1961 Little League World Title Was Merely a Sip of City’s Baseball Success

Just over 50 years ago, the 1961 world champion Little Leaguers from La Mesa's Northern Little League (now Fletcher Hills Little League) were the featured guests of a hometown parade. 

On June 4, some of the same players had a repeat ride up La Mesa Boulevard as grand marshalls of the Flag Day Parade. Their golden anniversary recalls an amazing period of youth baseball success for La Mesa. 

This run brought national attention to La Mesa and its subsequent naming as America’s Youth Baseball Capital.

Baseball would be a unifying identity for our small but growing town and inspire local leaders to proclaim La Mesa as the City of Champions during its 1962 Golden Anniversary celebration year.

Yet La Mesa’s tradition of youth baseball goes back much further than its meteoric rise to national renown in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

La Mesa’s Baseball Origins

La Mesa’s origins as a “baseball town” actually date to the 1890s.  A La Mesa Historical Society photograph of the local “La Mesa” team dated “circa 1896” is the oldest recognized documentation of organized community baseball here.

These community teams of the 1890s were usually made up of teenagers and young men who could compete on the regulation 90-foot-square diamonds.  They would play against teams from El Cajon, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley and San Diego—usually on holidays and summer weekends, since no fixed schedules or leagues would be established until the early 1900s.

Youth baseball was generally focused around the local school teams.  After the establishment of La Mesa School (1891) and the Allison School (1895), the first organized youth games were held.

The oldest record of such a youth game is one in April 1898 in which the combined La Mesa “school boys” took on a challenge from a mixed-town team from University Heights School, B Street School and San Diego High School.  The La Mesans won the hard-fought game 10-8. 

The El Cajon Valley News reported that a rematch would be played the following Saturday, but that they hoped the San Diegans would leave behind the “town boy” who reportedly assaulted the local umpire, remarking that “Our (La Mesa) boys like to play the game in a gentlemanly manner.”

Such matches would continue throughout the first decades of the 1900s.  La Mesa Springs would have its own town team and the schoolboys would continue to suit up for their schools including the renamed La Mesa Heights School (old La Mesa District) and La Mesa Grammar School (old Allison District). 

After the opening of Grossmont High School in 1920, these boys could aspire to play for the Foothillers—whose talented teams in that decade won several championships.

Organized youth baseball in La Mesa became more formalized in the 1930s as the local American Legion Post organized and helped find sponsors for summer time Junior (under 16) teams starting in 1935.  (The American Legion youth baseball program started in 1927 and was the largest national program in the pre World War II era).

Not only did these summertime leagues provide needed recreational programs for La Mesa’s growing youth population but also coaching on baseball fundamentals. 

During the 1930s, La Mesa also saw an increase in local amateur adult baseball teams as well as men’s and women’s softball teams and leagues.  The activities and results of these teams and their contests often became front-page news for the La Mesa Scout—documenting La Mesa’s communitywide love of baseball.

Postwar Youth Baseball Hotbed

With such a tradition of family recreation in La Mesa, inspired by baseball, it is not  surprising that as La Mesa's suburban population grew exponentially after World War II, so did its infatuation with the game and its youth leagues.

With new suburban housing developments in the west and north of downtown, city planners pushed forth improvements to La Mesa’s Liles Field, the community ball diamond at University and Baltimore (site of  the new police station) as well as plans for developing new youth recreation facilities at Memorial Park (now MacArthur Park).

By 1947, the city recognized the need to find appropriate summertime activities for the growing community’s youth that would come with the thousands of new houses anticipated to the west and at Severin Manor and Fletcher Hills to the north.  That year, the American Legion also established regional Junior (under 16) and Midget (under 14) Leagues where La Mesa merchants sponsored teams.

The Polio Scare of  summer 1948 put a damper on that year’s youth programs, but starting in 1949 La Mesa experienced a proliferation of youth baseball to match its growing population.

First the city created its own Junior Baseball Program for all boys who wished to take part. The city’s Junior League season opened with a special movie session at the new La Mesa Youth Center building at Memorial Park that provided an introduction to youth baseball, its rules and fundamentals.  A tryout and training session followed to “pick” the teams and run out the six-week season.

Besides the city’s program, the local VFW sponsored a four-team league in August.  Not to be outdone, La Mesa’s American Legion Junior League team set the standards of high quality coaching when it brought in San Diego State baseball-basketball star Don Smith to be manager. 

In 1950, the American Legion led the youth baseball program again.  La Mesa’s Junior League team, sponsored by Jack Hanna’s car dealership, and the La Mesa Merchants’ Midget Legion team both won local league titles. Both teams moved on to county tournaments at San Diego’s Lane Field, home of the Pacific Coast League Padres.

