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The man in the white cap is Harry Hooper, who played for the White Sox and was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame."]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243694"},["text","Source of information: Articles on this Website, see links below."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243695"},["text","Soquel"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"46"},["name","Relation"],["description","A related resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243696"},["text","Heroes and Villains"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243697"},["text","Hometown Hardball"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"47"},["name","Rights"],["description","Information about rights held in and over the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243700"},["text","This photograph is the property of the Museum of Art and History, at the McPherson Center."]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243701"},["text","Restrictions on Use"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243702"},["text","Baseball"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243703"},["text","Soquel Giants"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243704"},["text","Hooper, Harry"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243707"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"42"},["name","Format"],["description","The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243708"},["text","Image"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"44"},["name","Language"],["description","A language of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243709"},["text","En"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"51"},["name","Type"],["description","The nature or genre of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"243710"},["text","PHOTO"]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"5"},["name","Recreation and Sports"]]]],["item",{"itemId":"134399","public":"1","featured":"1"},["fileContainer",["file",{"fileId":"20836"},["src","https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/5001ccdbdd38488a7f921df49ebf113c.pdf"],["authentication","6bd5ccf5df3091446f0ac7c7961e3698"],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"7"},["name","PDF Text"],["description"],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"94"},["name","Text"],["description"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1899617"},["text","Heroes and Villains: Santa Cruz County Produced\nBaseball Stars and Baseball Scandals\nBy Jim Johnson\n\nOne died a well-respected Hall of Famer. The other died alone and full of regret. Both were major league baseball stars.\nBoth called Santa Cruz County home.\nHarry Hooper and Hal Chase played America's game during a time the sport endured great change and turmoil, and both\nplayed with and against some of the greatest stars of the time. Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Tris Speaker, Christy\nMathewson, Walter Johnson, and Babe Ruth were the stars of the era.\n\nHarry Hooper\nHooper was born in the Santa Clara Valley in 1887, the son of a farmer. His first real contact with baseball as a child\ncame on a summer trip with his mother to her home state of Pennsylvania. There, playing all summer with his cousins\nand their friends, Harry discovered baseball. It was there that his Uncle Mack Zindel took him to his first professional\nbaseball game and gave him his first bat, ball and well-worn fielder's glove.\nHooper's interest in the game continued when he attended the high school attached to St. Mary's College in Oakland.\nThough he was a bright student and serious about his studies, Hooper said later he was most thrilled about attending St.\nMary's \"not because I was particularly interested in getting an education, but because I knew I'd have a chance to play\nbaseball.\"\nHooper went on to earn his baccalaureate degree and the attention of professional baseball scouts with his stellar play\non the college's baseball team, the Phoenix.\nMeanwhile, Hooper's parents had retired from their farm, leaving it to Harry's brothers, and moved to Capitola. It was\nwhile visiting his parents that Hooper played with the Soquel Giants on weekends.\nAfter graduating from St. Marys in 1907, Hooper signed on with the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League.\nPart of his first contract included a job as a surveyor for a railroad company.\nIt was in Sacramento where Hooper's talents on the ball field came to the attention of Boston Red Sox owner John\nTaylor. After seeing Hooper play, Taylor offered the young surveyor-baseball player a contract for $2,800 to play for the\nRed Sox.\nHooper began his major league career in 1909. Early in his career, Hooper began to keep a diary of life on the road in pro\nbaseball.