Lane Field was a

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 t ...

stadium located in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

. The ballpark was home to the

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...

of the Pacific Coast League from 1936 through 1957. The ballpark was located in downtown San Diego, at the end of West Broadway near the waterfront. Broadway bounded the park to the south (first base). Its other two close bounding streets were Harbor Drive (third base) and Pacific Highway (right field). There were various buildings to the north (left field) between the ballpark and Ash Street.

History

Before it was called Lane Field, the stadium began its life as a U.S. Navy athletic field in 1925. Two years later, football bleachers were added. The field also had a track, used for motorcycle and auto races. When Bill "Hardpan" Lane relocated his

Hollywood Stars The Hollywood Stars were a Minor League Baseball team that played in the Pacific Coast League during the early- and mid-20th century. They were the arch-rivals of the other Los Angeles-based PCL team, the Los Angeles Angels. Hollywood Stars (192 ...

from the

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area in 1936, to become the

, he arranged for the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

to rebuild the venue as a baseball park. Although the WPA was known by the derisive nickname "We Putter Around", there was apparently no puttering in this project, as they finished the work in just two months time. It took the name Lane Field. The new construction had a temporary look to it. The park had no roof, no lights, and not even a backstop. Its bleachers sat 8,000. The original entrance, a small Spanish-architecture structure, was retained for the ballpark, behind where the home plate area was established. According to a 2004 '' San Diego Union-Tribune'' article, the original field dimensions were 339 feet to the left field foul pole, 480 to the deepest part of center field, and 355 feet to right, a large rectangle. Along with the other remodeling, the dimensions were eventually reduced to a more normal size: 329 to left, 426 to center, 330 to right. The first Padres game at Lane Field was played on March 31, 1936. The next year, a roof was added over the main part of the seating, and attendance improved. Attendance was boosted by a PCL pennant winning team and the attraction of budding young local star

Ted Williams Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1 ...

. On October 7, 1945, three African-American players from the California Winter League's "Kansas City Royals," one of them named Jackie Robinson, worked out at an empty Lane Field. ''Look'' magazine photographer Maurice Terrell surreptitiously photographed the action from the stands by agreement with Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who was planning to desegregate Major League Baseball and wanted illustrations for a planned exclusive feature article written by

Arthur Mann Arthur Fraser Mann (23 January 1948 – 4 February 1999) was a Scottish professional footballer, who played as a defender. He later moved into management and coaching. Biography Mann was born in Burntisland, Scotland and began his playing ...

. The article and photos would have highlighted Robinson and other stars from the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

, and was meant to accompany Rickey's announcement of signing them to the Dodgers. The article was never published in ''Look'', but a selection of the Lane Field photographs was published in the November 27, 1945 issue of ''Look'' to illustrate the signing of Robinson to the

Montreal Royals The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team in Montreal, Quebec, during 1897–1917 and 1928–1960. A member of the International League, the Royals were the top farm club (Class AAA) of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939; p ...

. The San Diego Padres would win another PCL pennant in 1954 at Lane Field. By then they had begun to look for a new facility. The wooden park, so near the waterfront in a presumably picturesque setting, was also constantly in need of repair and replacement of its boards, which tended to rot quickly in the sea air.

Abandonment

Lane Field was finally abandoned by the Padres following the 1957 PCL season. For 1958, the team shifted to the new Westgate Park, located in San Diego's

Mission Valley Mission Valley is a wide river valley trending east–west in San Diego, California, United States, through which the San Diego River flows to the Pacific Ocean. For planning purposes the city of San Diego divides it into two neighborhoods: Miss ...

area. The site of Lane Field became Cruise Ship Parking, a parking lot between Pacific Highway and Harbor Drive which was used by cruise ship passengers. It is located approximately halfway between the Star of India and USS Midway museum ships. In 2015 it was dedicated as a city park. A plaque, which was placed in 2003 at the corner of Broadway and Pacific Highway to commemorate the ballpark, was moved in 2015 to the corner of Broadway and Harbor Drive.

External links

San Diego Sports History: Stadiums and Ball ParksSanborn map showing Lane Field, 1950Sanborn map showing Lane Field, 1956

References

* {{cite book , last = Swank , first = Bill , author-link = William Swank , title = Baseball in San Diego: From the Padres to Petco (Images of Baseball) , publisher =

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American publisher of neighborhood, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs the History Press, which publ ...

, date = 2004 , isbn = 0-7385-3261-4 Defunct sports venues in California Defunct baseball venues in the United States Sports venues in San Diego Baseball venues in California Works Progress Administration in California