History
1938-1964
Baseball in Seattle actually began in 1890 in the National Association of Baseball Clubs. Along with Seattle were teams from Tacoma, Spokane, and Portland which made up the Pacific Northwest League. The Seattle Reds' only pennant was in 1892 and the league soon folded after that due to financial problems.
Organized baseball came back in 1896 due to D.E. Dugdale. While traveling through Seattle on his way up to Alaska, Dugdale fell in love with the city. After learning that the city had no baseball team, he gathered together friends back home in Detroit and formed the Northwestern League and owned the Seattle Braves. In 1902, the Pacific Coast League (P.C.L.) began by absorbing the California League consisting of Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, and adding Seattle and Portland. For a while Seattle had two baseball teams, the Braves and the Siwashes of the new PCL. As attendance fell for both teams, Dugdale was finally forced to sell his team and the city was left with the Siwashes.
In 1907, the Siwashes left the PCL and joined the Class-B Northwestern League and hired Dugdale as chief operator. During these years Seattle enjoyed championships in 1912, 1915 and 1918 and a new 15,000 seat stadium, Dugdale Park.
Seattle re-joined the PCL in 1919 and became known as the Indians. In 1924 Seattle became champions of the PCL but soon dropped and never finished higher than 3rd for years to follow. Then in the early morning on July 5, 1932, after 4th of July fireworks, a fire began and took over the stadium. The cause was never discovered but now the team was forced to play in a high school field, Civic Field. A few improvements were made to the park and the Indians began play at their new home on July 19th. Each year the city promised a new ballpark, but one was never built. During the years at Civic Field, the Indians never finished a season above 4th place. By 1937 the owner of the team, Bill Klepper, became ill and sold the team to Seattle beer baron Emil Sick.
Emil Sick began to build his own team by hiring Roscoe "Torchy" Torrance as Vice-President and gave him $25,000 to hire players. Torrance's first move was to hire Jack Lelivelt as manager. Lelivelt won pennants as manager of the Los Angeles Angels in 1933 and 1934. Plans also began on a new park and changing the name of the team from the Indians to the Rainiers, named after his beer company. The new stadium was built on the corner of Rainier Avenue and McCelland Street in Seattle, the same site of old Dugdale Park. On opening night of June 15, 1938, 12,000 fans arrived at the new state-of-the-art stadium, along with others on a grassy knoll beyond left field. This area would become known as "Tightwad Hill" because of the fans who would sit outside the park and watch for free.
The biggest event of 1938 would be by a local pitcher named Fred Hutchinson. A record 17,000 fans attended the game to see this 19 year-old win his 19th game of the year. He would end up winning 25 games that year and lead the Rainiers to a second place finish. Needing speed and defense to compete in the new park, the Rainiers sold Hutchinson to the Detroit Tigers for $50,000 and four players. Two of those players did what Sick wanted, Jo Jo White and George Archie. During this time the Rainiers built winners. Along with White and Archie, they had players such as Dick Gyselman, Earl Torgeson, Edo Vanni, Les Scarella, and Alan Strange. In 1939 and 1940 the Rainiers were PCL champions and heroes of Seattle. However after the 1940 season the team lost their manager. While at a Harlem Globetrotters game, Lelivelt suffered a fatal heart attack. The Yankees suggested the Rainiers hire Bill Skiff as manager. His first year was just like Lelivelt's last, they became PCL champions of 1941.
For the rest of that decade, the Rainiers didn't win a pennant but did see exciting baseball. Bill Lawrence amazed the crowds with his defensive skills; Hal Turpin pitched a no-hitter in 1942 and went on to win 23 games that year; and Kewpie Barrett ended his career with 234 wins and 1866 strikeouts in 25 years.
In 1951, Seattle brought out to the west coast the great Rogers Hornsby to manage the team. His only year as manager was a success, a PCL championship. Then in 1955 Fred Hutchinson came home to manage the Rainiers to another championship pennant. During this time the PCL was growing tired of being classified as a minor league. They were producing some players that would go on and become some of the all-time greats, Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams along with other players with respectable careers. In 1952 the league was granted "Open Classification", meaning no team had a working agreement with any major league club and any player moving from league to league would have to clear waivers. This was the beginning that the PCL hoped would lead to a major league status.
As the PCL continued to discuss the idea of becoming a rival league, Major League baseball moved two of its teams to the coast. It was announced in 1957 that the Dodgers and Giants would move to Los Angeles and San Francisco. This brought the PCL back to a Triple-A status and the Rainiers began a working agreement with the Cincinnati Reds.
Due to the change to Triple-A and the expanding coverage of major league baseball on television, the Rainiers attendance began to drop. No longer did the PCL run as its own league, but it now had to bow to the wishes of the parent club. As players began to improve their game, they would be called up to the majors. Due to this and Sick's old age, he sold his team to the Boston Red Sox in 1961. Sick later died in 1964.
In 1965 the Red Sox sold the team to the California Angels and the Rainiers were no more. When the Red Sox bought the team they decided to keep the local name, however the Angels wanted their AAA team to reflect the parent club and they became the Seattle Angels.