Ewing Field
- David Hegler
- May 29
- 4 min read
The saga of Ewing Field begins way back in 1906, when J. Cal Ewing and his partners bought the San Francisco Seals. At the time, his new club played in Recreation Park, a 15,000 seat wooden ballpark that had been around since 1884. At the time, Ewing was content with keeping his club there, but tragedy struck the Bay Area that summer when a great earthquake shook the city to its core. Along with the hundreds of buildings that were destroyed was the Seals' home.
So they traveled to Oakland where they would share Idora Park with J. Cal Ewing's former team, the Commuters. The following year, the Seals moved back to a rebuilt Recreation Park where they would play on and off until 1930.
By 1914, fans had grown weary of "Big Rec's" short fences, overcrowded stands and congested entrances. Seeing the need, Ewing decided to lease a vacant plot of land that was owned by the Catholic Church on the corner of Masonic Avenue and Geary Boulevard and build his own ballpark just a few blocks north-east of where Kezar Stadium would one day be built. With San Francisco's economy still in the tank following the earthquake eight years earlier, it took some time to find the most affordable lumber. Still, Ewing Field was ready to host 18,000 spectators on Opening Day, May 16, 1914.
After listening to a slew of patriotic songs and an array of speeches led by Mayor James Rolph, an iron chest filled with baseball memorabilia was buried three feet below home plate. Once the revelry had died down, the Seals went out and lost to one of the worst teams in the Pacific Coast League, the Oakland Commuters.
The Seals started the year slow, but this was still a very well-built team. As the season went along, the club's best players such as "Howling Harry" Hughes, Del Howard (manager and the Seals' best hitter), "Goat" Colligan and "Wild Bill" Tazer led the team to victory after victory.
But the fog knew none of this. Whether the Seals won or lost, San Francisco's thick fog was a daily occurrence at Ewing Field and even forced a game to be cancelled on June 6. Once, it was so thick that the Commuters's mascot had to walk all the way to the outfield to inform Elmer Zachar that the side had been retired and that half of the inning was over.
Whether it was due to the fog, the intense chill in the air or the fact that many were located far away in the Mission District, eventually, fans stopped showing up. To make matters worse for the club's owners, a large number of fans watched games from atop nearby Lone Mountain for free, therefore costing the Seals much-needed revenue.
The Seals were right in the thick of the pennant race up until the final week. Even with a 115-96 record, the Seals couldn't overcome the Portland Beavers. Still, in the last game of the season, Skeeter Fanning pitched a no-hitter against the league champions. It as the last game that the Seals would ever play at Ewing Field. After the season, Cal Ewing sold the team to the Berry brothers who had no desire to play at Ewing Field. Instead, they moved the club back to Recreation Park where they would remain through 1930 when Seals Stadium opened.
But the saga of Ewing Field was far from over. In 1923, it was transformed into a football stadium where it was a popular site for the Little Big Game, a rivalry between Saint Marys College and Santa Clara College that was often one of the Bay Area's biggest events over the Thanksgiving weekend back in the day. The stands would often fill to past its 26,000 capacity during those events. Ewing Field also hosted the first East-West Shrine Bowl in 1925. Eventually, boxing promoters began to sniff around for possible dates.
It looked like Ewing Field was entering its prime when disaster struck. During an amateur baseball game on June 5, 1926, someone mindlessly tossed a lit cigarette under the stands. The wooden ballpark was quickly turned into a raging inferno that only got worse when strong winds carried the embers to the rooftops of nearby Victorian row houses.
Firefighters tried with all their might to halt the blazes, but they could only do so much with over 100 houses on fire. Luckily, only seven were hurt while numerous families were left homeless. San Francisco fire Department Chief Murphy later stated "Not since 1906 has San Francisco been in such dangers of being wiped out".
Ewing Field remained standing as a charred relic for more than a decade. Sometimes the neighborhood children would sneak in and play a game while passerby could only gawk at the ruins. Finally, in 1938, the Catholic Church sold the land to some developers for $150,000. Those developers wanted to build 95 homes on the spot, selling each for $7,500-$8,000. Those homes still remain and the time capsule was never recovered.
References
Komentarji