About 600 Foal, Shetland, Pinto, Mustang, Bronco and Pony players will celebrate the new season on fields that have been maintained for decades.
For many multi-generational La Jolla families, participation in the La Jolla Youth Baseball League is akin to a rite of passage, as hundreds of boys take the field every season as their fathers did generations before.
The La Jolla Youth Baseball League players have been part of the community since 1952, participating in parades and other events.
This year, Opening Day will be held Saturday, Feb 22, premiering as it has for decades on the fields at Cliffridge Park, which spreads out between the Dan McKinney Family YMCA and Torrey Pines Elementary School on Cliffridge Avenue.
The league – which has been named La Jolla Little League, La Jolla Youth Incorporated and other versions in its early years – began in 1952, though little material is found documenting its inception.
La Jolla offered the only Little League baseball program in the area, according to San Diegan Bob Gibson, who shared with lajolla.ca a 2015 family history he wrote for his brothers John and James (Jim) McGrew.
John and Jim both began playing organized baseball in 1953, but by 1955, so many boys showed up for tryouts that the La Jolla Little League Board imposed a limit on the number of boys who could register, Gibson wrote, which led to a formation of a “B” League that played in Bird Rock and later became the North Shores Little League.
Not much else is known about the La Jolla league until recently, though it is clear the Cliffridge Park fields have a history and evolution all their own.
An undated blueprint of the fields shows the field site was acquired and dedicated in 1962, with space for the Pony League fields, multi-sport fields and more.
The fields were part of a master plan of Cliffridge Park, said architect and urbanist Trace Wilson, who played in the league on those fields in the 1970s and has been involved in recent projects to renovate, update and expand the fields.
Cliffridge underwent much development in the 1970s, Wilson said, and over the decades has seen improvements and upgrades to every corner of the park, including the batting cages, snack shack, fencing, turf and walkways.
Though the land belongs to the city of San Diego, the La Jolla Youth Baseball League, a nonprofit, runs the fields and funds their maintenance and capital improvements through player fees, Wilson said.
In 2022, Wilson, whose sons play in the league now, spearheaded a project to beautify the park’s front entrance with new landscaping, a new sea shipping container for league storage and new flagpoles.
A plan is warming up to take on more field refurbishments.
Seeing the rejuvenation of the fields as the league prepares to open its season to about 600 players is “really heartfelt for me,” Wilson said, “because I’m literally sitting on the same bench that I sat on in 1975 as my six-year-old [is now]. It’s really amazing.”
© lajolla.ca
