Meigs - Baseball in Long Beach

The largest personality in early Long Beach baseball was promoter William Bill W. Feistner, who created and managed the original Shell Oilers team and proceeded to promote local baseball for the next 50 years. In 1922, the Shell Oil Company agreed to build a ballpark for the Oilers at the corner of Stearns Street and Redondo Avenue.

Before radio broadcasts of World Series games were available, the Long Beach Press established a magnetic scoring tower constructed on East Broadway Street and Lime Avenue. The game play board on the scoring tower featured a baseball diamond with moving parts operated manually by men working in the tower behind the boards surface. Plays would come into the tower via telegraph, and workers would re-create each play by moving figures, operating the bat swing, and adjusting names. Peanut vendors provided snacks for those seated on wood planks and boxes in view of the scoring tower.

An August 1922 doubleheader at Shell Park featured a jazz performance by Standard Oils 35-piece orchestra. The Shell Oilers won both games, 4-3 and 5-4.

The Shell Baseball Park was officially dedicated on August 19, 1923, with a 4-1 victory over the Santa Fe Springs team from Union Oil. Connie Mack brought the 1929 and 1930 world champion Philadelphia Athletics to Shell Park to play Feistners Oilers in 1930. Three years later, the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League held their spring training camp at Shell Park when the Long Beach earthquake of March 10, 1933, struck with devastating results. At the time, the team was staying at the Breakers Hotel along Ocean Boulevard.

Several professional clubs wanted to play in Long Beach at that time, including the Chicago Cubs (training on nearby Catalina Island) and the Pacific Coast Leagues Los Angeles Angels.

With the increasing demand for an improved ballpark, Long Beach officials began making plans in late 1923 for a Recreation Park baseball site, including a grandstand that would seat close to 1,000 spectators.

GEORGE STOVALL. Stovall played first base and infield from 1904 to 1911 with the Cleveland Naps of the American League and in 1912 and 1913 with the St. Louis Browns. He spent the 1914 and 1915 seasons with the Kansas City Packers of the Federal League. As a big-league veteran living on Cherry Avenue, he played early baseball in Long Beach and aspired to invest in a ballpark for the city in 1909.

BARNSTORMING. This 1920s poster advertises an exhibition game run by baseball promoters like William Bill Feistner at Shell Field. This poster style typifies the kind in circulation during the rained-out appearance of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at Shell Field on Halloween Eve of 1927.

WILLIAM BILL FEISTNER. An early pioneer and entrepreneur in baseball promotion for Long Beach, Feistner was the founder and manager of the Shell Oilers. He staged exhibition games and barnstorming tours, including appearances by Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Satchel Paige. Pictured on the left is Bobo Newsom. Newsom made his major-league pitching debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on September 11, 1929.

SHELL FIELD PANORAMA. An early 1920s panorama sequence of Shell Park shows the crowds Ford Model Ts that were used to determine and enforce the foul lines. Oil derricks on the Shell property can be seen prominently in the background. An early version of the parks grandstand, although not yet fully constructed, is visible.

SHELL FIELD CROWD. This image of Shell Field is complete with a dugout and grandstand shade for an August 26, 1923, game between Shell Oil and Union Oil. The modern-day location is on Stearns Street and Redondo Avenue on the site of the U.S. National Guard armory.