In addition, the need for providing organized baseball for the growing number of younger boys also was addressed formally for the first time in 1950 with the creation of a Future League for lads 8 to 12.  La Mesa’s Futures Team played a team from El Cajon during a short series in August that year.

These programs continued to grow in popularity and success in both 1951 and 1952.  In 1951, manager Louis Granger along with coaches Harry Fenn (midgets) and Morgan Davis (juniors) again led the La Mesa teams to league titles.  And for the first time in 16 years of competition, the La Mesa Junior team won the county title. 

Local league titles followed again in 1952 as La Mesa fielded two Midget League teams for the first time.

One notable story of the 1952 youth baseball year was a 13-year-old pitcher for the La Mesa Midgets team, Dick Williams.  Although born in San Diego, he and his family had lived in Portland, Maine, for several years.  In 1951, he helped lead the Portland Little League team to the national tournament in Williamsport, PA.  Williams would be La Mesa’s first connection to its future Little League baseball fame.

Little League Arrives

Little League baseball traces its origins to Williamsport resident Carl Stotz.  In 1938, Stotz organized a youth team in Williamsport to play organized ball on a smaller size diamond with modified rules. 

According to a history on the Little League Baseball website, the organization grew exponentially after WWII, going from 12 leagues in Pennsylvania in 1946 to more than 1,500 programs nationwide in 1952.  The popularity of the sport was such that ABC televised the championship game for the first time in 1953.

With a rapidly growing number of younger boys in need of recreational opportunities, the city looked to morph its “futures team” into its own “Little League” team in July 1952. 

Following the establishment of a Little League in El Cajon the year before, La Mesans were quick to respond.  Led by Jack Garner, La Mesa Intermediate School physical education director and city recreation field director, the city set up its first “little league” team of 9- to 12 year-olds for a short season against teams from El Cajon. 

In an August 29, 1952, La Mesa Scout article before the team’s first game, Garner responded to questions about the cost of developing the league:  “I feel after weighing the problem carefully and after looking at all of the possible variables, that Little League baseball is something which will give our youngsters many benefits.”

As such, La Mesa’s youth baseball programs grew again in 1953. La Mesa’s Juniors fielded their own six-team league. The Midget League now fielded several La Mesa teams including one from Fletcher Hills.  La Mesa’s Little League team continued but still had not formally joined the national organization.

In 1954, La Mesa’s excitement and passion for youth baseball was such that a Spring Training Season was scheduled for April.  Three weeks later it was reported in the April 22 La Mesa Scout that more than 340 boys played organized baseball during the Easter Holiday week programs.  This included eight little league teams, three Midget teams, and three Junior teams.

Two weeks later, Mayor Earl Logan officially opened La Mesa’s initial full Little League season by tossing out the ceremonial first pitch. The new La Mesa Little League featured two four-team “American and National League” divisions.  The two league winners played for the city championship in August.

La Mesa Midgets and Junior teams also fared well and articles reported on the respect afforded all those who played the “East County boys.”

La Mesa Joins In

In early 1955, La Mesa’s Little Leagues prepared to join in with the national organization and send their own all-star teams into the regional and national tournaments. 

In March 1955, leaders from La Mesa’s American, National and the Northern (Fletcher Hills area) leagues coordinated their efforts.  Officers and coaches of the three leagues met with parents to explain the program, its rules and organization.  Signups were so high that a separate Minor League was created to make sure that all the boys were assigned to a team and could play.

On Saturday April 30, 1955, Mayor Logan again threw out the first pitch and the initial official Little League season in La Mesa was under way.  The league schedules and results of all games were covered in the Scout each week as if they were the pros.

In addition La Mesa formed its first Pony League in 1955. The league for 13- and 14-year-olds had also rapidly grown from its 1951 origins in Pennsylvania into a national program by 1955.  A Colt League for 15- and 16-year-olds would follow.

In July 1955, La Mesa’s passion for youth baseball was recognized.  It was chosen to host the Little League district and sectional playoff tournaments.  The three La Mesa little leagues would now compete with other local leagues such as Rolando, Vista La Mesa, Andrew Jackson (El Cerrito) and El Cajon.  In the tournament, La Mesa National's All-Stars won the district title before falling in the sectionals.

La Mesa’s new Pony Leaguers surpassed the success of the National Little Leaguers. Coach Gail Stuckey’s team—led by Ray Straka, Duane Hobel, Don Taylor, Mike Bruce and Jerry Lipscomb—advanced to the Western Regionals in San Bernardino, where they won the consolation bracket—just missing a trip to the Pony World Series in Pennsylvania.

The impressive showing of La Mesa’s teams in their first year of outside competition in 1955 was just the precursor of a five-year span of unparalleled success to come.

Jack Garner’s 1953 statement on the moral, physical and educational values of little league and youth sports for La Mesa certainly could not foresee just how the growing suburban city would benefit from its boys’ baseball prowess.

Next Time: championships and national recognition