This is either the most dreaded or most welcome call an Umpire can make, depending on whether your team is up to bat, or if it is the visiting team.
  How did Base Ball begin in San Diego? It actually was two words until 1942 when the 'Official Baseball Guide' changed the spelling. It is interesting to note that at various times Hall of Famers' Rube Waddell, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Satchel Paige all played for San Diego teams before 1936. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Casey Stengel barnstormed in San Diego. What started as sandlot games soon changed in character as Professional Baseball captured the imagination and support of fans.  Early promoters are given the credit for the early success of the game, but profit was always the real motive for their efforts.
  Early in 1887 George Wright brought his Philadelphia Phillies to play San Diego at Driving Park. This was the very first professional baseball game in San Diego. Prior to this, sporting news covered horse races, billiards, bowling, or an occasional rifle or pistol match.  On September 7^th, 1870 the question appeared in the San Diego Union Newspaper "Base Ball -- is there such an institution as a base ball club in San Diego?" It wasn't until a year later in May of 1871 that a local merchant named Daniel Ullman began efforts to organize a club. Eighteen eager males met near the newly constructed Horton House Hotel and the U.S. Grant Hotel. Thus began the fever that still arrives with every opening pitch every Spring.
  Records state that games of baseball had been played in California since 1849 when it was introduced by Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. in the gold fields around San Francisco. (History tells us baseball was invented in Cooperstown, where the current Hall of Fame is located.)
  The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 the same year the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball team. Their year long tour resulted in 57 victories, an undefeated season. It would be two more years before the first baseball game would be played in San Diego. Mr. Ullman organized his team and Old Town challenged them Extempore (meaning unprepared) lost 48 to 35. There was a 4^th of July rematch, and spectators were invited to sail aboard the "Vaquero" to watch the game.
  Scores first began appearing in the San Diego Union on July 6^th 1872. The name of the Old Town team became the "Desperates" (without hope). The score this time was 51 to 8, the Old Town team losing again. All you needed in the 1870's to play our National pastime was a ball, a bat, good sportsmanship and hopefully a sense of humor. Old Town finished the first season in last place.  Some of the team's names from the San Diego area were: New Town Lone Star, Young America BBC, the Young Eagle Cub, Coronada and the Loma.
  Sports news was printed in the back of the paper beside snake oil advertisements, ship movements, hotel ads, real estate speculations, agriculture reports, crime, church

business, gossip and how the "honey" market was holding. Some of the churches objected to games being played on Sunday, and since sermons were printed on the front page of the paper, this became an issue.
George Marston moved into San Diego in 1870, got a job as a clerk at the Horton House, began to play ball, and helped establish the well dressed, well manner Bay City Base Ball Club. He left the team in the 1880's because of the games being played on the Sabbath.
  Much has been written over the past decades of the players, the scores their lives, their attitudes, the push for bigger and better stadiums, the ever increasing salaries, and the place the game has permanently occupied in our summers. Team names have changed, owners have invested fortunes, fans are sometimes fickle, but the love affair with baseball continues as we approach another season, waiting for the opening pitch.
  So, "Take me out to the ball game . . .  and root, root for the home team."  Go Padres!
  Many thanks to Bill Swank and his book: "Baseball in San Diego;" the San Diego Historical Society; and many Little Leaguers.