\n\n1\n\n�Left Capitola on the 11:20 a.m. train,\" read the entry for February 27, 1909, as Hooper headed for his first spring training\nwith the Red Sox. \"President Taft sees game,\" Hooper wrote for April 19. \"Got hit off Johnson which scored the winning\nrun,\" Hooper wrote on June 28, recording a game-winning hit against future Hall of Famer Walter \"Big Train\" Johnson.\nIn Boston, Hooper played in the only all-Hall of Fame outfield in major league history. With the great center fielder Tris\nSpeaker and left fielder Duffy Lewis, Hooper became one of the games' brightest stars. Hooper was noted for his brilliant\ndefense and leadership abilities on a Boston squad that won four American League pennants and three World\nChampionships.\nHooper would often visit his parents in Capitola and played\nbaseball with the Soquel Giants during his visits.\nDuring his glory days with the Red Sox, Hooper had a young\nteammate named George Herman Ruth, a talented lefthanded pitcher. It was Hooper who cajoled Boston manager\nEd Barrow into making Ruth an outfielder so Ruth could\nbetter use his prodigious batting ability.\nIn 1920, Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees where he\nbecame known as the \"Babe\" and developed into the\ngame's greatest star of the time.\nIt was also in 1920 when Hooper was traded to the Chicago The Soquel Giants. Hooper is the man in the photo wearing a white hat.\nWhite Sox, whose owner Charles Comiskey was looking for\nplayers with squeaky clean images after the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Eight players on Comiskey's White Sox team were\naccused of throwing the World Series in exchange for cash and were banished from baseball for life, ending the sport's\nbrief brush with innocence.\nAfter five seasons with the White Sox, Hooper retired from major league baseball. In retirement, Hooper came back to\nCapitola and continued playing baseball into his 40s. Hooper also served as Capitola's postmaster for 25 years.\nIn 1971, at the age of 84, Hooper was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. Three years later, he died.\n\nPrince Hal\nAnother major leaguer had preceded Hooper from the Soquel Giants to the major leagues. And, though he was every bit\nas talented, things didn't work out nearly as well for him.\nHal Chase, who was born in 1883 and grew up on his father's sawmill in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Soquel, played\nhis first professional baseball with the Giants and other teams all over the Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Valley area.\nAfter a few seasons in the minor leagues, Chase was signed by the New York Yankees. A marvelous fielder, who set the\nstandard for decades after him, and a solid hitter, Chase became one of the game's most popular stars and was dubbed\n\"Prince Hal.\"\nBut Chase also became one of the game's biggest headaches. He had a reputation for chafing under the authority of\nbaseball's owners and managers. Occasionally, during contract disputes or personal squabbles, Chase would bolt from\nthe Yankees and play parts of seasons with California League teams.\nChase also acquired a reputation for consorting with gamblers, who were as much baseball as peanuts and cracker-jack\nduring the early part of the century. He was accused by three different managers of throwing games and intentionally\nmaking errors for money. Fans took to shouting, \"What's the odds\" when Chase took the field.\n2\n\n�Eventually, Chase's antics got him suspended, then tossed out of major league baseball. Chase was finally blackballed for\nlife after being accused of helping fix the infamous 1919 World Series. Chase allegedly served as liaison between former\nmajor league pitcher Bill Burns and New York gambling giant Abe Rothstein, who set up the swindle, then cashed in on it\nby betting against the White Sox.\nBanished from baseball, Chase began traveling through California, Arizona and Mexico, playing for local teams anywhere\nhe could. An alcoholic, Chase contracted beriberi and died in 1947 at the age of 64.\nAlone and forlorn on his deathbed, Chase admitted knowing about the 1919 Black Sox scandal in advance but denied\nmaking any money on it. Chase expressed regret at the way his career turned out.\n\"You will note that I am not in the Hall of Fame,\" Chase reportedly said. \"I am an outcast and I haven't a good name. I'm\nthe loser, just like all gamblers are. ... I'd give anything to start over.\"\n\nSources\n\n\nThis article was published in The Mid-County Post, March 4-17, 1997. Text Copyright 1997 The Mid-County\nPost. Reproduced by permission of the author and the Mid-County Post. Photograph copyright The McPherson\nCenter. Photograph courtesy of the Paul Johnson Collection. Museum of Art and History at The McPherson\nCenter, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz, California 95060 (mah@cruzio.com).\n\nThe content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history\ninformation. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a\nvariety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,\nplease contact the Webmaster.