Colorado Springs - 04.14.05 - Six players and two past presidents of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) will enter the PCL Hall of Fame for 2005, including players Joe Brovia, Johnny Frederick, Elmer Jacobs, Jack Salveson and Ray Prim, and past presidents Bill Cutler and Clarence "Pants" Rowland.
Inductees to the PCL Hall of Fame are selected by the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame Committee, a blue-ribbon panel composed of Minor League Baseball, Pacific Coast League, and National Baseball historians.
This is the third group of players to be admitted to the PCL Hall since it was revived in 2003, during the league's centennial celebration.
The Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame was created in 1936 by the Helms Athletic Foundation in Los Angeles, California. At one time, Helms also ran the halls of fame for Major League Baseball, Golf, College Basketball, Tennis, Swimming, Auto Racing, Professional Football, Track and Field, and College Football.
The PCL Hall of Fame ceased operation in 1952 as minor league baseball dipped into one of its popularity valleys. It was reactivated in conjunction with 2003’s Pacific Coast League Centennial Celebration.
Does a PCL "Hall of Fame" really mean anything? The teams and leagues of baseball outside of the majors were not under the thumb of the major leagues until the 1930s. The PCL, until Major League Baseball's expansion Westward, was as close to a third major league as baseball got after 1909. The rising cities of the West were big markets, and the PCL teams there, like the Angels and Padres, were big time clubs with followings often as big as many of the MLB franchises.
"A modern fan, looking at the players involved, tries to figure out how good the team was by looking at what their players did when they got to the majors, " says Bill James in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. "But the Pacific Coast League was a good league, and the things that were done there did not need to be validated by major league performance in order to become real."
The stars of the Pacific Coast League are too numerous to list. Talents like Joe DiMaggio to Zack Greinke have passed through the league. Many more find their home playing in front of the loyal fans in towns like Albuquerque, Omaha, and, this year, in Round Rock (Austin), Texas.
This year, two inductees are past presidents of the league whose vision and guidance steered the PCL towards new levels of prestige and prosperity.
They are players and leaders of the league whose achievements will not be forgotten.
The 2005 inductees are...
