Opening Day and Authenticity, by Doug Abramson – The Guest Spot
Opening Day has passed and so have the hopes of Cubs fans everywhere, but this isn’t about curses, goats or cheeseburgers. This is about REAL West Coast baseball. Ask most people when organized, professional baseball started on the West Coast and, if you got an answer, they’d probably answer 1958, when the Dodgers moved to LA. That would be wrong. Pro and semi-pro teams played each other up and down the coast starting in the late 1860s; but organized pro ball started in 1905, when the Pacific Coast League was formed. The PCL is still around, but its quite different from what it was in its heyday in the 30s, 40s, and 50’s.
The heart of the historical league withered away after 1958, as eastern big league teams moved into the prime territories: LA, SF and Oakland, leaving San Diego to carry on playing against small town teams, several of which had trouble filling the seats without the big name clubs to attract patrons. Major League Baseball was here, but it had the residue of the Eastern Seaboard attached to it. Where were the West Coast teams?
The first one finally showed up in 1961, when the PCL Los Angeles Angels made the leap to the bigs, followed by my San Diego Padres in 1969. The non-PCL, expansion team Seattle Mariners started Major League play in 1977. That’s it; three home grown West Coast Teams. Only two of them have anything to do with the golden age of the PCL. The East Coastness of the other teams is enough to make me want to scream “Yankee go home!” The transplants might have the World Series rings, but the natives have authenticity.
So if anyone ever asks you where the most authentic baseball on the West Coast can be found, you can answer: San Diego. You may ask: “What about the Angels or the Mariners?” They’re in the American League; and everyone knows that the designated hitter isn’t authentic. Play ball!
Doug Abramson lives in Southern California and is waiting for his Padres to win the World Series so he can die happy. He doesn’t want to die, but he figures that the shock would kill him.
![[Facebook]](http://mdwp.malibulist.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://mdwp.malibulist.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Twitter]](http://mdwp.malibulist.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Email]](http://mdwp.malibulist.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
April 4th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Ha! I literally just bet a friend at the Chicago Tribune that the Cubs would win by Memorial Day. And the myth — started by the Billy Goat — that the Billy Goat was the source of the cheezborgor routine is simply that: a myth. An outright lie. The routine came from John Belushi’s uncle who ran a greasy spoon restaurant in the Logan Park neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. Near the old L terminal. Beautiful area with astonishing boulevards. Alice Cooper and the original Alice Cooper band once chased me around a five-floor Masonic Lodge in that neighborhood, back in 1970.
But those of us old enough to remember the furthest west MLB baseball team was the Kansas City A’s (which, here at MDW, is… well, me…) have known since JFK bitched about what we could do for our country, west coast major league baseball is not real. Nor is the entire American League, but that’s a different rant. Nor is hockey south of the Mason-Dixon line, but that’s a different rant.
I’m not pissed that Robert Moses, New York’s greatest cocksucker since Peter Minuit, forced the Dodgers to either move to Queens or move to Los Angeles. However, since that happened more than a half-century ago I do respect those who still feel that way.
The PCL was amazing. Not as amazing as the Negro Leagues, and yes, putting Jackie Robinson in MLB was ridiculously important. But the Negro Leagues, the PCL, the All-American Girl’s Baseball League, these were amazing baseball operations and being co-opted by MLB was simply wrong.
April 4th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
It must really suck to root for an Chicago or West Coast team to win the series after YEARS AND YEARS of waiting, wishing and hoping. At least when those teams FAIL OVER AND OVER again it’s not a big surprise. Those teams have done a wonderful job of preparing you for FAILURE.
On the other hand the Yankees have done an HORRIBLE job preparing us for failure. It always comes as a big surprise when they don’t win it all.
You guys are so lucky, to have a team that cares about your feelings.
April 4th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
MOTU,
My motto with the Padres and Chargers is hope for the best, expect the worst. That way the pain isn’t as bad. Historically, things were pretty good for sports in San Diego, until Qualcomm (Then San Diego Stadium) was occupied. Since the site is only a mile or so from the second Mission; I think the problems have something to do with an unknown Spanish atrocity. Maybe when the Chargers move out, San Diego’s luck will change.