\n\n3\n\n�"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"8"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.\r\n"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264220"},["text","It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264216"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries\r\n"]]]]]]]],["itemType",{"itemTypeId":"1"},["name","Document"],["description","A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"7"},["name","Original Format"],["description","If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1892212"},["text","Paper"]]]]]],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Reproduced by permission of the author and the Mid-County Post. Photograph copyright The McPherson Center. Photograph courtesy of the Paul Johnson Collection. Museum of Art and History History."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893034"},["text","Baseball"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893035"},["text","Hooper, Harry"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893036"},["text","Chase, Hal"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893037"},["text","Santa Cruz (County)"]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"39"},["name","Biography"]],["tag",{"tagId":"5"},["name","Recreation and Sports"]]]],["item",{"itemId":"134400","public":"1","featured":"1"},["fileContainer",["file",{"fileId":"20837"},["src","https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/11dad5d9b957f0dd741c516cd9cc1587.pdf"],["authentication","f24bb7e24df502cb8ceefc2365f6566d"],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"7"},["name","PDF Text"],["description"],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"94"},["name","Text"],["description"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1899618"},["text","Field of Dreams:\nSanta Cruz County's Love Affair with Baseball\nBy Geoffrey Dunn\n\n1930 was a big year for professional baseball in Santa Cruz. Trying to spur the local economy in the midst of the Great\nDepression, Mayor Fred Swanton put together a financial package that placed the Santa Cruz Padres in the California\nState League. Featuring a host of former professional ball players, including future Hall of Famer Harry Hooper and\nformer New York Yankee star Ping Bodie, the Padres were one of the most formidable teams ever to take the field in Cal\nLeague history, and they won the league's mid-season pennant their first year of play.\nManaged by San Franciscan Gene Valla, the Padres hosted their games at a stadium near Bay Street, at the corner of\nGharkey and Laguna.\n\"We lived right across the street from the ball park,\" recalls Angie Giannini, whose family allowed Valla to store the\nteam's uniforms and equipment in their garage. \"Big crowds would come to the games every Sunday—more than a\nthousand people. There really wasn't much else to do here back then.\"\nAfter the games, the players would mingle with their admiring fans, many of whom would invite them to picnics and\ndinners. Giannini remembers that she and her young girl friends would wear their Sunday best to the games.\n\"Oh, we really dressed to kill,\" she says with a chuckle. \"We were in love with all the ball players. They were so\nhandsome in their uniforms.\"\nApparently more than a little romance mixed in with the national pastime. In a letter written on Palomar Hotel\nstationery to a local woman named \"Helen\" in the spring of 1930, an out-of-town ballplayer named \"Bill\" professed his\nlove while lamenting the tribulations of his profession. (The spelling and punctuation are left intact.)\n\"Gee, kid, I am home again milking cows as before, it looks as if I better get in some other kind of line other than\nbaseball as I have been a perfect failure... I was suppose to go to Texas and play ball, and just got notice that the league\nbrok up before it got started, it seems as all my luck is bad luck. My only good luck in baseball is when I met you... No\nkidding, if you can find anything for me to do in dear old Santa Cruz—just let me know and I will be down on the first\ntrain. That sounds as I am pretty hard up doesn't it? Well! I tell you, I want to get away from home for awhile and I might\nbe able to get serious... Well, before I sign off I want to give you a hint, 'the next time I am in Santa Cruz and just for one\nnight I hope I will have the pleasure of seeing you alone, and not with a crowd,' I sure wanted to see you alone that\nevening I was there,... I guess you ask why?, but I cant explain in this letter.\nAs Ever,\nYour Sweet William\"\n\n1\n\n�Padre fans were also treated to some decent swings on the playing field. The team's biggest attraction, both literally and\nfiguratively, was Ping Bodie. Born Francisco Stefano Pezzolo in San Francisco's Little Italy, Bodie became the first Italian\nto play in the Major Leagues when he signed with the Chicago White Sox in 1911. (He had changed his name earlier in\nhis career to hide his ancestry.) Short and stocky, and with a legendary appetite for pasta and red wine, he was one of\nprofessional baseball's most colorful characters for more than 20 years and its first great power hitter. He was also a\nregular character in the fictional sports stories of Ring Lardner, who often poked fun at his girth and eating habits.