The Cubs trained in Long Beach in 1966. I’m guessing the team stayed there.

Right?

Where Dexter Morgan’s apartment is.

It was brand new at the time, and it was known as the Edgewater Inn Marina Hotel.

I’d guess this was a strange Spring Training. (It was also the first season for Leo Durocher.) What a logistical nightmare!

(All of this comes from the 1966 Cubs Media Guide, which I’ve finally located in my boxes of “stuff.”)

The Cubs played 29 Spring games in 10 different cities, from California to Nevada to Arizona. They played only 8 games at their home stadium of Blair Field. (Currently, Cal State Long Beach plays there, and the old LA Rams also trained there.) 6 of those 8 games were played consecutively — March 19th through March 24th. The final 2 were played April 2nd and 3rd.

The 1966 Cactus League — not much there….the Cubs, the Angels in Palm Springs along with the Giants in PHX and the Indians in Tucson. So, with this awful location for Spring Training — the Cubs played 21 road games, and not all of them were in the 3 cities I’ve just listed.

Other games on this schedule — a game against the Angels in the sleepy Imperial County (CA) city of Holtville, and another one in Las Vegas. The Cubs played the Indians in Nogales AZ, and in San Diego. To finish this schedule — 2 games against AAA Tacoma in San Jose and Stockton.

What a mess! How could this team (which wasn’t very good to begin with, save for Santo, Banks, and Williams) possibly get ready for the season? They had to be on buses most of the time. And — most of the Interstate Highyway system hadn’t been finished in CA and AZ — those trips were over old US 60, US 66, US 80 out to AZ. Driving time then had to be longer that it would be today, even with less traffic.

To make matters even stranger — the Cubs placed their minor leaguers nearly 100 miles away from Long Beach, in Escondido, CA. Makes the walk from Fitch Park to Ho Ho Kam seem rather tame, does it not?) Who came up with THIS idea?

Tongue-in-cheek, it almost seems Leo Durocher forced the Cubs to train in Long Beach as terms of his employment — because, after all — I seem to remember that Palm Springs was his off-season home.

But, maybe this is the reason for training in Long Beach…

“According to Daily Breeze files, an announcement was made in May 1965 by then-owner Philip K. Wrigley, William Wrigley Jr.’s son, that the Cubs would return to Catalina temporarily for the 1966 spring training session while other permanent facilities were being finished. Unfortunately, a combination of timing issues and the expense of conducting the camp caused the team to reconsider and cancel its Catalina plans in favor of training at Blair Stadium in Long Beach instead.”

Well, then — this was certainly a better option than Catalina! Traveling by boat back to the mainland to play other teams? Or, would the Cubs have played intra-squad games, as they did in the 40s on Catalina? Makes you wonder if the Cactus League would have survived with 3 teams.

What a disaster this Spring Training must have been. The Cubs had to have fled to Scottsdale in relief in 1967. One also wonders how the Cactus League survived this era, as it wasn’t until 1969 when the Padres, the A’s and the Seattle Pilots joined the Cactus League.

Memo to Mr. Ricketts: Don’t Leave Arizona.

I live about 4-5 miles from this place down Bellflower Blvd here in Long Beach. This place is now a DUMP. The city of Long Beach has had years long dysfunctional debate over how to renovate the property. It’s a very transient place now, and the world’s oldest profession occasionally takes up residence there. I had no idea that Cubs stayed there. It sort of makes sense, because the S.S. Catalina was berthed nearby for years and was really the only boat that made crossings to Catalina Island.

Blair Field is the home of the Cal State Long Beach Dirtbags, and has recently produced Jered Weaver and Evan Longoria, among others.

http://www.lbreport.com/news/nov09/2ndpch.htm

A link to the long-debated re-development of this site, and a hint of the problems that progress has faced getting anything done.