Kendall Field at Torrance Park. (Jan. 2016 Daily Breeze photo)
Semipro baseball once thrived in Torrance, back in the days when large manufacturing plants such as Union Tool and Columbia Steel employed thousands of workers, and baseball became a prime form of recreation and entertainment for the factory hands.
The city even had its own semipro team, the Torrance Bluebirds, an all-star group featuring the area’s best players that won a state title in 1933 under manager Spud Murphy.
The city’s only full-size baseball field was at Torrance Municipal Park, also known as Torrance City Park. Work began on the park in 1932, and its dedication was held on Aug. 26, 1934. Torrance Park, as it is now known, was the city’s first public park.
There were plenty of players and teams using Torrance Park’s baseball field in the 1930s, despite its lack of amenities such as bleachers and lights for night games.
The sport’s popularity led to the city eventually agreeing to upgrade the facility.
In 1938, with help from the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration, a complete baseball field was built at Torrance Park, including wooden bleachers, a backstop, new wooden outfield fences and all the trimmings. It was called the Torrance Municipal Baseball Park, and, after night lighting was added in the spring of 1939, the city began to enjoy a golden age of semipro baseball.
The field became the site for state tournaments and playoffs that drew large crowds. The Torrance Tournament, started in 1939 by Dale Riley, became a much-anticipated annual event.
Before photos on left, after photos on right. Torrance Herald, April 15, 1954, Page 6. (Credit: Torrance Newspaper Archives database, Torrance Public Library)
By the early 1950s, however, the WPA-built ball field had become shabby and worn-down. The wooden fences had more holes than fencing, and the dilapidated wooden backstop was considered a danger to users.
The city considered a variety of options, including tearing down the baseball field and replacing it with a picnic area and recreation building. A new field would be built on the site of the city dump on Plaza del Amo near Western Avenue. (That site would later become the home of the Central Torrance Little League fields, which were rebuilt in 1997 into a state-of-the-art youth baseball facility.)
This plan was rejected when it was decided that the landfill site on the city’s eastern border wasn’t a central enough location.
The city also considered building a new baseball field at the proposed “Central Park” that would be part of Torrance’s planned civic center at Torrance Boulevard and Madrona Avenue. The civic center got built, but the park never did.
In August 1953, Torrance City Councilman Nick Drale got a resolution passed supporting bringing major league baseball to the West Coast, five years before the Dodgers and the Giants became the first MLB franchises out West. In a bit of wishful thinking, Drale’s resolution also suggested that Torrance Park’s increasingly deteriorating baseball park be used for spring training.
Sadly, at about the same time in August 1953, the park’s backstop had to be torn down because of dry rot and corrosion, leaving the city essentially without a baseball diamond. The Torrance High Tartars baseball team also was left without a home field, and had to play most of its 1954 season on the road, including “home” games at Paramount High School’s field, the only one in the area available to them.
Fortunately, the ball park found a champion in Parks and Recreation Director Harry Van Bellehem. He convinced the city to revive the facility, and his department began working to rebuild it in 1954. A new backstop was installed in the spring of 1954, along with new bleachers and chain link fencing to replace the old wooden fence.
The games resumed, much to the relief of the city’s baseball fans, and the Torrance Bluebirds semipro team even was revived during the mid-1950s.
With improvements over the years including a 30-foot-high fence, more modern lighting and the addition of grass to the infield, Torrance Park’s baseball field has been made to last.
Baseball cards of father Fred Kendall, left, and his son, Jason, right.
Jason Kendall was among the Torrance High Tartar baseball players who excelled on the field, where the nearby high school still plays its games.
In 1992, Kendall, then a senior, was named the Daily Breeze prep baseball Player of the Year for his exploits. He went on to a stellar pro career, becoming an all-star catcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and played for several other teams as well.
His father, Fred Kendall, also played for the Tartars, graduating in 1967. He went on to play catcher for 12 years with the San Diego Padres, Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox.
In 1997, Torrance High teacher and coach Harold Warfle, who coached both Kendalls, suggested that the city rename the Torrance baseball park as Kendall Field, in honor of the father-and-son duo who he called “the best that ever came down the pike.”
On Sept. 28, 1999, the Torrance City Council voted in favor of the renaming, and Kendall Field was dedicated at a ceremony held with both men present on Jan. 20, 2001.
Centerfield scoreboard at Kendall Field in Torrance Park. (Jan. 2016 Daily Breeze photo)
Sources:
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Times files.
Torrance Herald files.
Jason Kendall of the Pittsburgh Pirates walks to the plate during the game against the San Diego Padres at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California. April 29, 2001. File photo. (Getty Images/Todd Warshaw /Allsport)
