Wrigley Field in South LA? How LA Lost an Iconic Baseball Stadium 

Home Run Derby was a big deal to Baby Boomers.... Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Ernie Banks, Harmon Killebrew and other future HOFers appeared. And the show has been recycled for decades. Baseball fans from my era all remember Wrigley Field. R,I.P.

@@jackm4457 Absolutely! Too-good-to-be-true TV to me was HOMERUN DERBY.

Thanks for reminding me of Gilmore field where I once saw a baseball game in the mid-1950s. The teams in the area as I recall were the Hollywood Stars and the Los Angeles Angels minor leagues. I used to read the results of these minor league contests in the Los Angeles times, but it's been so many years ago.

What was the beer served up at Wrigley back then if you can recall the signs?

@@LesterMoore I wasn’t drinking a lot of beer when I was 8 - 9 yo.

@cunningba Understood, but maybe your father did and you may recall the signage. Just asking.

@@LesterMoore Don’t recall at Wrigley specifically. The beer signs I remember from my youth in L.A. that you don’t see any more were Lucky Lager and Brew 102. But I remember those more from billboards downtown and ads on the radio.

Glad I could share it with you!

I appreciate this, Logan. Thanks! I’m Really glad that I’ve been able to share this history with so many people. The more you know

Definitely one of my favorite finds so far. Thanks for watching!

I really appreciate this, Brennan! It means a lot knowing people enjoy this history as much as I do. And as always, if there’s anything you want to learn about the region, drop a comment anytime on any video. I’m always around

Should "have" not should "of".

“Dad, can we go to Chicago and see the Cubs at Wrigley Field?” “We have Wrigley Field at home.”

@@thatguyineverycommentssection 🤣🤣🤣 this is gold!

​@@thatguyineverycommentssection 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you!

Glad this was helpful!

Thanks, Joshio!

This is what’s up. Really glad I could share this with you

Thanks so much, Eduardo. It’s a cool story to tell!

This is quite a bit of insight. Thanks for adding some context to this history!

​ @The South LA Recap Thank you for those kind words. I neglected to mention the following: (a) Despite its small seating capacity (21,000), Walter O'Malley flirted with the idea of having the Dodgers play at Wrigley Field until their new stadium was ready. However, within a matter of days he changed his mind, and settled on the Coliseum instead (Gaylon H. White, The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014], 31), for reasons that are not altogether clear. (b) White claims that O'Malley was being pressured by Commissioner Ford Frick, who stated on national television that Wrigley was "a cow pasture," and that he feared, not only that hitters like Willie Mays might hit balls "into the next county," but that Babe Ruth's record of 60 HR in a season, set in 1927, might be eclipsed. The rueful irony of that prophecy became apparent when Roger Maris broke the record three years later, on the same day (Oct. 1, 1961) that Bilko hit the last HR ever hit at Wrigley, as the major league Angels ended their first and only season at the old ballpark (White, 38). Ruth's record was broken at Yankee Stadium, 3,000 miles away. As Mae West would say, Wrigley had nothing to do with it. (c) Conversely, the Dodgers, who paid "lip service" (White, 31) to the idea of using Wrigley as their temporary home, even suggesting various changes to the configuration of the park to make it harder for batters to reach the seats, had to erect a 38- foot high fence to compensate for the short (251 foot) distance between home plate and the left field pole. For some reason, Frick had "no problem" with that, since (as he sought to explain) most HR aren't hit right down the line, but in the power alleys in left and right center field (the right field pole was only 300 feet away; in Yankee Stadium, where both Ruth and Maris played, it was 296 feet--and both were left-handed hitters, to boot; Mickey Mantle, who also chased Ruth's record in 1961 but fell short, was a switch-hitter, so it made no difference to him; the left-field line in the Bronx was a mere 301 feet away, with a short "porch," exactly as in right field, for the mutual convenience of these Yankee sluggers). (d) From the start, it was obvious that Frick (who, among other things, ghosted Ruth's autobiography, while he was still a player, and became his lifelong friend) was trying to prevent anyone from breaking Ruth's record. Roger Maris simply became the victim of his machinations, and the asterisk that Frick attached to the new record, as a curse or stigma. Meanwhile, (e) O'Malley defused Frick's damning critique of Wrigley Field by joking that the Dodgers didn't want to acquire "a reputation for Chinese home runs." Hence the 38-foot high fence (three times the height of the one that O'Malley himself proposed for renovating Wrigley, along with changes to the dimensions of the outfield) was dubbed "the Chinese Wall," with all the odious racist connotations that went with it, yet went largely unnoticed at the time. (f) O'Malley also considered playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, but the town and its elected officials wanted nothing to do with it, despite the fact that Jackie Robinson (who retired in 1956, two years before the Dodgers moved to LA) grew up there, and had family (including his brother Mack, a silver medalist at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, who worked for the city of L.A.) still living there. This leads me to conclude that he never took Wrigley all that seriously, but made pious gestures toward it, before selling the Angels' franchise to Gene Autry, who then became his tenant at Chavez Ravine for four years (1962-65). Being the astute businessman that he was, he wanted maximum seating capacity, even if it meant playing in a huge oval that was inherently unsuitable for baseball for as long as might be necessary. (Frick favored that, too. If one is inclined to be paranoid, their dispute about the "cow pasture" may have been a red herring, designed to mislead both the press and the public about their intentions, while the teamed up to get what they both wanted in the first place. However, that would fly in the face of Frick's nostalgia (bordering on dogma) about keeping the Sultan of Swat (Ruth) on his throne. Conspiratorial cynicism dies a hard death, but it's more likely that their respective agendas alternately clashed and coincided. (g) Last but not least, O'Malley insisted that there wasn't enough street parking in the vicinity of 42nd Place and Avalon--whereas, at either the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl parking space was ample, as there would be whenever Dodger Stadium was finally completed. That was one of the reasons why O'Malley left Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn--he understood that more and more people were driving cars to the game, even in a city with as much public transportation as NYC. Given SoCal's burgeoning reputation as a car culture, that made having adequate parking even more imperative. To O'Malley, that meant room for at least 20,000 cars--practically the size of Wrigley Field, all by itself. That, rather than any other consideration, may have been decisive. Of course, that too involved money, in parking fees, stadium concessions, and (lest we forget) tax revenues for the city of LA. These factors alone were probably what clinched it, and thus led inevitably to Wrigley's demise, even before it was demolished in 1969. (h) There is a story (or an urban legend) to the effect that Walter O'Malley objected to Wrigley as a site for the Dodgers on the grounds that there was a house of ill fame across the street from it. I don't know if that is true--that is, whether such an establishment was located nearby, let alone whether O'Malley was outraged by it. I suspect that it didn't bother or offend him personally, but rather, that he feared being beaten by the competition, both on and off the field. Depending on your point of view, the story is either charming or disgusting; in either case, it is too bad to be true, hence no doubt apocryphal. Of all the games people play, sex wins hands-down, every time. As Charlie Brown knew so well, baseball is for losers. And the last out shall be first-- if not at Wrigley in 1961, then on the field of memory, that has unlimited space for all.