April 4th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Doug,
Sit down my friend, this make come as a shock to you. Ever notice how ‘luck’ and ‘suck’ sound the same?
I’m sorry, someone had to tell you this.
Oh, and while I’m at it, there is no Santa Claus.
April 4th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Mike,
I know that the Cheezeboroer routine came from the Belushis, but since its become part of the curse of the goat myth; I included it. As for the PCL, considering the talent that came through it, I’ve always felt that MLB should have merged with it as equals; like when the NL and AL merged. It just would have required a playoff system and a wildcard team a few decades earlier.
April 4th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
They still suck dude. Explain it any way to want.
April 4th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
MOTU,
40 or so million dollar payroll vs. two hundred or so million, with pretty much the same outcome and not much better results expected for your team. Who sucks?
April 4th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Doug,Doug,DougDougDoug…DOUG.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that argument I’d have 40 million (or so) dollars.
Fact:
The Yankees have been kicking ass for DECADES.
Fact: The Yankees play under the same rules as every other team.
Fact: Teams with MUCH lesser payrolls have beaten the Yankees in the World Series.
Fact: Both, the Padres and Chargers sound like they were named after Gay Clubs. Well- THAT’S not bad because Gay clubs do feature the best music, good times and like the Padres and Chargers theres a lot of sucking going on.
Dude-step away from the keyboard. You do not want to go down this yellow brick road. At the end the Wizard will just laugh at you.
April 4th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
MOTU wrote:”Fact: Both, the Padres and Chargers sound like they were named after Gay Clubs. Well- THAT’S not bad because Gay clubs do feature the best music, good times and like the Padres and Chargers theres a lot of sucking going on.”
Ah but, sadly, very little licking except the ones those teams get.
April 4th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
And my Red Sox are specializing in both licking and sucking to start off this bright shiny new season.
April 4th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Pennie,
YOU ARE A RED SOX FAN??
Pennie, I love you DEARLY and PLEASE don’t take this the wrong way but…
You are dead to me.
April 4th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
MOTU, It’s okay. I love you too. I’m dead to lots of others.
I never let that get in the way of cheering for my Sox.
While you were reveling in all those gaudy world series wins, I was building character, carefully biding my time for that one life -changing moment that would help turn F’ing Bucky Dent into old hat and all those humiliating seasons into ghosts of Green Monsters past.
Down to nearly the last out in 2004, suddenly I was redeemed. The World Series sweep of the Cardinals was an afterthought. It mattered but didn’t. 80 years of tragedy was erased.
So yeah, you have all those trophies, monuments and rings. I have that one shining moment when the earth moved and the Red Sox finally vanquished the Evil Empire. If I am really dead to you, please send Red roses. I have died a happy girl…
}’;>)
April 4th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Pennie,
I hated the Red Sox when I played there…so there.
April 4th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
But I had better hair and more fun when I played with the Red Sox!
April 4th, 2011 at 5:45 pm
MOTU, And I ended my career at Fenway.
April 4th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
MOTU, Okay, my distant relative Samuel used your team’s name in a book, but I did my best pitching north of New Yawk…
April 4th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
The Red Sox got me. Woo-hoo! The Yankees had to suffer with Sparky Lyle…
April 4th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Baseball is, essentially, a story. It’s a human story, it’s an action story. It has a heritage and a history that has transcended the game itself.
And the Yankees organization is the Jay Leno of baseball.
April 4th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
pennie,
Don’t judge MOTU too harshly. What was he supposed to do? Become a Mets fan? He chose to jump on the Bronx bandwagon, pity him.
As for YOUR team…wasn’t stealing Ted Williams from the Padres enough? They had to steal Adrian too?
April 4th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Doug,
I’m also a Mets fan. They have their ups and downs but the Mets don’t go 100 years without showing up in the whole series.
