Bill Swank - Baseball in San Diego: From the Plaza to the Padres

San Diego Population: 2,300
Weather: Sunny, 72 degrees

San Diegos first newspaper, the San Diego Herald , debuted on May 29, 1851. Sports coverage was sparse in those days. There was nothing to report. Billiards, bowling and boredom helped pass the time in the sleepy watering holes of Old San Diego. There were occasional rifle and pistol matches or exciting Indian sack races to mark the holidays. In 1856, an impromptu three and a half-mile race between a mule team and a pair of plugs ended in a thrilling three quarters of an inch victory for the nags. The mules would have won, but they were delayed for a half hour by the little doctor falling over the tail board of the wagon. Such trauma was commonplace in Southern California even before the advent of the automobile, freeway pileups and road rage. Otherwise, San Diego was a pretty laid back kind of place. Dullsville might have been a better description.

On September 7, 1870, a glimmer of hope finally appeared in the San Diego Union : BASE BALLA gentleman asks whether there is such an institution as a base ball club in San Diego. He thinks there are active young men enough here to put the thing through. We havent any club here now, but, as he says, there are men enough, and there is plenty of room.

Nothing happened.

Almost a year later, in May of 1871, a local merchant named Daniel Ullman announced efforts to organize a base ball club. Before teams could even be formed, 18 eager ballists met on the Sixth of May on the Plaza in New Town, which was located directly south of the newly constructed Horton House Hotel (the current downtown sites of Horton Plaza and the U.S. Grant Hotel). It was the first recorded game of base ball in San Diego. The results of this contest are lost to the ages, but base ball fever would infect the tiny border town.

The Union boldly predicted that in a short time, San Diego would compete credibly with the best clubs in California. Note was made of the citys fine climate that should make base ball a favorite game. To keep things in perspective, that same day, troops from the 1st Cavalry arrived from Fort Yuma and boarded a steamer bound for San Francisco after service against the Apaches in Arizona.

The newspaper boast was outrageous indeed. Base ball had already been played in the Golden State for over 20 years. Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr., the father of modern base ball, has long been credited with introducing the sport to California in 1849. Supposedly in the brief span of five days during a San Francisco stopover while en route to Hawaii, he encountered a few 49ers who were more interested in playing in the outfield than in the gold fields. And, baseball was invented in Cooperstown, too.

Apparently it took 10 years before teams were officially organized to play the first recognized game of base ball in 1859. According to an article in an 1851 issue of Alta newspaper, A game of base ball was played upon the [San Francisco] Plaza yesterday afternoon by a number of the sporting gentlemen about town. According to baseball prehistorian Angus Macfarlane, it is quite possible that soldiers from the First New York Volunteers, scattered throughout San Francisco, Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara during the Mexican War, introduced the game to California as early as 1847.

The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, the same year the Cincinnati Red Stockings became base balls first professional team. To cover expenses, the Reds organized a coast-to-coast tour to take on all comers. Their undefeated year-long trek resulted in 57 victories. The Red Stockings played six games against San Francisco clubs and won them convincingly: 35-4, 58-4, 66-4, 54-5, 76-5, and 46-14. For those keeping score at home, that is a cumulative 335 to 36 rout. The Friscos had a long way to go to catch Cincinnati. It would still be another two years before the first game of base ball was even played in San Diego.