Talk:Wrigley Field (Los Angeles)

Expansion pitching

Bill James has well documented the home run data for the 1961 season: I'll find the cite when I get the time... Ellsworth 00:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• You may be right, but until it's cited, I'm removing it, as it goes against "conventional wisdom" and would be challenged in any case. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, you got me intrigued, so I looked it up. Here are the AL home runs by ballpark, as per Sporting News publications, 1961 and 1962. If you take L.A. out of the mix, it works out to about the same number of home runs per game, although slightly more in 1961 if you take it to 3 decimal places. At individual ballparks, some numbers went up (even taking the extra 4 games into account) and some went down. It could take some detailed analysis (and perhaps James has supplied that somewhere) to explain why home run totals went down at ballparks of the tied-for-9th-place teams (K.C. and Washington) and went up elsewhere, especially at the parks of several of the first-division clubs in the league. Well, the obvious conclusion would be that K.C. was even weaker than they were the previous year, and of course the Senators were new (and the new Angels finished 8th). In 1961, the strong teams got stronger (notably the Yankees) and the weak teams got weaker... which equates to the "conventional wisdom" of the 1961 expansion year. To confirm that, I would also have to break down the home runs by home and visiting clubs. But I've done too much of your work already. d:)

1960 - 154 game schedule (77 home games), 8 clubs

1. New York - Yankee Stadium - 144
2. Baltimore - Memorial Stadium (Baltimore) - 102
3. Chicago - Comiskey Park - 111
4. Cleveland - Cleveland Stadium - 146
5. Washington - Griffith Stadium - 149
6. Detroit - Briggs Stadium - 163
7. Boston - Fenway Park - 134
8. Kansas City - Municipal Stadium (Kansas City) - 137

OVERALL [1] - 1086 in 1234 games or 617 paired contests, average 1.760 per game

1961 - 162 game schedule (81 home games), 10 clubs (new ballparks highlighted)

1. New York - Yankee Stadium - 171
2. Detroit - Tiger Stadium renamed from Briggs Stadium - 185
3. Baltimore - Memorial Stadium (Baltimore) - 107
4. Chicago - Comiskey Park - 135
5. Cleveland - Cleveland Stadium - 172
6. Boston - Fenway Park - 154
7. Kansas City - Municipal Stadium (Kansas City) - 94
8. Minnesota (formerly Washington) - Metropolitan Stadium - 181
9. Los Angeles - Wrigley Field (Los Angeles) - 248

9. Washington (new club) - Griffith Stadium - 87

OVERALL [2] - 1534 in 1622 games or 811 paired contests, average 1.891 per game

MINUS LOS ANGELES - 1286 in 1460 games or 730 paired contests, average 1.762 per game

Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 07:46, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Wow, great work. I need to be more careful about throwing around edits about the CW, eh? Ellsworth 14:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I did look up the numbers for Wrigley. The Angels hit nearly half of the total. I think the Orioles had more than any other visiting team. My guess is that that helped the Angels do as well as they did in 1961. I think they sank a bit in 1962, when they moved to the much more spacious Dodger Stadium. I also suspect that someone else has studied the matter of the 1961 season in general, and this ballpark in particular, in some depth. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, Bill James had a blurb on it in one of the annual Baseball Abstracts (IIRC) in which he said the sole reason the number of home runs went up around the league was the high number of homers hit in Wrigley and the Met in Minnesota, also a good hitter's park - thus giving rise to the legend of "expansion pitching". I suspect that if you check the league-ERA for the 8 existing parks you'll also see no or minimal change between 1960-1961, that any increase was due to high run-scoring in the 2 new parks. Ellsworth 19:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

