From the Los Angeles Sunday Times, April 17, 1905

FIERCE ROW AT BALL GAME.

Flood Attempts to Kick Off Umpire’s Head

Seattle 7, Los Angeles 2. Seven innings.

If any fellow didn’t get 35 cents’ worth of everything at the ball ground yesterday, he’s the kind that would live in a two-room flat and cook on a gasoline stove [even] if he owned a Vanderbilt House on Fifth Avenue.

Some people want stewed terrapin, saur kraut, fruit cake, finger bowls and a glass of beer all in one meal, and if they had attended the ball game their hungry souls would have been made happy, for they would have seen:

  • Flood kick the umpire in the breast,
  • the Looloos [Los Angeles team, also known as the Angels] get a run with the aid of a small boy,
  • several incipient rows,
  • an excited mob swarming on the ball field . . .
  • Flood put out of the game
  • and the [Seattle] Siwashes beat the life out of the local team.

If this isn’t enough for 35 cents, . . .

Flood of the local team [first name not given] not only kicked the umpire, but two minutes later [also] made another attempt to assault him and finally had to be led off the field by two policemen.

Ten minutes later the game broke up at the end of the seventh inning, and a hundred men flocked on[to] the grounds after the umpire in the belief that he had called [off] the game intentionally.

In the next two minutes the mob increased several hundred, and as the police jammed their way into the crush, some unregenerate fans . . . showered seat cushions down on the crowd, while hundreds of others stood up on their seats, . . . yelling out “thief,” “robber,” “get him” and other choice terms.

[Umpire] Perrine finally walked out of the grounds and down to the Main Street [street]car, surrounded by a yelling mob of men and boys. . . .

(This may have been Fred Perrine, who was a National League Umpire between 1909 and 1912. Source.)

The calling of the game at the end of the seventh inning was another bad thing, and some of the kickers against the 35-cent price yelled out that they wanted their money back and that the press should roast the baseball management.

Various accounts have it that Dillon and Russ Hall, the captains of the teams, agreed with the umpire that the game should be called at 4 o’clock in order to give the two clubs a chance to catch the 5 o’clock northbound train from the Arcade Depot.

No one in the crowd of 4,000 spectators knew of this agreement, and the majority probably imagined that Perrine had called the game, with Seattle ahead, on account of Flood’s actions, so that Seattle could not lose. . . .

To find all baseball stories in Los Angeles in the 1900s, click here.
Cartoon By Strath

Left: Shouting “Rotten!” “Put ’im out!” “Soak ’im!” fans attack the umpire while seat cushions rain from the stands. A caption asks: How would you like to be the Umpire?

Center: Jud Smith stops a hot one. Kane causing the row.

Right: What Flood thinks of umpires. Big Chief Shields [presumably the manager of the Seattle team] scalps us.

From the Los Angeles Sunday Times,
April 17, 1905

Playground About Ready.

LITTLE FOLKS TO HAVE SWAY NEXT JUNE.

 

Here’s good news to be heralded throughout the length and breadth of Boyville!

In June the Children’s Playground, No. 1, will be prepared for the great influx of little folk awaiting the announcement that all things are in readiness for the fun. . . .

And as the basketball courts, handball courts, swings, teeterboards, merry-go-rounds, sand piles and captivating doll houses assume form, reconnoitering parties stray into the forbidden gardens to take surreptitious rides . . . until the stern voice of the contractor issues the ukase of banishment. . . .

The gymnasium will be 40x60 feet, with 16-foot inside height. It will have open sides, and the roof will be supported on handsome iron posts.

Within this pavilion gym will be placed the latest and most desirable equipment for athletic work. . . .

“We plan to have trees, vines and flowers everywhere they can exist without being killed by the youngsters,” said the superintendent [C.B. Raitt] yesterday. . . .

Mr. Raitt was formerly a Stanford man and later was coach of the Throop [now Cal Tech] football team. Afterwards he was in gymnasium work and athletic director of the schools in San Bernardino.

Mr. and Mrs. Raitt will reside in the cottage on the grounds and keep a strict supervision over the occupants of the playgrounds.

It is the intention of the superintendent to organize the lads and lassies various clubs and teams for game practice and to endeavor to establish an esprit de corps which will tend to elevate all the sports of the new playgrounds.

The playgrounds are located between Violet and Atlantic streets, and east of Mateo street. [See map.] They comprise half a block and lie in one of the most thickly populated sections of the city.

It is estimated that . . . immediately around the park there are fully 500 children, while four public schools are within walking distance.
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From the Los Angeles Sunday Times, April 2, 1905

TO RAZE OLD POSTOFFICE

 

Another landmark is soon to be effaced — the moss-grown ruin of the old postoffice building at Winston and Main streets. [Click for map.] The Secretary of the Treasury has just accepted the bid of the Whiting Wrecking Co. of this city, and by contract the last fragments are to disappear within sixty days.

 

The razing of this bill-posted pile of decay forms a story within a story for the older inhabitants who saw the rise, prosperity and gradual decline of the former Federal stronghold. . . .

 

For years the unsightly heap of bricks and mortar, all but torn down in entirety, has furnished the butt of ridicule for the public prints and private individuals. It stood, however, and seemed destined to mock the slow motion of governmental processes when the new edifice should stand in magnificent completion upon the site of the old Downey block.

 

The end that comes to all things reached it, fortunately before this ridiculous consummation.

The old post office is the gabled building at the right of the photograph.

A stand of trees graces the scene at the left. The same building with the cupola can be seen in both images.

Both photos are from the Brent C. Dickerson site, A Visit to Old Los Angeles.

According to Dickerson, the turn-of-the century buildings with the striped awnings, right of the image, replaced the old post office, which was torn down in 1905.

By this time, the trees across the street had been long gone.

Here is a photo of the Main Street building when it was in its prime, from the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
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From the Los Angeles Herald, April 2, 1905
At the City Hall.

Big “Exam” for Auto Drivers.

Must Stand Test as Expert Engineers.

It is a grim April fool joke that members of the Council and the Fire Commission yesterday concocted for the luckless chug wagon drivers.

The commissioners have suddenly discovered that most of the automobiles are propelled either by steam, gasoline or electric engines. The fire board’s part of the program is to demand that all chauffeurs must obtain permits to operate engines before they are allowed to “take life easy” loafing about the streets at the rate of anywhere from thirty miles an hour to the century mark. . . .

“I expect to make a motion Monday,” said Mr. [Councilman E.L.] Blanchard

yesterday, “that the city attorney be instructed to draw up an ordinance requiring the drivers of automobiles to pass an examination before a board of engineers.” . . .

The automobilists are lying low, evidently waiting for the gust of popular disapproval to pass by.

Los Angeles has a world wide reputation as an ideal city for the benzine buggy, and they are of the opinion that a reversal of sentiment will soon follow the present outburst that will enable them to secure the repeal of unfriendly legislation adopted under the present stress of popular indignation.
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