[RobertoClemente]

Professional baseball was inaugurated in Los Angeles in 1892 when the city replaced Sacramento in the four-team California League. At the time, the population of Los Angeles was only 51,000, one-sixth that of San Francisco. The move was risky, not only because of the size of the city, but it meant added transportation costs. Previously, the longest trip in the California League was 110 miles, from San Jose to Sacramento. Los Angeles was 400 miles south of the other teams. However, baseball was well received in the Southern California community. The league expanded the schedule, playing Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday from the end of March till the end of November.


In 1892, Los Angeles was managed by Bob Glenalvin, who had piloted Portland in the Pacific Northwest League the previous year. The team finished one point behind San Jose in the first half and won the second half by a 3-½ game margin over Oakland. Things rarely went smoothly in the California League, so it was no surprise that a dispute arose over a championship playoff. As related in his book, “Always on Sunday,” John Spalding relates that San Jose owner “Mike Finn objected to playing any games in Los Angeles although LA owner G.A. Vanderbeck offered to pay the team’s expenses and talks broke off. San Jose players had no objection to going to Los Angeles, where they expected the games to draw well, so they arranged for a playoff series on their own. Vanderbeck agreed to split the gate with them.” Los Angeles won the playoff, five games to two with one tie. However, at the annual league meeting, “the magnates ignored the playoff and called the teams co-champion. Los Angeles was dropped from the league and Vanderbeck’s license was revoked.” Although Los Angeles “was the only team that made money, none of the northern owners wanted the city back in 1893.”
At a league meeting in February, however, Al Lindley of Los Angeles persuaded the directors it was in their best interest to retain the city where the game had been so well received. The season began March 26 with Stockton replacing San Jose. Los Angeles won the first half, which ended July 5, by one game. Just before that, on Sunday, July 2, at Athletic Park in Los Angeles, the first night baseball game on the Pacific Coast was played. In the afternoon, the Angels and Stockton had played a regular California League game, with Los Angeles winning, 7-3. The night game was considered an exhibition, not counting in the league standings. Twenty arc lights had been strung around the field between four tall posts. There was a moveable searchlight mounted on top of the grandstand. The stands were packed. The game was loosely played, to put it mildly. At one point, a bulldog dashed out on the field, caught a fly ball and ran off with the game ball. The game was delayed while some players chased the dog and retrieved the ball. There was no box score of the game, but the Los Angeles Times reported that the game was awarded to the Angels, 5-2. Unfortunately, there were many problems in the league. The Stockton club moved to Sacramento at the start of the second half and the league disbanded on August 14. A national depression resulting from the Panic of 1893 reached the Pacific Coast and it was 4-½ years before a California League resumed play.


The California League of 1898-1900 was once more a Northern California operation. It increased its schedule each year and became financially stronger. Spalding states, “By 1900 many things had changed, including the goals of the California League’s management. The City of Angels was expanding, had doubled its size in ten years and at 102,500 was California’s second largest in 1900. Discovery of oil in the 1890s had fueled the boom that would see Los Angeles triple in population” in the next decade. In 1901, James F. Morley, who owned a poolroom in Los Angeles, was granted a franchise in the California League, replacing Stockton. The four-club circuit also included San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento. The league increased the schedule again and the teams played between 144 and 161 games. Los Angeles played its games at Washington Gardens, popularly known as Chutes Park, about ten blocks south of downtown. The ballpark was completed in the fall of 1900. Just beyond center field was a large amusement park, featuring a chute-the-chutes advertised as the highest and steepest in the world. The Angels, or, as the Los Angeles Times called them, the LooLoos, finished second in both 1901 and 1902. In 1902, the teams played between 168 and 182 games.


Historian Carlos Bauer, in “The Creation of the Pacific Coast League,” writes “First mention of the possible formation of a Pacific Coast League for the 1903 season came on December 9, 1902, shortly after the close of the California League season. A short note in the San Francisco papers stated that Henry Harris, owner of the San Francisco franchise, was in Portland en route to Seattle to see if he could induce the owners of the (Pacific Northwest League) ball clubs in those cities to join the California League for the 1903 season. Much later, Harris would tell The Sporting News that he began acting on the expansion idea in July, but kept it under his hat until the end of the season, so the proposed expansion could not be sidetracked before they even began to put the plan into action.”
The PNL president and the owner of the Seattle club were opposed to the plan, but the Portland club was agreeable. Harris had a prospective wealthy owner ready to step in at Seattle. On December 29, 1902, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the Pacific Coast Baseball League was organized. In retaliation, the Pacific Northwest League, which claimed the backing of the National Association, announced it was moving into San Francisco and Los Angeles and renaming itself the Pacific National League. During the first three months of 1903, a bitter war broke out between the two leagues over players, with several from the PNL jumping to the PCL.


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