Charles Henry "Doc" Strub (November 3, 1884 – March 28, 1958) was an American
dentist
A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the mouth, oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofaci ...
and
entrepreneur who built and owned
Santa Anita Park racetrack in
Arcadia, California
Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It contains a series of adjacent parks consisting of th ...
, and was president and partner of the
San Francisco Seals baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
club of the
Pacific Coast League
The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade bel ...
.
Early life
Charles Strub was born in
Hollister, California, as the only child of Isadore Strub and Rebecca Williamson Strub. At a young age, he moved to San Francisco, where he attended
St. Ignatius College Preparatory
St. Ignatius College Preparatory, commonly referred to as SI, is a private, Catholic preparatory school in the Jesuit tradition, serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1855. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, in the Su ...
. He enrolled at
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
and played baseball under future business partner
Charlie Graham
Charles Henry Graham (April 24, 1878 – August 29, 1948), known as "Uncle Charlie", was an American baseball catcher, manager and team owner. Listed at , 190 lb., Graham batted and threw right-handed. He was born in Santa Clara, California.
...
. He was a teammate of future
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
star
Hal Chase
Harold Homer Chase (February 13, 1883 – May 18, 1947), nicknamed "Prince Hal", was an American professional baseball first baseman and manager in Major League Baseball, widely viewed as the best fielder at his position. During his career, he pl ...
. Having been put through agony as a child by the dentists of the day, he decided to study dentistry. Since Santa Clara didn't offer a dentistry program, he transferred to the
University of California at Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
to obtain his degree and where he also played on the varsity baseball team. At Berkeley, he studied modern techniques with new pain-killing drugs and laughing gas so that pulling an abscessed tooth could be done painlessly—a great benefit to society, he thought. Upon graduation, Charlie invested in state-of-the-art equipment which was destroyed in the
1906 earthquake before he saw his first patient. In the weeks following the disaster, he saw a column in the newspaper that said his baseball coach from Santa Clara, Charlie Graham, was looking for him to play some ball. During 1906 and 1907 he played baseball with the San Francisco team in the California State League but made his living as a dentist. Entrepreneurial focused, he was known as the "advertising dentist" and eventually had a chain of six "painless extraction" dentist parlors. His chain of dentist offices provided him the opportunity to speculate in the burgeoning California real estate market, financing much of the rebuilding of the SF Business district after the earthquake, making Doc Strub a very wealthy man. One of the San Francisco buildings he built was 450 Sutter, which still houses medical professionals.
San Francisco Seals
In 1918, the financially strapped owner of the San Francisco Seals put the baseball team up for sale. George Alfred (Alfie) Putnam and
Charles H. Graham were looking to acquire the club, but lacked the necessary funds. After passing one of Strub's dentist offices, they sought out and brought the "Doc" in as an equal partner. Appointed team president, he successfully led the San Francisco Seals for more than two decades. In 1931, he oversaw construction of
Seals Stadium. As president of the Seals, he sold minor league ball players to the majors at unheard of prices. By the mid-1920s, the Seals had collected an estimated $500,000 in fees from these transactions and had earned the trio the title "Murder, Mayhem and Manslaughter, Incorporated" from Chicago Cubs Scout Jack Doyle. After first trying to sell
Joe Dimaggio
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...
to the Chicago Cubs, he eventually negotiated a deal with the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
for $25,000 on a money-back guarantee. Doc Strub always regretted that he was able to get more for Joe's brother
Dom Dom or DOM may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Dom (given name), including fictional characters
* Dom (surname)
* Dom La Nena (born 1989), stage name of Brazilian-born cellist, singer and songwriter Dominique Pinto
* Dom people, an et ...
than he got for Joe. He quipped, "Of course I never dreamed he'd become the husband of Marilyn Monroe."
In 1929, Strub was sitting in his lucky barber chair getting a shave when he was handed the phone. On it was the president of
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
who told him that he lost everything and was more than 1 million in debt. When Strub asked about repaying it, the response from the president of Bank of America was "Don't worry Charlie, I know you're good for it." Not a believer in bankruptcy, Doc Strub paid back all of his debt including that of his other Seals partners. He maintained a list of those he owed money on an
index card
An index card (or record card in British English and system cards in Australian English) consists of card stock (heavy paper) cut to a standard size, used for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. A collection of such cards e ...
that he constantly kept with him in his jacket pocket.
Santa Anita Park
A fan of
thoroughbred horse racing, he decided to enter the business when California passed a
parimutuel
Parimutuel betting or pool betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vigorish" are deducted, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winnin ...
wagering bill in the early 1930s. He had spent several months examining locations in the San Francisco Area and found none of them to his liking, including windy Candlestick Point. He then connected with a group in Los Angeles that had identified 'Lucky' Baldwin's Rancho Santa Anita as a location, but needed increased financial backing. In January 1934 Charles Strub, in partnership with
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
filmmaker
Hal Roach
Harry Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr.Randy Skretvedt, Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director, a ...
and a group of investors, formed the Los Angeles Turf Club. Created for the purpose of building the first race track in California, they opened Santa Anita Park in Arcadia on
Christmas Day
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
, 1934. He introduced a number of significant innovations to American racing. The innovations he instituted for all races included finish line cameras to verify race results, electronic timing, and electronic starting gates. The improvements were later adopted by the rest of racing industry.
