A few weeks back, when I was sitting in my apartment, I decided to take a trip down memory lane to the year 2007. I opened up a folder on my computer that had pictures of me on my first ever Baseball Road Trip. The concept was so new to me, and a trip to Everett and Seattle, WA seem like ages ago. When I looked back on that fresh face of A.J. riding the train up for the first time, taking public transportation in an unfamiliar city, and exploring new ballparks and communities, I smile in knowing that I have come so far since then. In 2007, what was new, has now become an incredible journey that has taken me to nearly every corner of the United States, to ballparks so incredible that they should be termed as "Temples", and to cities near and far that have left indelible positive marks on me. Back then, I was just a boy seeking a new hobby. Now, I'm a man who is defined by these experiences. I am forever grateful for the opportunities that Baseball Road Trips have given me, and I am eager to face the future of my hobby.
When I started out, I was so focused on the baseball games themselves. I'd go to a city, try and see as much baseball as I could, and come home. When I look back on some of my trips, I do kick myself for not taking the time to really stop and "smell the roses", so to speak, with what I was experiencing. However, for those who have followed my travels, I've morphed the Baseball Road Trips into something more. While the game itself is the paramount attraction for any trip, I've begun to focus on those other experiences. What makes the cities I'm in so great? What are their histories? What sort of tradition and heritages can I explore? What is the cultural scene? Where are the good restaurants and breweries/wineries? In taking this new approach these past few years, I've become more appreciative of the hobby and really gotten outside of the ballparks to see what makes a "Community Experience."
Last October, I moved here to Southern California for a new job, and my hobby has now become as much a part of me as any body part or article of clothing. I've done nearly every baseball experience here in Southern California, and have even branched off to Road Trips to Central California, Mexico, and Arizona. It seems that every free weekend I have had has had some sort of Baseball Road Trip attached to it. I am always going somewhere and doing something, and I have throughly enjoyed every minute of it.
A few months ago, I was enjoying a quiet afternoon with some relatives who live near me. I have really gotten to know them these past few months, and I have very much enjoyed their company. They're relatives on my father's side, and I have always been happy to be around them. While eating a nice lunch, we began talking about activities in Southern California. Of course we touched on the beach, and LA, and Palm Springs. But, in the course of our conversation, Catalina Island came up. My relatives said that I could get a free trip to the island on my birthday and that I should check it out.
I had only a few fleeting ideas of what Catalina was or about. I knew that it was an Island, first off. Second, I knew that it was kind of a "playground" for the rich and famous. Third, I knew that it had some great beaches. I figured that a free trip to a posh resort-style island to lay on the beach for the day couldn't be that bad. I mean, this is Southern California, and all, and that type of activity is always encouraged!
After going online and making my ferry reservations, I decided to look more into the island of Catalina just to get a glimpse of what I might expect. My natural curiosity piqued when I heard about this place, so I spent an innocent hour online looking at the Wikipedia entry and some TripAdvisor reviews of my upcoming trip. What I found just scratched the surface of a place shrouded in intriguing fascination and compelling stories. When I dug even further I discovered a place with a story that has affected the game of baseball in a way that isn't fully appreciated by us fans. More importantly, I started to piece together an investigation of an integral part of American history that has seeped into so much of what we experience today.
After a short time on the computer and at the library, I came to find that the Chicago Cubs had their Spring Training facility on the island for nearly thirty years. It was a publicity stunt to bring attraction to the island by the owner of Catalina, and subsequent owner of the Cubs, William Wrigley. When brought together, the baseball ushered in a new age for a small island off the coast of Southern California and was the start of a Golden Age for Wrigley, Catalina, and California, as a whole. After that short bit of information, my ambitious curiosity had to uncover the stories behind this little-known tale of baseball lore. I wanted to use my day on the island to track down the stories of that bygone era and transcribe them for posterity. It was an adventure that, for me, was too juicy to pass up for a simple day of lounging on a beach.
What follows here is a narrative of my Catalina Quest. Outside of the beaches, resorts, and fancy restaurants is a story of an iconic baseball franchise that may be the most notable professional sports team in the history of American athletics. It centers around one man's vision of an island paradise. Branching off, the playground for America's rich-and-famous became a convenient place for those same few to engage in lewd, deceptive, and, often times, illegal acts. It became a hub for celebrity scandal, up to and including, murder. Yet, amongst all of this, the game of baseball lives on through memories and stories through a select few. Their insights and appreciation of the heritage is one-of-a-kind that makes this story even more thrilling.
If I was going to embark on this adventure, I needed to do some research about the island and what I might expect from my day there. I began a search online of any information, hit up the local library, and spoke with people who had visited there in the past.
The Channel Islands are an archipelago that runs parallel to the coast of Southern California roughly from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego. Santa Catalina Island, while not the largest island in the chain, is the only island with a resident population and incorporated city. When compared to other islands, Catalina is about three times the size of Manhattan and slightly smaller than Martha's Vineyard. The barbell-shaped island lies 23-miles off the coast of Long Beach, and is a part of Los Angeles County.
