Although they were supposedly based in Hollywood, the team actually played miles away in Wrigley Field, the home of the rival Los Angeles Angels. At first they were still called the "Bees," then the "Sheiks," but "Stars" was a universal sobriquet, and the uniforms were changed as a concession to popular opinion. In 1928, they became the first professional baseball team to fly when it was determined they wouldn't have enough time to ride by train back to California for a home game.

Frank Shellenback, infamous "fan dancer" Sally Rand (holding a bat very suggestively), and Lefty O'Doul of San Francisco.

Among the notables who played for the Stars was Hollywood High graduate and spitball ace Frank Shellenback, who is ranked by many as the greatest PCL pitcher of all time. After a stint with the Chicago White Sox in 1918 and 1919 (the "Black Sox" year), Shellenback traveled west after the spitball was outlawed in the major leagues. Shellenback never tried to return to the "Eastern League" without his best pitch. Instead, he dominated the PCL, averaging almost 24 wins a season for six years in the 1920s, and an incredible 33 out of 34 games in the 1930-31 seasons. Teammate (and eventual MLB Hall-of-Famer) Bobby Doerr recalled, "There were slippery elm tablets he'd suck on. He would spit on a spot on the ball and it was real slick -- and once in a while in the infield you'd grab the ball where that was and throw a 'spitter' to the first baseman." Shellenback won 295 games over the course of his career -- 205 for the Stars.

Hollywood won the PCL pennant in 1929, beating San Francisco's Mission Reds in a post-season playoff, and won the pennant again in 1930. But it's hard to build a fan base when you play in another team's stadium -- especially during a Depression.

Things got so bad that in 1935 Lane had to ask manager Oscar Vitt to resign, in order to save money by utilizing pitcher Frank Shellenback as a player-manager. The move was a disaster, and not only did the Stars finish in last place, they only drew 90,000 fans all year. (To show you how much attendance had dropped off, 80,000 fans had attended a seven game series against the Angels at Wrigley Field just five years before.)

Worse yet, Lane was informed that the team's rent at Wrigley Field was going to double, to $10,000. He simply couldn't afford it, and decided to move back out of town.

So after the 1935 season, the franchise moved 100 miles south and became the San Diego Padres. (The next year, led by a pitcher-slugger named Ted Williams, the Padres won their first PCL title.)

On the last day of the 1935 season, the Missions led Hollywood 14-7 with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth. Comedian Joe E. Brown, a former semi-pro player who starred in baseball films like Alibi Ike and Elmer the Great, came to the mound for the Stars to pitch to songwriter Harry Ruby. Being a top-ten box office star, Brown called in the outfielders and positioned them in front of him as protection from line drives, but then whiffed Ruby to close out the season.

'38: STARS REBORN

Hollywood went without baseball until 1938, when the Mission Reds (previously named the Vernon Tigers, who had played just north of Los Angeles, under the ownership of Fatty Arbuckle) returned to Southern California and, in an effort to fake some sort of continuity, took over the name "Hollywood Stars." But the team was terrible, finishing last, and so cash-poor that when they finally bought a decent player -- Danny Bell of the New York Yankees -- they couldn't raise the cash for his purchase price and had to send him back. Finally the management team dissolved.

So the Stars were sold again -- this time to attorney Victor Ford Collins and restaurateur Bob Cobb (the guy the Cobb salad is named after). Cobb borrowed $5000 from director Cecil B. DeMille to buy a large share of the club.

Cobb and Collins formed the Hollywood Baseball Association, and started devising ways to raise money for the team and secure a new ballpark. The most important method they used was to sell stock in their Association to movie stars and civic leaders in Hollywood, in an effort to create a community-oriented franchise. In this way the team would truly represent the city (as well as benefit from a lot of publicity). In fact, they were probably the first baseball franchise in which the owners had a larger fan base than the team!

Stars investor Bill Frawley ("Fred Mertz" in I Love Lucy) clowns with Collins, Cobb, the Governor, and league officials.

This was obviously not your average group of minor league investors: Board meetings were held at Cobb's elegant Beverly Hills restaurant or aboard auto magnate Frank Muller's yacht, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors was Cecil B. DeMille. They signed a deal to play at Gilmore Stadium, which was used for midget auto races, and then paid $200,000 towards the construction of a new ballpark, called Gilmore Field (named after Earl Gilmore, an oil tycoon who owned the site), to be built next door...

Gail Patrick fires; Jane Withers bats; Brown bails out.

The lovely Gilmore Field opened on May 2, 1939, at 7700 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, with all the fanfare of a Hollywood premiere. Jack Benny, Al Jolsen, Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor and Bing Crosby hosted pre-game festivities, and starlet and co-owner Gail Patrick (also the wife of Bob Cobb) threw out the first pitch to movie comedian Joe E. Brown. There was no Hollywood ending, however -- the Stars lost to the Seattle Rainiers, 9-5. Still, the franchise quickly caught on and became very popular with Angelinos in the post-World War II economy.

Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Tracy in the stands.

Much like what you see at the Laker games of today, Hollywood denizens attended Stars games to see and be seen. It was said more beautiful women attended games at Gilmore than anywhere else in the minor or major leagues. Celebrities like Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle and Rosemary Clooney were often seen in the grandstand of the stadium -- as were gangsters like Benjamin "Don't call me Bugsy" Siegel. A special VIP room under the stands made it easy for them to socialize and drink harder stuff than soda pop between innings without pesky fans pestering them.

The 11,500-seat Gilmore Field was possibly the most intimate metropolitan ballpark ever built. First and third bases were 24 feet from the front row seats; home plate was only 34 feet away. Fans seated in the bleachers carried on running conversations with the outfielders -- even during the game. But it was more intimate in that there were large gaps between the wood planks in the stands, and players relaxing under the bleachers for the seventh inning stretch could tell if any woman standing above them in a dress was wearing panties or not.

The Glory Years: The Stars win the hearts of Hollywood and dominate the PCL in PART TWO:

Written by Jeff Hause. Thanks to Vice President Mark Panatier of the A.F. Gilmore Company, for his assistance in the researching of this article.