And I say that the strong got stronger and the weak got weaker. The Yankees became a wrecking crew that year. And I say it was because of expansion and dilution. But the Wrigley Field situation is interesting. It's the closest modern analogy, probably, to the infamous Lakefront Park situation in Chicago in 1884. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Expanding on your calculations above, I note that if you subtract the homers hit and games played in Minnnesota for 1961, you get 1.702 homers/game, hence home runs hit per game - in those parks which were in the league in 1960 - actually dropped a bit in 1961. KC and Washington parks, obviously, were responsible for most of the drop. Ellsworth 16:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I would say it's because K.C. and Washington were so bad that year. Keep in mind that Harmon Killebrew, et al, were in D.C. in 1960 and in Minnesota in in 1961... so it stands to reason that the Griffith Stadium homers would drop in 1961. To really figure it out, you would have to study each home run that was hit and who hit it. That couldn't take too long. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Bad offensively, yeah, but what about the pitching? The source you cited shows that KC allowed 141 homers (home and road) that year, just 4 more than the pennant-winning Yankees, whereas Washington allowed only 130 homers, seven fewer than the Yankees. Ellsworth 19:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

There were 87 homers at Griffith in 1961, 34 by the Senators and 43 by opponents. I don't have the detailed figures for 1960. Overall, the 1960 Senators (1961's Twins) hit 147 homers, while the 1961 Senators hit 119. Overall, there were 149 homers at Griffith in 1960. One thing to keep in mind is that everyone except the home team played fewer games at any given park in 1961 than in 1960. Thus, there were fewer opportunities for the Tigers and Yankees to knock them out. In 1960, it was 7 teams X 22 games = 154. Thus each team had 11 games at Griffith in 1960. In 1961, it was 9 teams X 18 games = 162. Thus each team had only 9 games at Griffith in 1961. As far as the Yankees giving up homers, you'd have to check the home-and-road on that, as Yankee Stadium had short foul lines. Also, the 1961 Yanks scored 827 runs, second only to Detroit's 841, while giving up 612, second-lowest in the league ahead of Baltimore's 588. The Yanks went 109-53. No wonder. Without checking, I would guess that with such a potent offense, they left the starters in longer and could give up more homers because of their own offensive potency. The homer stats are true, but Griffith was hard to hit homers in, and I think K.C. had fairly deep alleys also. However, in terms of yielding runs, the Senators gave up 776, far more than the Yankees; and the K.C. A's gave up 863, far more than anyone else in the AL. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

And if you think K.C. was bad in 1961, the 1962 [3] Mets gave up 948 runs. 120 losses? Never mind that, how did they ever get 40 wins? Things could be worse. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders were a serious punching bag, giving up 1,252 runs. They were lucky to do as well as 20-134. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

1966? 1969?

"The ballpark was well-featured in the last episode of Mannix's second season. Plenty of action occurs in the already apparently unused "old Wrigley field" in that episode, which was copyrighted in 1969. This means the building was still there in early '69.". Demolition date needs to be pinned down somehow. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrigley Field, Long Beach and Spring Training in southern Cal.

There is a Wrigley Field in Long Beach, California, and from what I hear was used for spring training and was the preseason site for the Chicago Cubs from 1925 to 1959 except for a few intervals. The Wrigley company owned most of the properties in Catalina Island, 26 miles from the Ports of L.A./Long Beach, and no coincidence the Wrigleys along with the O'Malleys, and Del Webb and Gene Autry liked the idea of introducting major league baseball in California when it became possible by the arrival of commercial aviation during WWII (1940s). 71.102.26.168 (talk) 14:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The Cubs spring training was at Blair Field in Long Beach in 1966 only. Google turns up no Wrigley Field in Long Beach, though there are several Wrigley neighborhoods named for Cubs owner William Wrigley Jr.-- Pemilligan (talk) 17:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Unsupported text

I removed the following unsupported text from the Minor League Baseball 1925–1957 section:

The Anahuac baseball team, a mostly Mexican professional team, of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) from 1926 to 1929. Calling Los Angeles home, they played their games at Wrigley Field. The Anahuacs were successful during their tenure in the PCL, winning the championship in 1927.

Something like this needs a supporting citation, but my googling has turned up no team of that name associated with Wrigley Field, the PCL, or the years given. Maybe someone else can find something. -- Pemilligan (talk) 16:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)