Mission Reds

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The Mission Reds were a minor league baseball team located in San Francisco, California which played in the Pacific Coast League from 1926 through 1937. Earlier, in 1914, a failed Sacramento Solons team had been moved to San Francisco midway through the season. Finishing the season as the San Francisco Missions, the team played its home games in the Mission District, five blocks away from Mission San Francisco de Asis. Though that team was subsequently purchased and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1915, the idea had been planted that San Francisco (at the time the largest city on the West Coast of the United States) could support a second team.

The new Mission team had begun play in 1909 as the Vernon Tigers, winning two PCL pennants during its 18-year stay in Los Angeles County. Declining attendance forced owner Edward Maier to put the team up for sale after the 1925 season. The Tigers were purchased by a group of San Francisco businessmen led by Herbert Fleishaker, who moved the team to that city for the 1926 season. They were operated as a second team in San Francisco, as intended rivals of the existing San Francisco Seals. The team was seldom referred to by its formal name of "Mission Reds," being called simply "the Missions," and was more often than not listed as "Missions" in the PCL standings in newspapers.

Like its short-lived predecessor, the Missions were supposed to represent the Mission District of San Francisco. However, from 1926 through 1930, they played their home games at Recreation Park (at Valencia and 14th Streets), also the home of the Seals, playing at home while the Seals were on the road. Then, in 1931, when the Seals moved to their own park, Seals Stadium (at 16th and Bryant Streets), the Missions followed suit and were the Seals' tenants from 1931 through 1937. Neither venue was located in the Mission.

During their twelve-year history in San Francisco, the Mission Reds were unable to establish a fan base (whether in the Mission District or anywhere else in the city) or create much of a rivalry with the Seals, whose rivals had long been the transbay Oakland Oaks. Instead, the Missions were merely a team to watch when the Seals were on the road.

The Missions finished first in but one year, 1929, but lost the postseason series to the Hollywood Stars. Most often the team was mired in the second division, and had a 1,088-1,117 (.480) overall won-loss record.

Two years after the Hollywood Stars' 1936 move to San Diego, owner Fleishaker, facing mounting losses on the field and at the gate, moved the Missions back to Los Angeles for the 1938 season and took the name of the departed Hollywood Stars.

[edit] References

• O'Neal, Bill. The Pacific Coast League 1903-1988. Eakin Press, Austin TX, 1990. ISBN 0-89015-776-6.
• Snelling, Dennis. The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC, 1995. ISBN 0-7864-0045-5.