\nBy the time he reached Santa Cruz, Bodie was in the twilight of his career and more than a little out of shape, but he still\nhad plenty of punch in his bat. In a game against San Francisco in the Padre's first season here, the \"Cow Hollow Kid\" hit\na home run that, according to local sports scribe C. B. Bradley, was \"headed in the vicinity of Neary's Lagoon.\"\n\"Bodie is the most popular player who ever climbed into a monkey suit,\" Bradley added. \"He likes to exchange\ncourtesies with the fans and is just the kind of player who can take the razz with a smile... the locals eat the big Pezzolo\nup.\"\nSanta Cruz County's love affair with baseball began in the late nineteenth century, when teams representing\nmunicipalities were springing up across the country. Just about every hole-in-the-wall community had a baseball team,\nand Santa Cruz County was no exception. Watsonville, Aptos, Soquel, Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek and Santa Cruz\nall sported semi-pro squads during this era. According to Leon Rowland's Annals of Santa Cruz, a team calling itself the\nElectrics played at the end of William Ely's trolley line on West Cliff Drive in 1894.\nThe first Santa Cruz County player to make it to the big leagues was Jim Roxburgh, a native of San Francisco who grew up\nin Santa Cruz and played on local teams. Roxburgh was a catcher in the 1880s for the Philadelphia and Baltimore teams\nof the American Association (precursor to the American League) and was a teammate of the young John McGraw, who\nwent on to become the legendary manager of the New York Giants.\nBy the late 1890s, Santa Cruz had a professional team of its own, the Santa Cruz Beachcombers (later to become the\nSand Crabs) of the Pacific States League, the highest level of organized baseball during that era on the West Coast. Like\nmost other American institutions of the time, professional baseball was racially segregated, and the lone African\nAmerican associated with the Santa Cruz team was mascot Edward Purse.\n\"Eddie turned out to be a pretty good ball player himself,\" the late Malio Stagnaro recalled in a 1984 interview. \"It broke\nhis heart that he couldn't play for the team.\"\nThe Beachcombers, who held their games in a ball park behind the Leibbrandt bath houses in Beach Flats, were led by\nbrothers Ed and Charley Daubenbiss, of the pioneer Soquel family, and Bill \"Red Dog\" Devereaux of Oakland. Following a\nSanta Cruz win over San Francisco in which Ed Daubenbiss pitched his team to victory, a local poet found cause to write:\nWho killed the Bushnells?\nWe—the Beachcombers,\nThree baggers and homers\nWe killed the Bushnells!\nWho was our hero?\nWhy Edward, God bless him,\nGirls, kiss and carress him!\nEd was our hero!\nTwo other players from the Beachcombers, Mike Donlin and Frank Arellanes, found their way to the major leagues.\nWhile Donlin saw action in only a handful of games with St. Louis and Cincinnati, Santa Cruz native Arellanes, an\ninfielder-turned-pitcher whose brothers Abe and Tom also played on the Beachcombers, had his contract purchased by\nthe Boston Red Sox in 1908. He soon became one of the American League's first effective relief pitchers, and in 1909 he\n2\n\n�led the league in saves and relief victories, and won 17 games overall. In spite of posting excellent statistics in his first\nthree seasons, he was released by Boston in August of 1910 and returned to the Pacific Coast League, where he would\npitch for Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Denver and Vernon until his unexpected death in 1918.\nIn 1909, Arellanes was joined on the Red Sox by another young alumnus of the local sandlots, Harry Bartholomew\nHooper. Born near Hollister in 1887, Hooper and his family moved to Capitola in the early 1900s. After receiving an\nengineering degree from St. Mary's College, Hooper played baseball on weekends for teams in Soquel and Alameda\nbefore being called up by the Red Sox.\nFor the next 17 seasons, Hooper was one of the game's biggest stars, and was regularly among the American League\nleaders in triples, stolen bases, and assists for outfielders. He was widely respected as the field leader on the Red Sox\nteam that won four pennants and three World Championships during a six-year span, the final one coming in 1918—\nBoston's last World Series triumph.\nHooper had a special teammate on those championship teams, a flashy left-handed pitcher named George Herman\nRuth, later to be known throughout the land simply as \"Babe.\" Ruth was one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball,\nbut Hooper recognized Ruth's potential as a batsmen and convinced Red Sox manager Ed Barrow to turn him into an\neveryday player. In 1920, Ruth was sold to the Yankees for $100,000 and went on to become an American icon.