hall of Famer Ty Cobb
Attendance
11,931
Batting
Batter
Zoilo Versalles (pop out)
Hit
Lenny Green (single)
Run
Steve Bilko
RBI
Earl Averill
Single
Lenny Green
Double
Don Mincher
Triple
Leon Wagner (05/06/1961)
Home Run
Earl Averill
Grand Slam
Carroll Hardy (08/25/1961)
IPHR
NONE
Stolen Base
Zoilo Versalles
Sacrifice Hit
Bob Allison (04/28/1961)
Sacrifice Fly
Bob Allison
Cycle
(None)
Pitching
Win
Camilo Pascual
Loss
Eli Grba
Shutout
Ken McBride (05/23/1961)
Save
Ray Moore
Hit by Pitch
Bill Pleis hit Ken Hunt (04/28/1961)
Wild Pitch
Ron Moeller (04/30/1961)
Balk
Ron Kline (05/21/1961)
No-Hitter
(None)
Primary
research by Jim Herdman & David Vincent
Courtesy of Retrosheet.
L.A. Wrigley's minor league baseball days ended when the Brooklyn
Dodgers of the National League transferred to Los Angeles in 1958. The use
of Wrigley was studied by the Dodgers, but they opted for seating capacity
over suitability as a baseball field, and instead set up shop in the Los
Angeles Coliseum while awaiting construction of Dodger
Stadium.
In 1961, the L.A. Angels joined the American League as an expansion
team and took residence at Wrigley. The team set a still-standing
first-year expansion team record with 71 wins, and the park set another
record by yielding 248 home runs, a record that stood until the Juiced
Era. After the 1961 season, the team moved to Dodger Stadium, or Chavez
Ravine as it was known for Angels games.
The park was used for soccer and perhaps a few other events before
being torn down in 1969. The site is now occupied by the recreation
facility called Gilbert Lindsay Park.
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