All I can say is "Wow" thank you 4 that.

@@dennisrohatyn7782 ppl

My mom has lived on 43rd and San Pedro since I was in 2nd grade (I’m 34 now). She also works at the hospital (Kedren Community [mental health] Hospital -- you said it used to be MLK hospital?? 🤯) All these years I never knew that a stadium was once there. No one in my family has ever mentioned it either. I’m enjoying all of this

I’m glad it was useful!

That is so cool! I read this stadium was used to hold one of the largest outdoor jazz concerts at the time. It’s really neat that you have memories of going here.

You’re absolutely right! I’ve passed by this park for years and had not the slightest idea of what towered there. I’ll definitely look into that speech to see if it was recorded

That’s actually really neat. I found a website that was loosely related to that in the way back machine, but I didn’t have enough to really pull from it. Do you have anything else you can share about it?

I agree. But that’s so cool that you actually went to the stadium!

Get your facts straight about Chavez Ravine. It was not a F*'ing give away. The democrats in the LA City Council wanted the Dodgers at all costs and made it happen. Due to legal challenges O'Malley was forced to OVERPAY for the slum properties in Chavez Ravine. The leftists always make that out to be a human rights abuse and a tragedy. BS...! May 13, 1959 - Newspaper reports revealed that the infamous Arechiga family owned 11 other homes at a value of more than $75,000, including “an unoccupied house located not far from their illegally-established camp site in Chavez Ravine…” The next day’s Los Angeles Times’ headline stated, “11 L.A. Homes Owned by Chavez Evictees”. Those scammers made out like a champ and Walter O'Malley made it happen.

This Wrigley field opened in 1925. Based on my research, present day Wrigley Field in Chicago opened in 1914, named Weeghman Park. William Wrigley Jr. Later acquired the cubs and named the park Wrigley field in 1927-two years after the South LA minor league park was built.

Chicago's Wrigley Field was, indeed, originally Weeghman Park, named after Charles Weeghman, owner of the Chicago Whales of the short-lived (1914-15) Federal League. As part of the settlement following the demise of the Federal League, Weeghman became the owner of the Chicago Cubs and made the park the Cubs' new home. After William Wrigley, Jr. took control of the Cubs in 1919, the park was renamed Cubs Park, until it was renamed Wrigley Field around 1926-27. The mid-1920s was a time of extensive renovations at the Chicago ballpark. It was during this time when part of the grandstand was moved out and elongated, and an upper deck was added to the grandstand portion of the ballpark, leaving that portion with the shape it has today. (The current outfield dimensions, ivy on the walls, and iconic center field scoreboard date from 1937.) The design of Los Angeles's Wrigley Field served as the model of what William Wrigley wanted his Chicago ballpark to look like. If you compare exterior views of the grandstand of the two ballparks, you'll notice that they are quite similar aside from the wall at the end of either side of the grandstand and the clock tower at the L.A. park.

Likely because the lure of crowds in the range of 90,000 spectators (which the Dodgers had for the 1959 World Series) was too profitable to ignore.

You’re not wrong 🤣🤣🤣

@@SouthLARecap I always knew cause I know the history. Los Angeles. The Angels. 1 +1.

Yea but Dodgers own the Angels not just on the field son but in real life. Till the singing cowboy saved you guys. See you in July Mija

@@erkbzrMaybe, but we didn’t move from Brooklyn kicking a bunch of poor people out of their homes so we could build a stadium to do so.

@@erkbzr The Angels own the dodgers on the field buddy. Case closed

You do know that the angels have more wins against the dodgers right?

The dodgers logo was the Angels logo lol

@@OJsimpsonsKnife You must always let your brother win here and there. Otherwise he won't want to play anymore.

Dodger fans who claim to love LA are ignorant to the fact that a New York team Stole LA. Dodgers are squatters.

I think what you really learned is that it's the Angels that are the real L.A. team, not your Dodgers.