Although the country was in the throes of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, Strub's management and creativity brought success to his investors. He attracted
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse ...
to the track, which helped to establish Santa Anita as a premier stop on the racing circuit. The first year dividend returned to investors 100% of their initial investment. By 1960, the aggregate par value of the stock ($7,500,000) had multiplied over a dozen times and grown so large that it split 375 to one. After its opening, Santa Anita made Dr. Strub one of the highest paid executives in the country, landing on the Treasury Department list of highest executives from 1936 through 1941. In 1946, he ranked number four on the list, earning $396,901. As time progressed, Doc Strub used Santa Anita as a vehicle for other leisure-time investments including Lake Arrowhead and
Pacific Ocean Park.
In 1987, he inducted into California Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame's inaugural class.
In 2018 he was inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY
Strub Series
Santa Anita Park honored him by renaming the Santa Anita Maturity Stakes the
Charles H. Strub Stakes. The Strub Stakes is the final leg of the Strub Series of three open races for newly turned 4-year-old horses held over several weeks during the first two months of each year. The Series consists of the
Malibu Stakes, raced at 7
furlongs, the
San Fernando Stakes, at 1 1/16 miles, and the Strub Stakes.
Only five horses have ever won all three legs of the Strub Series:
Round Table
The Round Table ( cy, y Ford Gron; kw, an Moos Krenn; br, an Daol Grenn; la, Mensa Rotunda) is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that e ...
(1958),
Hillsdale (1959),
Ancient Title (1974),
Spectacular Bid (1980) and
Precisionist
Precisionism was a modernist art movement that emerged in the United States after World War I. Influenced by Cubism, Purism, and Futurism, Precisionist artists reduced subjects to their essential geometric shapes, eliminated detail, and often us ...
(1985).
Other endeavors
In 1939, he was asked to help bail out the 1939
San Francisco World's Fair
The Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) (1939 and 1940), held at San Francisco's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair celebrating, among other things, the city's two newly built bridges. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened in 1936 ...
. It was a task he accepted at no salary. His efforts turned the fair around and into a break-even event for its organizers.
When he was opening Santa Anita, Strub still had his interest and position with the San Francisco Seals baseball team. While in New York City, prior to the track's official opening, he sought out a meeting with Baseball Commissioner
Judge Landis to talk about the apparent conflict of gambling and baseball. When he entered the commissioner's office, Judge Landis asked "Why are you here?", to which Dr Strub explained his concerns about the conflict and the need for him to exit baseball. Judge Landis replied, "Charlie, if I wanted you out of baseball ''I'' would have sent for you." Judge Landis' comment effectively ended the conversation. In 1945, the estate of Jacob Ruppert was selling the NY Yankees and Doc Strub put in a bid. However, at this point, the baseball commissioner was
Happy Chandler
Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler Sr. (July 14, 1898 – June 15, 1991) was an American politician from Kentucky. He represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate and served as its 44th and 49th governor. Aside from his political positions, he also se ...
and he was concerned about the public appearance of having an owner who was also involved in gambling - albeit legitimate para-mutual horse racing. Strub withdrew his bid.
He was appointed to the board of several civic organizations, including the Greater
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.
Leadersh ...
Association and New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a benefactor, the Charles H. Strub Memorial Theater at
Loyola Marymount University and Strub Hall at
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
(part of the Charles H. Graham residential complex) are named in his honor. He brought and donated to the
Society of the Holy Child Jesus
The Society of the Holy Child Jesus is an international community of Roman Catholic sisters founded in England in 1846 by Philadelphia-born Cornelia Connelly.
History
Born Cornelia Peacock in Philadelphia, she was raised a Presbyterian. In 183 ...
, the Bellefontaine estate which is now the
Mayfield Senior School
Mayfield Senior School is an independent Catholic college preparatory school, founded in 1931 for young women grades 9-12. It is sponsored by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, a member of the Holy Child Network of Schools and is guided by the ...
property in Pasadena, California. In conjunction with Santa Anita, he donated the Forest Lawn Scout Reservation to the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
Strub died of a
cerebral thrombosis
A thrombus (plural thrombi), colloquially called a blood clot, is the final product of the blood coagulation step in hemostasis. There are two components to a thrombus: aggregated platelets and red blood cells that form a plug, and a mesh of c ...
in 1958 in Los Angeles. He was the nephew of Rev.
Joseph Strub, founder of
Duquesne University in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
He married Vera Wood (1896–1968) and had five children. His son Robert P. Strub later became chairman of Santa Anita.
In the movie ''
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse ...
'' he is portrayed by
Ed Lauter
Edward Matthew Lauter Jr. ( ;
October 30, 1938 – October 16, 2013) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. He appeared in more than 200 films and TV series episodes in a career that spanned over 40 years.
Early life
Lauter was born and ...
.
References
"Doc's Gold Mine" ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''. January 31, 1949.
Charles H. Strub and the history of the San Francisco Seals at MLB.com's official Minor League Baseball website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strub, Charles
1884 births
1958 deaths
American dentists
Sportspeople from California
Horse racing venue owners
American horse racing industry executives
Minor league baseball executives
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Deaths from cerebral thrombosis
20th-century dentists
St. Ignatius College Preparatory alumni