Catalina's largest city, Avalon, holds a stable population of about 3,500, with numbers swelling during the major tourist season. It is located on the northeastern section of the island and sports a natural harbor that attract thousands of recreational boaters every year. In addition, it is a regular port-of-call for cruises that leave the Long Beach terminal before embarking on to Baja or the Caribbean. Only occupying around a square mile surrounded by towering hills on three sides, Avalon is easily walkable or bikeable. There are relatively few cars as most traffic is bikes and/or golf carts. The majority of properties in the city are high-priced vacation rentals, but up on the surrounding hillsides are palatial mansions that hark back to Catalina's past of glitz and glamour. Surprisingly, for being so isolated, Avalon has all the modern conveniences that one would expect in a resort town. Posh, but small, hotels and fancy restaurants line the main boardwalk along the harbor front. Supermarkets and pharmacies thrive next to scuba shops and seafood restaurants. With the hustle and bustle of the traffic from golf carts and the narrow streets, Avalon exhibits a certain charm that makes you instantly fall in love with it. It was in Avalon that my Quest was to be centered on.
There is also a smaller village, Two Harbors, which is located on a narrow isthmus of land the separated the upper- and lower-sections of the island. This village has a population of around 300 and is more "out-of-the-way" of the tourist trade, thus supporting a more authentic setting for Catalina.
Between the obvious population centers, Catalina sports an amazing wilderness interior. Relatively untouched by modern-day vices, the Catalina interior is extensively rugged and remote. Various hiking trails and mountain biking tracks crisscross the interior, and safari trips to seek out the unique flora and fauna of the interior are extremely popular. The highlight of the interior, arguably, is the herd of semi-wild American Buffalo that roam the islands treeless, grass slopes. Brought over for the filming of a Western, the buffalo were left behind and have now evolved into a unique subspecies that is thriving.
With the incredible lands outside of the cities abounding in beauty, the oceans surrounding Catalina are some of the most biologically-diverse in the United States. Crystal clear waters that beg snorkeling and scuba diving and exploration play host to some of the most fertile kelp forests that allow marine life to thrive. The rich waters host hundreds of species of fish.
Obviously Catalina has an incredible array of geography and adventures that can occupy an ambitious traveler for weeks. While I only had one day, I knew that I wanted to explore the interior and within Avalon. Lately, I had become quite the avid urban cyclist, and my initial thought was to ride in the interior of the island to search for this elusive and fascinating buffalo herd. I bought a separate ticket for my bike on the ferry, but I immediately ran into an unforeseen issue. The interior of the island is wholly owned by a private, non-profit organization called the Catalina Conservancy. All access to the interior is by permit-only, and all trips by vehicle are strictly regulated and licensed. A permit, simply to enter the interior on bicycle was $35/day. In addition, the Conservancy requires that they take you, and your bike, up into the interior on their own van, thus costing extra money. Finally, the Conservancy would inspect your bike top-to-bottom to ensure that it had all the proper mechanical elements with which to make the trip on the sometime rugged and rough interior roads. Knobby and mountain biking tires and disc brakes were required, of which my bike has neither. I was disappointed at first, but I quickly found out that while I may not have had my ideal bike adventure, my two-wheels was an efficient mover and came in very handy on my Quest around the island.
While the Conservancy sounds rather draconian, I can understand the stringent guidelines they enact and enforce. The organization was formed, in part, to preserve that natural beauty of the island. After reading about what the island's interior has to offer and the beauty of it, I felt a sense of protection and amazement. Living in Southern California, where the ideology is sprawl and human development, a piece of untouched natural settings is idealistic. Still, I wasn't willing to pay the money for a permit, and I didn't want to just go to the beach and do nothing. So, I dove a little further into the Catalina lexicon and began to see the amazing opportunity to incorporate what my passion into this trip.
In one of the articles I was reading about Catalina, it caught my eye that the Chicago Cubs baseball club had their Spring Training on the island. My first reaction was one of puzzlement. What on earth did a team from Chicago have to do with this island? Furthermore, as I continued to think about it, I became intrigued about the subject. In all of this paradise-like beauty, there was a Major League Baseball team training for the season? Now I was hooked on this. I kept searching online and through archives, but I couldn't find much of anything worthy of substance to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to find out more about this piece of Catalina Island legend. Sure, biking around a wilderness in search of buffalo would have been neat, but this was a different rush. What had started as a neat little day trip had now become a full-fledged Baseball Road Trip.
As the days counted down to my departure for the island, I narrowed my focus down to a number of questions I wanted to seek the answers to. First, what was the story of the Cubs on Catalina? Second, what, if anything, was left from their time on the island? Third, how did their time on the island shape the history and culture of the island? Fourth, are there any people still on the island who I can listen to and transcribe their stories so that others, who may share my affinity for these baseball stories, can relive them? Finally, what was it like to be a Major League Baseball player on this island?
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