Hollywood Stars

• Location: Hollywood, CA
• League: Pacific Coast League 1926-1935, 1938-1957; Pecos League 2017; Canadian-American Association 2018
• Affiliation: New York Giants 1941; Pittsburgh Pirates 1945-1946; Chicago White Sox 1947-1948; Brooklyn Dodgers 1949-1950; Pittsburgh Pirates 1951-1952, 1954-1957; Independent Leagues 2017-2018
• Ballpark: Wrigley Field (LA) 1926-1935, 1938; Gilmore Field 1939-1957

Team History

The Hollywood Stars were longtime members of the Pacific Coast League. They began play in 1926 when the Salt Lake City Bees relocated to Southern California. Despite the club's "Hollywood" name, they played their home games in Los Angeles at Wrigley Field, a park they shared with the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL. The team couldn't compete with the already popular Angels, and the Stars relocated to San Diego after the 1935 season and became the San Diego Padres.

Actress, Clara Bow batting for the Stars in 1926

A second club called the Hollywood Stars began play in 1938 when the San Francisco Missions moved south. The club was purchased by Bob Cobb, owner of the famous Hollywood dinner spot, The Brown Derby, and at various times many movie stars, including Gracie Allen, Gene Autry, George Burns, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Cecil B. DeMille, William Powell and Barbara Stanwyck, had an interest (Elizabeth Taylor was a batgirl in her teens).

For the club's first season, they shared Wrigley Field with the Angels, and in 1939, the team moved into Gilmore Field. The Stars proximity to Hollywood (CBS' Television City was next door to the park) meant that stars often filled the box seats, and also that the Stars broke some baseball-on-television ground. The Stars were first televised in 1939 and in the 1940s they were the first club to televise its home games.

The second incarnation of the Stars became one of the top PCL teams, winning pennants in 1949, 1952, and 1953, in part due to an arrangement they worked out with the Brooklyn Dodgers to receive Dodger prospects in exchange for Brooklyn having right of first refusal on Stars players. When Branch Rickey moved to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Stars became an official affiliate of Pittsburgh's during the team's last years.

The Brooklyn Dodgers' announcement that they were relocating to Los Angeles led to the Stars' demise. The club was sold to Utah businessman Nick Morgan for $175,000 after the 1957 season and relocated, ironically, to Salt Lake City.

Perhaps the two most notable things about the team historically are the team's adoption of shorts as part of the uniform for a short while in the 1950s, and the team's location - players often got the chance to associate with movie starlets, something lacking in other minor league towns.

70 years after the disappearance of the PCL stars, the name was revived by a team in the independent Pecos League. That team also played a schedule of games against members of the Canadian-American Association in 2018, taking over the games that the Dominican Republic Team was unable to play due to transportation issues.

Year-by-Year Record

Year	Record	Finish	Manager	Playoffs
1926	94-107	6th	Oscar Vitt	none
1927	92-104	6th	Oscar Vitt	none
1928	112-79	3rd	Oscar Vitt
1929	113-89	3rd	Oscar Vitt	League Champs
1930	119-81	1st	Oscar Vitt	League Champs
1931	104-83	2nd	Oscar Vitt	Lost League Finals
1932	106-83	2nd	Oscar Vitt	none
1933	107-80	3rd	Oscar Vitt	none
1934	97-88	3rd	Oscar Vitt
1935	73-99	8th	Frank Shellenback
1938	79-99	7th	Red Killefer
1939	82-94	6th	Red Killefer
1940	84-94	6th	Bill Sweeney
1941	85-91	4th	Bill Sweeney	Lost in 1st round
1942	75-103	7th	Ossie Vitt
1943	73-82	5th	Charlie Root
1944	83-86	6th	Charlie Root
1945	73-110	8th	Buck Fausett
1946	95-88	3rd	Buck Fausett (66-65) / Jimmie Dykes (29-23)	Lost in 1st round
1947	88-98	6th	Jimmie Dykes
1948	84-104	6th	Jimmie Dykes (65-88) / Lou Stringer / Mule Haas
1949	109-78	1st	Fred Haney	League Champs
1950	104-96	3rd	Fred Haney	none
1951	93-74	2nd	Fred Haney	Lost League Finals
1952	109-71	1st	Fred Haney	none
1953	106-74	1st	Bobby Bragan	none
1954	101-68	2nd	Bobby Bragan	Lost in 1st round
1955	91-81	3rd (t)	Bobby Bragan	none
1956	85-83	4th	Clay Hopper	none
1957	94-74	3rd	Clyde King	none
2017	20-39	4th	Sean McNeill
2018	1-8	8th	T.J. Zarewicz

Further Reading

• Dick Beverage: The Hollywood Stars, Arcadia Publishers, Mount Pleasant SC, 2005.
• Richard E. Beverage: "When the Angels and Stars Ruled Los Angeles", in Jean Hastings Ardell and Andy McCue, ed.: Endless Seasons: Baseball in Southern California, The National Pastime, SABR, Number 41, 2011, pp. 113-115.
• Michael Clair: "Hollywood Stars beat White Sox to shorts: A long history of short shorts", mlb.com, February 7, 2022. [1]
• Dan Taylor: Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2021. ISBN 978-1538138625