No, Mike-theYankess are not the Jay Leno of baseball. The Yankees have talent.
Now- if you are talking about how Jay Leno has managed to run late night because he knows how to build an organization that knows the art of the deal then you have a point.
Elston-nobody knows who the fish you are.
Danny-ditto
Roger-Are on STILL on the juice?
April 4th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Babe,
When you died the Dodgers and Giants hadn’t left New York yet. You can’t find enough wine, women, song, food and gambling wherever you wound up? You have to watch the Mets? Just how hot is it there?
April 5th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
MOTU wrote: “It must really suck to root for an Chicago or West Coast team to win the series after YEARS AND YEARS of waiting, wishing and hoping.”
Luckily, Chicago has two teams. Because if not for the White Sox winning a World Series in 2005, Chicago would have to go all the way back to 1908 to have a world championship from the Cubs.
I love Wrigley Field — it’s a great ballpark located smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood. As you’re driving towards it from any direction you can’t even see the park until you’re almost right on top of it.
But the Cubs team itself drives me nuts.
Luckily, I grew up on the West Side of Chicago, so I rooted for both the Sox (South Side) and the Cubs (North Side). All the West Side is known for is a crappy neighborhood that has stagnated and decayed for the past 40 years — oh, yeah, and the long-since vacated Brach’s Candy Company building that was blown up a few years ago in “Batman – The Dark Knight.”
April 5th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Mike, what you wrote, nailed it. “Baseball is, essentially, a story. It’s a human story, it’s an action story. It has a heritage and a history that has transcended the game itself.”
No matter how many times I’ve watched the LORings trilogy, all I have to do is pass it by surfing the tube (less) and I’m sucked right back in. Jump to the future Matrix trilogy. Same sucker–me.
And the same hold true every baseball season. I hear a lot of, “borrrrrinnnng” from the heathens who adore the NFL with a passion that bring cult associations. Maybe I’m just old fashioned (now there’s a novel thought). Maybe it’s recapturing childhood. Maybe I just love the damn game and all its awkward timeless moments and history. Maybe it’s like those epic trilogies–full of legendary characters performing heroic deeds. Mike nailed it.
April 5th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Thanks, Pennie. I have to mitigate my comment by saying the heritage, the history and the human drama is such an intrinsic part of baseball that, without it, the game would be boring.
As a northsider, I believe that a real baseball game is out in the open air and under the sun. However, that “heritage and history” thing dominates this belief. Wrigley Field was about to be the first team to light up their stadium — my hero and idol Bill Veeck, then a kid on the grounds crew, dug the first holes for the light posts. But when the Reds turned on their lights in Crosley Field in 1935, Wrigley was such a cheap bastard that he cancelled his order and had Veeck plant ivy on the rear wall of the outfield by the bleachers to hide the damage. I think the Cubs got the better end of the deal. When the Wrigleys sold the team to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago’s SECOND cheapest bastards, the Trib wouldn’t put in the lights until MLB told them if they made it to the World Series the Cubs would have to play their games at night — in St. Louis.
Of course, that was the world’s biggest IF, but since the Trib controlled the teevee rights for Superstation WGN, they went with it.
However, history tends to have more than a bit of white-wash. The first professional baseball game played at night was the 1930 Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues (against the City of David team. This was five years before Cincinnati put up their lights.
April 6th, 2011 at 8:51 am
I was talking to a friend the other day, and I like baseball for some of the very reasons my friend hates it:
– It’s a slow game compared to other sports, with long periods where not a whole lot seems to be happening (although, as someone who played a ton of baseball in my life, I know the “inactivity” — like chess — is chock full of important, even critical, actions that frequently affect the very outcome of the game).
– A typical baseball game usually takes more time to complete than games in all other major sports, and if it goes extra innings, no one knows exactly WHEN it will end. In that regards, it’s more like a picnic than a sporting event.
– Baseball is a schizophrenic game, switching “personalities” almost instantly. One minute it seems like fans are watching the grass on the field grow; the next, all hell breaks loose.