First Home to the First Padres : Players Such as Ted Williams Helped Build Major Interest in Lane Field’s Minor League Tenant

Legend has it that Ted Williams once hit a ball so far over the right-field fence that it landed on a moving freight car and wound up in Los Angeles.

Whether the tale is true is no more important than whether Babe Ruth really called his home run in the 1932 World Series. It is part of the lore of the first home of the first team called the Padres.

When the Padres were born as members of the Pacific Coast League in 1936, they played in newly completed Lane Field, named in honor of club owner Bill Lane, and it would have been hard to find a more interesting setting.

The ballpark was located at the foot of Broadway, between Pacific Highway and a parking lot that is now part of Harbor Drive. Beyond Pacific Highway was the Santa Fe railroad station that still stands. Beyond the parking lot was the waterfront, where cruise ships now dock. It is said that many foul balls hit to the third-base side sailed into San Diego Bay.

Actually, the park wasn’t much. It had been built with government money as a Works Progress Administration project during the Depression, and it was anything but elaborate. It had wooden stands and only 10,000 seats.

But it was sufficient for top-of-the-line minor league baseball, and San Diego quickly accepted it along with its new team.

Lane’s Padres, so named because of the mission’s role in San Diego history, were not an expansion team. They were the transplanted Hollywood Stars, who had been renting Wrigley Field in Los Angeles from the Angels. Both that park and club were owned by Phil Wrigley and the Chicago Cubs.

Yes, there were two Wrigley Fields in those days. The one in Los Angeles was basically a miniature of the one in Chicago. At one time, in fact, there were two Wrigley Fields in the major leagues. The Angels used one when they entered the American League in 1961, before moving in with the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine the next year and finally into Anaheim Stadium in 1966.

Lane was not happy with Wrigley’s rental terms, so when he learned that a new park was going up in San Diego, he decided to move. As it turned out, Hollywood was without a team only two years. The San Francisco Mission Reds, who had shared Seals Stadium in San Francisco with the Seals, became the new Hollywood Stars in 1938.

Lane died in 1938, and Bill Starr, who caught for the Padres from 1937 through 1939 after a 13-game major league career with the Washington Senators in 1935 and 1936, headed a group that bought the team from Lane’s estate in 1945.

After selling it to C. Arnholt Smith in 1955, Starr made it big in real estate in San Diego and still lives here. Looking back, he noted that Lane was warned against leaving Los Angeles.

“Everybody told Lane he was crazy,” said Starr, now 78. “But Lane Field became the No. 1 sports interest in San Diego, and his gamble paid off.”

One thing that helped was that the original Padres had a lot of talent.

They came from Hollywood with a future Hall of Famer in second baseman Bobby Doerr and landed another in June when a promising outfielder named Ted Williams graduated from Hoover High School.

They had five .300 hitters in Doerr, Gene Desautels, George McDonald, Ernie Holman and Cedric Durst; a home run threat in Vince DiMaggio, older brother of Joe; a base-stealing whiz in George Myatt, who would be married at home plate in 1940, and such solid pitchers as Herman “Old Folks” Pillette, Wally Hebert, Manny Salvo, Dick Ward and Howard Craghead. Even Manager Frank Shellenback, then 37, took an occasional pitching turn.

With all this going for them, the Padres had a highly successful first season. They tied for second, only 1 1/2 games out of first, and drew 178,075 fans, a fine figure considering the poverty of the times; the National League Philadelphia Phillies drew just 249,219 that year.

Shellenback brought 17-year-old Williams along slowly. Williams batted .271 in 42 games as a pro rookie and didn’t hit a home run. But he began to blossom the following season, batting .291 with 23 home runs and 98 runs batted in, and was sold to the Boston Red Sox in a deal that brought the Padres one of their eventual fan favorites, Dom Dallessandro.

After the Padres’ impressive debut, the following appeared in the Spalding Baseball Guide:

“Aside from Portland’s winning the pennant, San Diego probably provided the sensation of the season. When Bill Lane moved his club from Los Angeles, a city of a million and a quarter, to San Diego, a city of 200,000, his critics thought Bill at last had made a false move, and his friends all became doubting Thomases.

“It was purely an experiment, for San Diego had never been confronted with 75-cent baseball. But the city rallied en masse to the expatriated Hollywooders, now the Padres, and virtually sent its entire population through the turnstiles. No city ever displayed more baseball enthusiasm and loyalty to the home club than did those fledgling fans of the border city.”