\nHooper finished out his career in the 1920s with the Chicago White Sox, whose image had been badly tarnished by the\n1919 World Series betting scandal (most recently depicted in John Sayles' film Eight Men Out.) White Sox owner Charles\nComiskey sought out Hooper because of his sterling reputation, and Hooper responded with a trio of .300 seasons,\nincluding an average of .328 in 1924 at the age of 37. By the time he retired in 1925, he held 19 major league records\nand still holds the all-time American League marks for assists and double plays by a rightfielder.\nFollowing his big league career, Hooper eventually returned to Capitola where he served as the city's postmaster for 25\nyears and continued to play local baseball well into his forties. In 1971 he was named to Baseball's Hall of Fame, where\nhe joined his old Red Sox teammates Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis on the walls of Cooperstown—the only Hall of Fame\noutfield in baseball history. He died in 1974.\nIf Hooper was the Golden Boy of local baseball, Hal Chase was its perennial Bad Boy. Raised in the Santa Cruz mountains\nabove Soquel, where his father ran a sawmill, Chase played his first organized baseball for the semi-pro Soquel Giants, a\nrough-and-tumble team composed primarily of young loggers and ranch hands. After a season at the University of Santa\nClara, Chase embarked on a professional career that eventually took him to the big show with the New York Yankees in\n1905.\nMost baseball historians regard \"Prince Hal\" as the finest fielding first baseman of his era, as well as one of its more\nprolific hitters. (Babe Ruth named him ahead of Lou Gherig on his all-time team.) But he was also an incorrigible drinker\nand gambler whose off-the-field antics and suspicious on-the-field miscues eventually got him expelled from the game.\nIt was Chase who served as the liaison between former big league pitcher \"Wild\" Bill Burns and New York gambler Abe\nRothstein, the primary conspirators in the 1919 Black Sox betting scandal.\nKnowing no other trade than baseball, the banished Chase took to playing in the \"outlaw\" leagues of California, Arizona,\nand Mexico, where he became a hero in the small, working-class towns of the region. A wandering alcoholic, he\ncontracted beriberi and died in Colusa, California, in 1947.\n\"I'd do anything if I could start all over again,\" he said on his death bed. \"What a change there'd be in the life of Hal\nChase.\"\nWhile Santa Cruz Cruz County had ample representation in professional baseball during the game's so-called Golden Era,\nits connection to the big show during the years surrounding World War II was relatively slim. Former Santa Cruz High\npitcher Bill Clemensen pitched a dozen games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1939 season, and two more in 1941, but\n3\n\n�military service during the war all but ended his professional career. He pitched two innings for the Pirates in 1946 and\nthen said good-bye to the game.\nLike Clemensen, many young Santa Cruz men went off to fight in Europe and the Pacific during the war, and when they\nreturned tried to reclaim their lost youths. A number of fine semi-pro teams sprung up locally in this era, the most\nprominent being the Santa Cruz Seahawks and the Swiss Dairy. The later club featured a number of local Italian players,\nincluding Louie Castagnola, Dick Fassio, and Nig Tamagni, as well as brothers Fred and Paul Juhl and Johnny Reis.\nThe one certified Santa Cruz star during the war era was Joltin' Joe Brovia, better known as the \"Davenport Destroyer.\"\nThe son of Italian immigrant parents who worked at the Lone Star cement plant, Brovia was also a product of Santa Cruz\nHigh, where he pitched and played the outfield. When he was only 17, Brovia joined the El Paso club of the ArizonaTexas League.\nAlthough originally signed as a pitcher, the 6-foot, 4-inch Brovia quickly developed a powerful batting stroke and led the\nleague in hitting with a .383 average. After batting .322 the following year in the Western International League, Brovia\nwas brought up to the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), managed by Lefty O'Doul.\nMany considered the PCL to be the west coast equivalent of the Major Leagues, and the Seals were one of the most\nrespected franchises in PCL history. Dozens of baseball's all-time greats, including the DiMaggio brothers and Tony\nLazzeri, had played for the Seals, and in the 1940s, they were a PCL powerhouse. Following solid seasons with the Seals\nin '41 and '42, Brovia's contract was purchased by the Chicago White Sox, but a draft notice from the U.S. Army put an\nimmediate halt to his professional career.\n\"I wound up serving in the European theater during the war,\" Brovia says today in the living room of his westside Santa\nCruz home. \"I saw plenty of action, and by the time the war was over, I couldn't even hit my house.\"\nNevertheless, he picked up his career with the Seals from '46 to '48, then was sold to the PCL's Portland Beavers and,\nlater, to the Sacramento Solons.