The Grand Minor League: An Oral History of the Old Pacific Coast League

The Pacific Coast League was professional baseball at its best. In their heyday, from the 1920s through the mid '50s, PCL minor league teams drew sellout crowds to ballparks in Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. The rivalries were intense, the players skilled, the fans devoted. To PCL fans, major league baseball today might seem a bit out of scale - especially in its current, celebrity-crazed setting, where games are televised, autographs are signed for a fee and players look tiny in stadium-size venues. Of course, many longtime baseball fans and former players were a bit spoiled by the PCL. In most of the old PCL parks the smells of hot dogs and roasted peanuts mingled closely with the action on the field. The intimacy of these Coast League parks was perfect for second-guessing the umpire on a close play or relishing the screwball theatrics of PCL characters such as "Happy" Hogan or Billy Schuster. PCL fans and players knew they had it good. Taking a cue from baseball historian Lawrence Ritter, author Dick Dobbins decided to revive some of that PCL magic by letting its former players recount the excitement, struggles, atmosphere, energy and comic moments of Coast League baseball. The Grand Minor League is Dobbins' collection of comments, anecdotes and wisdom from the men who were there. There is indeed magic in these voices - the calculating pitcher, the frustrated batter, the besieged ump, the delighted fan - as they describe the PCL's marvelous brand of baseball.