100 years ago – July 16, 1925
Prune Packers quit – Sunday contest off,
team losing money; fans do not enthuse
There will be no more games at Recreation Park. The Prune Packers, Healdsburg’s famous team which has won statewide recognition in bush baseball circles, has been disbanded and will play no more games this season.
This was the decision arrived at when the directors of the chamber of commerce and members of the baseball committee held a meeting in the city hall Friday night. It was brought out that the returns from gate receipts so far this year have not been enough by far to cover expenses, which have been very high, some of the Healdsburg players, notably the pitcher, being exceptionally well paid as his ability doubtless calls for. Rather than face any large deficit, it was decided best that the club disband at once.
Santa Rosa and Petaluma have both quit, and it is reported St. Helena and Napa will also disband their teams. This indicates that the antipathy of fans is not confined to Healdsburg, but is general all over the district. Many fans contend that the game has been too greatly commercialized, and as a result has lost its value as an interesting sport. No longer are teams named Healdsburg, Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Napa composed of players from those towns, but it has gotten so that local players usually are not good enough to hold positions with the professionals who are brought into the game on each team. This leaves two teams in Healdsburg, both of the more amateur rank, containing local players exclusively. They are the Nick’s Natives and the Concrete Pipe Co. team.
75 years ago – July 13, 1950
John Brooks and Keith Packwood break 10-year old canoe record
John Brooks and Keith Packwood, both 19, proved the old adage that great results sometimes come from small things when they broke the ten-year old canoe record from Camp Rose to Jenner, with a non-stop ten hour and ten-minute paddle down river, Sunday, July 3. The trip was one hour and fifteen minutes less than the eleven and a half hours that was established in 1940 by Stan Desmond and Johnny Jones. The record-smashing run was made without tipping over despite rough water, stiff winds, a strong incoming tide, and fog from Monte Rio on.
Keith got seasick from the rough tossing of tide and wind, and for a moment or so, the boys wondered if they were going to be able to finish the course, let alone break any records. Somewhere along the route the canoe was torn slightly, but didn’t leak enough to handicap the record seekers. The boy’s pace was so fast from the start that photographers who intended to catch the canoe and paddlers at various points along the river reached their stations a good hour too late.
Official starting time was 4:55 a.m., Sunday, and the boys pulled alongside the dock at Jenner-by-the-Sea at an official 3:10 p.m. that afternoon.
50 years ago – July 17, 1975
The girls are drawing crowds of proud parents
They wear bright “T” shirts with the name of their team proudly emblazoned on them, and they sometimes get confused about whether to hold on to the ball or throw it to first, in fact they do just about everything that parents have come to expect of young ball players. The only difference is that these aren’t boys, they’re girls. And they’re drawing crowds as large as the boys ever did. They are playing kickball and softball in a new city recreation department league.
It’s hard to figure out who is having more fun, the parents or the kids. The youngest players, those in the first through third grade, play kickball. Which, if you can’t remember, is just like softball except that a big rubber ball is kicked instead of batted. Twelve girls play on each team. For the older girls, those in the fourth through eighth grades, there is softball. The fifteen members on each team vary in their athletic ability, just as they do in size. Some can hit the ball as hard as any boy their size, others find the swinging not so easy. Some catch very well, others not so well. Regardless, they are competitive and the fans eat it up.
‘Flashbacks’ is compiled by docents of the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society. The Museum is open 11am to 4pm Wednesday through Sunday, at 221 Matheson St.
