Western Dream

In baseball parks from Seattle to San Diego, the turnstiles were spinning. With 34% more population to draw on than before the war, attendance in the bustling Pacific Coast League was running well ahead of last year (1946's record total: 3,718,716). But was this proof that the P.C.L. had outgrown its minor-league uniforms? All sport attendance figures were in the clouds--and there was no denying that it took a pretty big customer to fill a major-league suit.

Even so, West Coast baseball men insisted, they were sick & tired of serving as blood donors to the big leagues. As fast as the P.C.L. produced its DiMaggios and Williamses, the majors got them. At least, something could be done about that, couldn't it?

To the men who run the tightly knit U.S. baseball empire, such squawks and promotions by the Pacific powers are old stuff. Yet last week, to the amazement of many, the lords & masters made a pacifying pilgrimage. Commissioner Albert ("Happy") Chandler himself led the westward junket; he was accompanied by Presidents Will Harridge and Ford Frick of the American and National Leagues. At Los Angeles the battle was joined. Loudly led by dapper President Clarence ("Pants")

Rowland, an ex-bartender and ex-umpire, the PCLers renewed their lobbying for promotion to major status.

Draft Dodgers. In the diamond hierarchy, the P.C.L. has an unusual status. The 16 major-league clubs own or control 70% of the nation's 326 clubs in organized baseball. But the AAA coast league is 87 1/2% independent (the one exception is Phil Wrigley's Los Angeles Angels). Still, the majors have kept a tight hold on the P.C.L. through the draft law, which forces the clubs to sell their stars or risk having them drafted at season's end for a niggling $10,000.

To Pants Rowland, the best way to get out from under the hated draft would be to make the P.C.L. a third big league. The obvious argument: such cities as Sacramento, San Diego and Portland do not have the finances, the population or the parks to make the grade. (West Coasters point out that the St. Louis Browns have played to crowds as small as 478.) Last week Babe Ruth dropped into Los Angeles, threw more cold water on the western dream: "There aren't even enough top baseball players for two major leagues."

Mail Service. A short cut--which makes the P.C.L. shiver--is the possibility of moving one or more big-league franchises into Los Angeles or San Francisco, or both. Air travel would certainly enable Eastern teams to keep up with their schedules.

Leonard Roach, a Los Angeles County supervisor, has been touting his county's vast (105,000-seat) Coliseum as a big-league park. But he has neglected to point out that the right-field seats would be only 290 feet away from the plate, and balls hit to left field would have to be mailed in. Also, parking space is precious, some lots charging up to $5 a car. And concessions in the Coliseum, without which no club could exist, are already leased.

On the other hand, the San Francisco

Seals' fancy, 32,000-seat park could easily be double-decked if the crowds should warrant it. Polling scores of fans, Sports Editor Curley Grieve of Hearst's Examiner found them all for big-league ball. Preferably, they would like to see the Seals competing with the Yankees or Dodgers ; a West Coast third major league was strictly second choice.

At Hollywood's Brown Derby the Chandler mission was wined, dined and propagandized by glib Proprietor Bob Cobb, head man of the Hollywood Stars and an eloquent antidraft orator. Before heading up the Coast, Happy Chandler did some talking of his own. "You haven't had major-league baseball out here," he drawled in parting. "Don't be impatient if it takes a few more years."

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