THE HISTORY OF CARMEL YOUTH BASEBALL
The Carmel Valley Little League started in 1958 under the legal name of “Little League Baseball of Carmel Valley, California, Inc.” Austin Mayfield was elected the first League president, and the first ballpark was constructed behind the Fire Station. The playing surface was all dirt – no grass, even in the outfield – and there was no raised pitcher’s mound, but it was a field. The four teams (Kiwanis, Red Sox, Volunteers, and Merchants) fought a battle for the 1958 pennant, with the Merchants becoming the first Carmel Valley Little League champions. Home run leaders were Ralph Juarez with six and Steven Johnson with four. Kiwanis played a post-season contest with the Carmel Little League champions and lost a close one in the first battle between two rival sport leagues.
Within a few years, the League began sending its all-star teams to the regional Little League all-star tournaments, sometimes with success, and sometimes with results that no one (conveniently, perhaps) remembers.
Through the early 1960’s, the League continued to develop, providing many hours of informal and relaxed entertainment at the Fire Department site. The names of the teams changed (the Pistons, the Carpenters, and the Contractors are all gone, as are the Giants and Red Sox, among others), but the game of baseball continued to flourish. Even a 1966 boundary skirmish with the Carmel Little League, with charges of one league raiding the territory of the other, failed to slow the League’s enthusiasm.
At the end of the 1966 season, the fire department realized that it needed to expand its fire station onto the area occupied by the ball field, and the growing League sought and found its present home at the foot of Paso Hondo. With League President George Groves leading the way, the League leased (for $10 per year) the ballpark site and began construction. Local residents and merchants donated time, equipment, and hard work, and some 25 members of Monterey’s Naval Reserve Seabee division 1217 spent part of their “training time” in assisting with the clearing, cutting, and construction.
The volunteers and the Seabees cleared the vegetation, bulldozed the field, graded the parking area, installed concrete pads for the bleachers, designed and built a backstop, and built a snack bar.
According to The Herald, the neighborhood women contributed to the construction by serving meals to the hard-working volunteers. The new field opened May 8, 1967, for four Little League teams and two “PeeWee” squads. Advertising space along the outfield fence went for $25 per year, and registration was $10 (or, parents, your choice of 10 hours of labor instead). Nearly 100 children played that first year at the new park.
In 1967, the League formally adopted in writing the League policy that the “ideals of good sportsmanship, honesty, loyalty, courage, and respect for authority” are the primary goals of the League. Each manager, coach, official, and parent was told that the “winning of games is secondary” and the “type of leadership extended to the players is of prime importance” in the League. The baseball program, the League pledged, was intended to encourage the children to become “decent, healthy, and trustworthy” adults. Those pledges have continued to guide the League.
The 1974 season stands out in the League history for its All Star team. That collection of boys, managed by Augie Acuna, remains the most successful All Star team in Carmel Valley League history. The team captured the District 39 All Star championship in July, 1974, at the Carmel Valley park by beating Watsonville 3 – 0.
Buzz Fulton pitched the complete game shutout, striking out 12 and giving up only three hits. Fulton and Mike Matson were the hitting stars, with Fulton singling twice and scoring twice, and Matson driving in all of the game’s runs.
In 1980, construction began on the larger second field, the one known as the new field. Again, following hundreds of hours of volunteer labor and untold donations of equipment and supplies by local merchants and contractors, a field was constructed out of the rocks and dirt of the Valley floor. (Those who worked on the new field remember the rocks – the eternal and reappearing rocks – and many geological lessons they learned first hand over a period of years of construction.) The new field opened in 1984, and is now used for fully half of the League’s games and practices.
In 1989, the bating cages were installed in the area between the two fields. The cages are the latest addition to the League, and provide an opportunity for every child to take batting practice against the machine and, too frequently, to aim against the adult who is inside the cage, feeding balls into the machine. Meanwhile, the T-ball program for 6-7 year olds has grown to include nearly 100 future little league girls and boys. T-ball was established in the Valley several years ago to give the younger children an introduction to the game of baseball, and scores of players have moved from the playing fields of Tularcitos to the baseball grounds by the river.
Since the 80's our league has grown to service over 250 ball players aged 4-14. All these years later CYB still takes pride in developing young athletes into good players and good people.