Hollywood Stars

The Hollywood Stars were a minor league baseball team which played in the Pacific Coast League during the early and mid 20th century. There were actually two different teams which played in Los Angeles as the Hollywood Stars.

The first version of the Hollywood Stars began its existence in 1909 as the Sacramento Solons, a team which joined the PCL that year along with the Vernon Tigers when the league expanded from four teams to six. The team moved to San Francisco during the 1914 season, finishing out the season as the San Francisco Missions. The team was sold to Salt Lake City businessman Bill "Hardpan" Lane after that season and moved there for the 1915 season. For the next eleven years the team played as the Salt Lake Bees. When the Vernon Tigers announced they would be moving to San Francisco after the 1925 season, Lane moved the Bees moved to Los Angeles for the 1926 season. Originally they were known as the Hollywood Bees, but soon changed their name to the Hollywood Stars.

The original Stars, though supposedly representing Hollywood, actually played their home games as tenants of the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field. Though the Stars won pennants in 1929 and 1930, they never developed much of a fan base, playing their home games miles from the glamorous Hollywood district. They were merely a team to watch when the Angels were on the road. Attendance had been quite good (by standards of that era) during their inaugural year in 1926, but tapered off after that, exacerbated by the Great Depression.

Stars' owner Lane had never gotten along well with his landlord, Angels' owner William Wrigley. When, after the 1935 season, Wrigley doubled the Stars’ rent, Lane announced the Stars would move to San Diego for the 1936 season, to become the San Diego Padres. Los Angeles became a one-team city once more for the 1936 and 1937 seasons.

The second version of the Hollywood Stars coincidentally began its existence at the same time as the first, joining the PCL in 1909 as the Vernon Tigers. As the Tigers, the team won two PCL pennants (and finished first in another only to lose the postseason series) before moving to San Francisco for the 1926 season.

The transplanted Tigers, now known as the Mission Reds or usually just "the Missions," foundered in San Francisco, failing to establish a rivalry with the existing San Francisco Seals. One reason for this failure to develop a fan base was that while the team was supposed to have represented the Mission District, it never played its home games there, instead playing at the Seals' home field while the Seals were on the road. That, of course, mirrored the failure of the original Stars, who purported to represent Hollywood while playing their home games at Wrigley Field in South Central Los Angeles.

In 1938 Missions' owner Herbert Fleishaker moved his team back to Los Angeles, and took the name of the departed Stars. Like their predecessors, the new Stars played their 1938 home games in Wrigley Field and -- like their predecessors -- flopped at the box office.

After but one season, the team was sold to new owners, among them Robert H. “Bob” Cobb, owner of the Brown Derby restaurant and for whom the Cobb salad is named. The new ownership realized the team needed to represent Hollywood in order to succeed. They sold stock in the team to movie stars, movie moguls, and Hollywood civic leaders ("the Hollywood Stars owned by the Hollywood stars"). Moreover, the team actually played in the Hollywood area, beginning in 1939 when 13,000-seat Gilmore Field was opened in the Fairfax district adjacent to Hollywood.

The new Stars (or “Twinks”) caught on and became a very popular team, winning three pennants before 1958. In 1955, actress Jayne Mansfield was named Miss Hollywood Star. The Stars became genuine rivals of the Angels, and it was not uncommon for fights between the teams to break out during Angels-Stars games. In fact, on August 2, 1953, a brawl between the two teams lasted 30 minutes, broken up only when 50 riot police were sent to Gilmore Field by Chief of Police William Parker, who was at home watching the game on television when the fight started.

The Twinks were innovators. They began the custom of dragging the infield during the fifth inning, creating an artificial break in the action hoping fans would run to the concessions stands. The team began televising home games in 1939, and in later years televised every home game.

The Stars also had the dubious distinction of being the first team to replace the traditional bloused baseball trousers and stirrup socks with shorts and long socks in 1950! The theory was that players could run faster in this gear than in the baggy wool or cotton flannel uniforms of the day. Needless to say, the new uniforms resembling those worn by female softball players were "too Hollywood" even for Hollywood, and were soon replaced.

The Columbia Broadcasting System, owner of Gilmore Field, announced plans to raze the facility to build a new headquarters in 1958. Before Stars' owners could make contingency plans, however, the "other shoe dropped." In October of 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers confirmed their long-rumored move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season, which forced the Stars and the Angels to relocate. The Angels, who had been purchased by Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley prior to the 1957 season, became the Spokane Indians in 1958. Having no interest in operating the Twinks anywhere but in Los Angeles, the ownership group led by Bob Cobb was compelled to sell the team, which it did, to a group based in Salt Lake City. The Stars, in a sense, "returned" to Salt Lake City (from whence the original Stars had moved in 1926) in 1958, becoming the Salt Lake Bees once more.