So where is the City of Vernon?

    On January 20, 1909 the four club Pacific Coast League issued two expansion franchises for the coming season. One went to the City of Sacramento, California, the other went to a very small city just south of Los Angeles called Vernon. Tracing the history of the Vernon franchise, it plays in the City of Tacoma, Washington. The City of Vernon remains a sparsely populated industrial city.

    The team played most of its games in the home park of the Los Angeles Angels. A morning game on Sunday would be played at Maier Park in Vernon by the Tigers or the Angels, which ever team played at home that week. In 1913 the team was transferred to the local beach side town of Venice, where its Sunday home games were played for the next 2 1/2 seasons before the team and the ballpark were transferred back to Vernon. Yes, the ballpark was actually dismantled and moved back to Vernon to be rebuilt there.   

   The team played as the Vernon Tigers through the 1925 season, after which it was transferred to San Francisco and became the Mission Bells for two seasons and then the Mission Reds until after the 1937 season when it was transferred back to Los Angeles and became the Hollywood Stars.

    When the Dodgers and Giants moved west; the Angels, the Seals and the Stars all had to find  new homes. The Stars picked the City of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Utah city would enjoy the second of its 4 tours in the league until the team moved out following the 1965 season. If you can follow the bouncing teams. First on October 22, 1965 the Tacoma club returned to Phoenix, Arizona. The City of Tacoma not wanting to sit on the sidelines made their move on November 30, when the Salt Lake City club was moved to Tacoma. The club has remained in the league at Tacoma ever since.

   Todays trivia question is what happened to the franchise that was awarded to the City of Sacramento on this same date? The answer in tomorrows blog about the Mexican Baseball League.

   The answer to yesterdays trivia question is the three members of the Ontario Rugby Football Union for the 1954 season were the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, the Sarnia Imperials and the Toronto Balmy Beach.