salsipuedes
By Cheri Rae
After a 99-day lockout that postponed Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, America’s Game is back. But baseball has always been Santa Barbara’s Game, with the WPA-built Laguna Ballpark where Dodgers farm teams played; where Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews got his start, and where Santa Barbara High School graduate Ron Shelton—himself a great player—was inspired to write his legendary movie Bull Durham.
(Note: His book about the making of the movie is scheduled for release this summer.) Casey at the Bat author Ernest Lawrence Thayer moved to Montecito shortly after it was published, and there have been several local athletes who have made it to the majors.
But long before all that, there was one glorious day when the best players in the world put on a big league show in Santa Barbara. It was 95 years ago, late October of 1927, when teammates Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played at the original Peabody Stadium.
That was the year that MVP Ruth hit 60 homers and Gehrig hit 47.
Santa Barbara’s Laguna Baseball Field (Courtesy Gledhill Library, Santa Barbara Historical Museum)
Two days after winning the World Series, sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates, the legendary home run hitters set out on a barnstorming tour across the country. They played 21 games from Brooklyn to Kansas City, Denver to San Francisco, Oakland to Santa Barbara, Los Angeles to San Diego.
It was the Bustin’ Babes against the Larrupin’ Lous (larrupin’ was a word used to describe Gehrig’s forceful hitting style). The 3,500 fans who filed into Peabody Stadium—including many schoolchildren with notes from their parents for the 2 o’clock game—had high expectations for a great day at the ballpark, and they were rewarded for their enthusiasm with a game for the ages.
A group of sailors from the U.S.S. Colorado, then stationed off Stearns Wharf, played on Ruth’s team, and a group of locals—including a painting contractor, a future city councilmember, a firefighter and a high school coach—played for Gehrig.
Santa Barbara’s Historic Baseball Team (Courtesy Gledhill Library, Santa Barbara Historical Museum)
According to reports of the day, the Sultan of Swat hit a home run on this first at-bat, and Gehrig hit one out of the stadium, where it dented a car in the parking lot. Neither ball was ever found.
The game ended after eight innings—because Ruth and Gehrig had to catch a train—with Ruth’s Bustin’ Babes edging out Gehrig’s Larrupin’ Lous, 8-7.
A few years ago, acclaimed Jane Leavy, author of The Big Fella, a biography of Babe Ruth, travelled to Santa Barbara to stand in the spot where the Babe had launched his legendary home run as part of her research for her book. Peabody Stadium has been rebuilt since then, but the story lives on. As do those glorious words, “Play Ball.”
(Courtesy Gledhill Library, Santa Barbara Historical Museum)
