With Major League Baseball opening March 30, it’s fun to remember the semi-pro “grassroots” teams of decades ago.
They were barely a footnote in the history of semi-pro baseball in Los Angeles, a ragtag team of “little chance” and “once were” ball players without a park to play in — and no fans to cheer them on.
Those Hollywood Stars had a ballpark — Gilmore Field — and plenty of fans, at least until the Brooklyn Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles, and they had to relocate. The team went from Hollywood to Salt Lake City, and became the Bees. A file photo of Bob Triggs, who used to be a bat boy for the semi-pro Hollywood Stars baseball team in the 1940’s.
It became a humbling experience for opposing players to go home and tell their wives after the game they went 0 for 3 against Bette Davis that day. Semi-pro was baseball at its purest — at the grassroots level. Players didn’t have big contracts, they had handshakes. And no one ever tried to renegotiate a handshake.
“Probably our best player was Don Pulford, a pitcher,” Triggs said. A check of the record book shows Pulford had 95 wins and 90 losses in his career with the Abberville Athletics, New Orleans Pelicans, Wilkes-Barre Barons, Nashville Vols, Hollywood Stars, Portland Beavers and Mexicali Aguilas.
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