\nAlthough not much defensively, Brovia was one of the most feared hitters in PCL history and was recently named to the\nall-time PCL team, based on his lifetime PCL batting average of .305 and 194 career homers. His greatest feat, however,\ncame on a foggy night in San Francisco when he blasted a towering home run over the centerfield fence at Seals\nStadium. Legend has it that the ball, which carried an estimated 560 feet, hit a drunk on Portrero Street who sold it for a\njug of wine. A recent edition of Sports History magazine ranked the blast alongside Mickey Mantle's 1956 homer at\nGriffith Stadium as one of the longest balls ever hit.\nFinally, at the age of 33—after 16 years in professional baseball—Brovia got his chance at the major leagues, when the\nCincinnati Reds called him up in the middle of the 1955 season. The Reds' general manager Gabe Paul was looking for a\nleft-handed pinch hitter, and Brovia fit the bill.\nComing into the games cold for only one swing day after day, Brovia never found his rhythm, and his defensive liabilities\nprevented him from becoming an everyday player. Facing some of the era's great hurlers like Robin Roberts, Warren\nSpahn, Don Newcome and the young Roger Craig, Brovia collected only a couple of singles in 18 pinch hit appearances\nand was soon sent back to the PCL. He finished out his career in 1957 with the Oakland Oaks and Hermasillo of the\nMexican League.\nHad Brovia been playing these days, he might well have been a million dollar designated hitter in the American League.\n\"I see these guys batting .220 and .230 making millions of dollars,\" he says shaking his head. \"The most I ever made was\n$9,000 with the Reds. But, hey, I got no regrets. I'd do it all over again. Baseball was my life.\"\nIt would be a full generation before Santa Cruz County had another big league connection. In the early 1970s, Soquel\nHigh star Pete Hamm pitched parts of two seasons with the Minnesota Twins, while Watsonville native John Sipin played\n4\n\n�out the 1969 campaign with the San Diego Padres before crossing the Pacific and having an extremely successful career\nin Japanese baseball.\nCurrently no fewer than a dozen Santa Cruzans are pursuing professional careers in baseball, four of whom—Dann\nBilardello, Mark Eichorn, Glenallen Hill, and John Orton—have seen major league action this season.\nBut the area's love affair with baseball goes much deeper than its connection to the big show. Perhaps as many as\n10,000 county residents—men and women, boys and girls—play some form of organized baseball here annually.\n\"Santa Cruz has always been a great baseball town,\" says Brovia. \"When I grew up here, hell, that's all we could think\nabout: baseball, baseball, baseball. The people here still love it. I still love it. It's a great game.\"\nSpecial thanks to Lew Deasy, Rachel McKay, John Sayles, Nikki Silva and the Santa Cruz County Historical Trust for their\nkind assistance with this article, and to Ron Walters for suggesting it.\n\nSources\n\n\n\nCopyright 1996 Geoffrey Dunn. Reproduced with the permission of the author.\nSpecial thanks to Lew Deasy, Rachel McKay, John Sayles, Nikki Silva and the Santa Cruz County Historical Trust\nfor their kind assistance with this article, and to Ron Walters for suggesting it.\n\nThe content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history\ninformation. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a\nvariety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,\nplease contact the Webmaster.\n\n5\n\n�"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"8"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"50"},["name","Title"],["description","A name given to the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"123576"},["text","Santa Cruz History Articles"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"41"},["name","Description"],["description","An account of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"123577"},["text","Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books. 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If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264216"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries\r\n"]]]]]]]],["itemType",{"itemTypeId":"1"},["name","Document"],["description","A resource containing textual data. 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Reproduced with the permission of the author."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893038"},["text","Baseball"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893039"},["text","Hooper, Harry"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893040"},["text","Chase, Hal"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893041"},["text","Brovia, Joe"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893042"},["text","Santa Cruz (County)"]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"39"},["name","Biography"]],["tag",{"tagId":"5"},["name","Recreation and Sports"]]]]]