1930s Ontario ballpark from ‘A League of Their Own’ is now history

The famed Ontario baseball diamond is just down the street from our old offices. While I hadn’t really needed Google driving directions on Monday, I used them anyway. Nearing my destination, the maps’ voice directions cautioned: “Jay Littleton Ball Park may be closed.”

Three days after the fire that destroyed the ballpark, the grounds still smelled of smoke.

I was visiting to pay my respects. The property is surrounded by temporary fencing and a green privacy screen. Above the fence, a few beams and cross-beams can be seen. Netting hangs in tatters.

The famous wood grandstand that once held up to 3,500 spectators is gone, burnt to rubble, cinders and ash.

The fire took place late Thursday night. After calls from two residents, Debra Dorst-Porada, a councilmember, raced over. Her heart sank as she approached from the 10 Freeway and saw the two-story grandstand silhouetted in flames against the night sky.

RELATED: Fire destroys Ontario’s historic Jay Littleton Ball Park, a fixture in baseball movies

“It made me think of the Colosseum. Like Rome was burning,” Dorst-Porada told me Monday. “It was unreal how it looked.” She parked at the gas station across the street and watched from her car in disbelief.

The cause is unknown, but there are reports that homeless people had been sheltering there.

On my side of the fence, I noticed a couple of small bowls of cat food. It was easy to imagine they’d been set out by squatters to feed pets or strays.

Where the fences and privacy screens connect, it was possible to get a glimpse of the charred lumber beyond. The field itself is largely unscathed, the modern scoreboard intact.

I might have been an old-time baseball fan peeking through a knothole to watch the action from the sidewalk without paying.

Which would be in keeping with the vibe at Jay Littleton Ball Park. Opened in 1937 as the Ontario Ball Park, the field and its grandstands changed little over the decades. That’s why it was declared a city landmark in 2003.

Even in 2019, in a historic structure report prepared for City Hall, consultants said Jay Littleton “retains its integrity of feeling as a 1930s-era ballpark.”

That led Hollywood to journey here for period film shoots.

The most famous is “A League of Their Own,” the 1992 film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The league was founded in 1943 to fill the gap for minor league baseball when the military draft sent so many men to fight in World War II. The movie starred Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell as players on the Rockford Peaches.

“There’s no crying in baseball,” Tom Hanks, the manager, famously barked.

In one scene filmed in front of the grandstand, Davis’ character catches a fly ball while doing a split, a bid to gain attention for the faltering league.

The same year, “The Babe,” a biopic about Babe Ruth that starred John Goodman, also filmed scenes at the ballpark, as did 1988’s “Eight Men Out,” about the 1919 Black Sox betting scandal.

“The X-Files,” of all things, touched down for an episode in 1999. With an extended flashback to the 1940s, the story was about a renegade alien who had fallen in love with baseball and, to stay under authorities’ radar, joined the Negro Leagues.

The episode’s ironic baseball title: “The Unnatural.” For the filming, fans were asked to show up in period clothing to fill the stands.

Filming in the 21st century was lower profile. A TV version of “A League of Their Own” was there in early 2020.

Mostly, of course, Ontario Ball Park, as it was known from 1937 to 1998, was used for baseball.

It was built with $5,000 in materials provided by Depression relief funds. Wood was common in local ballparks even as professional stadiums had moved to concrete and other, more durable materials, the historic report explained.

Late in the 20th century and beyond, the covered grandstand and wooden plank seating had an air of antiquity. But in 1937 the ballpark was “a modest, but modern baseball facility,” the report noted, with a press box that boasted “radio transmission towers on the roof.”

For the ballpark’s first couple of decades, there was no National or American League team west of St. Louis. (Columnist note: Go, Cards.) Filling the void, the semi-professional Pacific Coast League and Sunset League operated here on the Best Coast.

The ballpark opened March 14, 1937 with a game between the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League against the Ontario Merchants.

The Angels used Ontario for spring training from 1937 to 1942. In 1942, you could have seen exhibition games with the Angels versus the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox or the Pittsburgh Pirates.

After the war, the Hollywood Stars trained here in 1946, the short-lived Ontario Orioles (in the Sunset League) in 1947, the Portland Beavers in 1959.

Various local amateur and semi-pro teams played here, including ones made up entirely of Mexican American players. Youth and Little League games were more common in recent decades.

The ballpark was named for Jay Littleton, a longtime youth baseball volunteer, in 1998.

Because of the Hollywood connection, the fire was major news. Even the New York Times wrote about it, under the headline “Fire Destroys Grandstand From ‘A League of Their Own.’” Ontario, as the Times pointed out helpfully, is “about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.” I always think of Los Angeles as 40 miles west of Ontario.

This is where I’ll ask you to step in. If you have a personal memory of the ballpark, drop me a line with your story and the approximate year or years, as well as your name and city of residence, please. I may write a follow-up sometime after Labor Day.

(In the meantime, I’m taking a few days off before and after the holiday. Expect a column on Sunday and then look for me again Sept. 6.)

The ballpark had been closed for five years, awaiting at least $1.5 million in repairs and upgrades that consultants had recommended.

“Now that it’s a total loss, where do we go from here?” Dorst-Porada wondered aloud Monday. “My hope and wish is that we will rebuild.”

Perhaps Jay Littleton Ball Park can rise from the literal ashes.

David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, three wild pitches. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.