La Cañada History: Mark Loretta comes home to play for Dodgers

Ten Years Ago

St. Francis High School graduate and baseball standout Mark Loretta donned the uniform of the L.A. Dodgers in 2009 to cap off a major league career that had so far seen him play with the Milwaukee Brewers, the San Diego Padres and the Houston Astros. “This was the team I grew up watching,” he said of the Dodgers to a Valley Sun sports reporter. “I went to my first major league game at Dodger Stadium.” Hearing people in the crowd during Dodger spring training in Arizona chant “St. Francis,” the infielder responded with “Golden Knights!” (Retired after the 2009 season, today Loretta is a bench coach with the Chicago Cubs.)

Twenty Years Ago

Carol Liu, who went on to be elected to the state Legislature, was named by her colleagues on the La Cañada Flintridge City Council as the city’s mayor for the April 1999 to April 2000 term.

Thirty Years Ago

After having received many complaints about traffic congestion and unsafe conditions at the intersection of Foothill Boulevard at Vineta Avenue, the LCF City Council banned U-turns and left-turn movements for westbound traffic on Foothill near the McDonald’s restaurant.

Forty Years Ago

Guests at a La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce luncheon were given an overview of the Olympic Games that would be coming to Los Angeles in 1984. The speaker was a member of the event’s committee, Parry O’Brien, an American shot put champion and Olympic gold medalist.

Fifty Years Ago

A La Cañada Unified School District ad hoc committee headed by resident Ridge Muller announced that beginning with the 1969 summer school session there would be a regular FM radio broadcasting program in place for interested students.

Sixty Years Ago

La Cañada ’s new medical-dental center at 4529 Angeles Crest Highway (now the Allen Lund Co. building) officially opened its doors to the public on April 11, 1959. The $400,000 building was the largest office structure in town at the time and the only one to boast an elevator. The building housed 25 doctors’ suites, with the penthouse suite occupied by Dr. Ross S. LeLansky.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.