Granted that there is a touch of hyperbole here, baseball at Lane Field was an immediate hit.

“It was a very cozy park,” Starr said. “The stands were very close, and there was no roof until the second year, so with foul balls flying around, it was dangerous. Most of the games were played in the afternoon, and people would walk from work or take the trolley.

“There were a few steel columns supporting the roof, but the rest was all wood. A screen separated the fans from the playing field. There was a low wooden outfield fence with ads on it, but guys were falling over it and getting hurt, so they put up a screen.”

The outfield dimensions?

“It was 320 or so to left field, 400 or so to center and 329 to right,” Starr said. “The wind blew out all the time, off the ocean, so if you hit a ball to right field, it was gone.

“The scoreboard was behind the center-field fence, and was set back 40 or 50 feet. Ralph Kiner (now in the Hall of Fame) hit a ball against the scoreboard. I never saw anyone else do it.”

Prices ranged from 50 cents in the bleachers to $2 for the luxury seats. When there was a sellout, fans were allowed on the field behind ropes that stretched around the outfield. Any ball hit into the overflow area was a ground-rule double.

“Overflow crowds had one drawback,” Starr said. “There was no money in them, because the vendors couldn’t get out there.”

The largest turnout in the Padres’ 22 seasons at Lane Field was 13,466, on May 2, 1948. The record single-season attendance was 493,780 in 1949, the low 123,576 in 1943.

“There were some strange things about the park,” Starr said. “The WPA people asked how many umpires worked the games. We told them two, so they put in umpires’ rooms on both the first and third base sides.

“And the lights were something, such as they were. One time when Bill Sweeney was managing against us, he came to the plate carrying a lantern.”

On one occasion, there weren’t any lights at all. In 1952, a power failure caused suspension of a game until the next night.

Cece Carlucci, who was one of the umpires, recalled the blackout:

“A short circuit caused the lights to blow up,” Carlucci said. “The firemen got the biggest hand of the night.”

Of the park and its environs, Carlucci said, “You could hear everything they were saying in the stands. And the parking lot was a dangerous place. Foul balls would break windows in cars.”

As popular as Williams was at Lane Field, he went on to become a controversial figure in Boston. But Starr spoke highly of him.

“I liked Ted,” Starr said. “I think I understood him. He was from a broken home. His father wasn’t home, and his mother worked for the Salvation Army. By sheer will, he rose above it.

“He was a very moral guy. He never drank anything but milk, and he never smoked. He couldn’t stand having a pitcher throw at anybody. If a teammate did, Ted wouldn’t talk to him. He would sit at the other end of the bench.

“He was a loner, and he had standards that for him were valid. . . . He was a man of conviction, and he never wavered from it.”

Starr was a teammate of Williams’ in 1937, when the Padres won the PCL pennant with an eight-game sweep of the playoffs. He batted only .219 in 92 games, but he once pinch-hit for Williams.

“Nobody ever had Williams bunt,” Starr said. “We were playing Seattle, and Williams had one strike on him. Shellenback pulled him out and put me in to bunt. I bunted foul and then hit a fly ball. It was just a fluke.”

Among other Padre heroes at Lane Field were Minnie Minoso, George Detore, Dick Gyselman, Max West, Bill Lawrence, Earl Rapp, Tiny Chaplin, Rex Cecil, Sam (Toothpick) Jones, Memo Luna, Bill Wight, Jack Graham, Harry (Suitcase) Simpson and Mudcat Grant.

Nobody, though, could match the fan appeal of Luke Easter, a power-hitting first baseman who was sent to the Padres in 1949 by the Cleveland Indians, with whom they then had a working agreement. Easter spent only part of the season here, but in just 80 games he hit 25 home runs, drove in 92 runs and batted .363.

“Luke was a story in himself,” Starr said. “Bill Veeck (who owned the Indians) called us and said, ‘We’ve got a great right-handed hitter for you.’ When the club was in spring training, we got a call from Bucky Harris, our manager, and he said, ‘We’ve got the biggest, most powerful left-handed hitter I’ve ever seen.’

“It turned out that they were both talking about Easter. He was left-handed, but if Veeck had said he was left-handed, I would have turned him down. He was very imposing, he could run like hell, and there was a magnetism about him.”

Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, a partner of Veeck’s, tried to call off the deal and send the Padres a right-handed hitter instead. Starr rebelled.

“I told Hank there was no way I could let Easter go,” Starr said. “They would run me out of town. This guy was a true phenom. Hank finally agreed to let us keep him for one trip around the circuit, and fans everywhere came out early to see him hit in batting practice. They lined up around 10:30 for day games.

“Other owners would call me to make sure they were going to see Easter. He was the biggest drawing card in the history of the league.”

Starr told of an ill-advised bunt by Easter that turned out to be a stroke of genius.

“The bases were loaded in the 10th inning,” Starr said. “Easter laid down a bunt, and the winning run scored. The fans went crazy. The next day, Harris said, ‘If I called that bunt, you should fire me. It was the dumbest play I ever saw.’

“Of course, the fans loved it--they thought it was great strategy--but it was horrible baseball.”

Although the Padres were playoff champions in 1937, they won only one pennant while at Lane Field--in 1954 under Lefty O’Doul. In addition to their first season, they were runners-up in 1950 under Del Baker and in 1955 under Bob Elliott.

Other Padre managers at Lane Field were Durst, Detore, Pepper Martin, Jim Brillheart and George (Catfish) Metkovich.

In 1958, the Padres moved into Westgate Park, a gleaming new facility located where the Fashion Valley shopping center is now. They stayed there 10 years, then played one season at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium before the National League Padres were founded in 1969.

Earl Keller, retired sportswriter of the San Diego Tribune, recalled the demise of Lane Field, which eventually was razed to make room for the parking lot that sits next to the Holiday Inn Embarcadero.

“It was a nice, comfortable park,” Keller said. “But being built of wood, it just didn’t last. Termites finally ate the place down.”

THE PADRES AT LANE FIELD The Padres year by year during their days in the Pacific Coast League at Lane Field:

Year Won Lost Finish Attendance 1936 95 81 Second, tie 178,075 1937 97 91 Third 216,870 1938 92 85 Fifth 150,380 1939 83 93 Fifth 162,783 1940 92 85 Fourth 173,393 1941 101 76 Third 176,331 1942 70 85 Fourth 169,334 1943 70 85 Seventh 123,576 1944 75 94 Eighth 246,150 1945 82 101 Sixth 346,057 1946 78 108 Sixth 291,004 1947 79 107 Eighth 353,951 1948 83 105 Seventh 424,200 1949 96 92 Fourth 493,780 1950 114 86 Second 439,780 1951 79 88 Sixth 217,102 1952 88 92 Fifth 290,416 1953 88 92 Sixth 168,617 1954 102 67 First 292,487 1955 92 80 Second 237,320 1956 72 96 Seventh 152,734 1957 89 79 Fourth 198,716

Lane Field

March 31, 1936

San Diego 6, Seattle 2

SEATTLE-SAN DIEGO

ab r h bi ab r h bi Donovan, lf-rf 3 0 0 0 Myatt, ss 5 0 1 2 Lawrence, cf 4 0 0 0 Durst, cf 4 1 2 0 Michael, 1b 4 0 1 0 Doerr, 2b 4 0 2 0 Hunt, lf-rf 3 1 1 0 Holman, 3B 2 1 0 1 Wright, ss 4 0 1 0 Jacobs, 1b 3 0 0 0 Smith, ss 0 0 0 0 V.DiMaggio, rf 2 2 0 0 Muller, 2b 4 0 0 0 Wirthman, lf 4 1 2 2 Gyselman, 3b 4 1 3 0 Desautels, c 3 1 1 1 Bassler, c 4 0 1 0 Pillette, p 2 0 1 1 Barrett, p 1 0 0 0 Osborn, p 0 0 0 0 Taylor, ph 1 0 0 0 McDougall, p 0 0 0 0 Lucas, p 0 0 0 0 Bonetti, ph 1 0 0 0 Pickrel, p 0 0 0 0 Ruether, ph 1 0 0 0

Seattle 000 011 000--2 San Diego 005 000 10x--6

E--Wright, Myatt. DP--Seattle 2, San Diego 2. LOB--Seattle 8, San Diego 7. 2B--Doerr, Desautels. 3B--Gyselman. SB--Durst 2. S--Pillette, Holman.

IP H R ER BB SO Seattle Barrett, L 2 2/3 3 5 3 6 2 Osborn 1 1/3 2 0 2 0 0 McDougall 1 1/3 2 0 0 2 0 Lucas 1/3 1 0 0 0 0 Pickrel 2 1/3 2 1 1 0 0 San Diego Pillette, W 9 9 2 2 0 3

HBP--Hunt by Pillette. WP--Barrett, Pickrel. BK--LaCoss 2.

Umpires--Crawford, Powell and Engeln.

T--3:10. A--8,178.