The Pacific Coast League

[Michael Hopcroft]

All the historical PCL markets from the era in the 1940s and 50s when the league threatened to achieve top-flight major league status exist. This has caused me to run some projects with the PCL core franchises, either alone or in combination with the Federals. There's only one problem; the game does not include dimensionally accurate representations of most of the PCL parks of that era, and certainly photographs are lacking.

Someone sent me a list of the PCL parks a while back, that including partial dimensions. However, these are not going to be quite enough to build them to play the way they did historically. A PureSim park includes nine dimensional benchmarks for very good reasons, and you ignore LCF and the like at your peril.

Mind you, there are some exceptions, Seals Stadium in San Francisco, LA Wrigley Field and Sick's Stadium in Seattle ARE included because they hosted the major leagues for at least a few seasons. But Oaks Stadium in Oakland, Vaughn Street Park and Multnomah/Civic stadium in Portland, and many other PCL parks are not included. I do not have the information to build them accurately, nor do I know how to save and reuse the results once I do.

Can anyone advise me?

[Myron T]

I think if you create the team, select Ballpark, then put in the dimensions. Select Export and name it It will name it as a .prk file

Then try and import it to that team

Hope that works !!

[Michael Hopcroft]

Thanks. Now I just need to either get the complete data resent to me or figure out how to extrapolate to avoid absurd results.

[Myron T]

You also might check in the Ball Park area of the team. Click on modify ballpark, select prebuilt ballpark

I think some off those might already be in the game

[Michael Hopcroft]

I know that Multomah Civic Stadium and Vaught Street park in Portland, Emeryville Field in Oakland, and the stadiums in San Diego, Hollywood, Sacramento and Vancouver are not included. The only old-time PCL parks represented are LA Wrigley Field (Los Angeles Angels), Seals Stadium (San Francisco Seals) and Sicks Stadium (Seattle Raniers). All three of these parks would briefly play host to Major League clubs, hence their inclusion. The Giants played in Sicks until Candlestick park was completed, the Angels played at werigley for a little while once they joined the American League in the first expansion, and Sicks Stadium would play host to the one season of the Seattle Pilots in 1969.

A source of historical phtographs from the proper angles would be very handy for projects like these.

[Lee Graves]

Well, Michael, I'm sorry I can't offer any PCL ballpark dimensions to help you, but I do have a picture of LA's Wrigley Field on My Page. My dad used to take me there in the late '40's, and it was (I believe) about as close to a major league stadium as any minor league park in the country...I wish you success in digging up accurate dimensions of those old fields. I spent the summers of l945 through 1950 visiting my aunt and uncle in Sacramento. All of us guys were big PCL fans, and went to many Sunday double-headers in Edmonds Field. I was in Sacramento in 1948 when a fire one night burned it to the ground; but, it was re-built in time for the 1949 season...PCL teams played each other in seven-game series, Tuesday through Sunday, with a nine and seven inning double-header on Sundays. Monday was travel day. By-the-way, it was about a 12-hour train ride from LA to Sacramento (the Southern Pacific Daylight). I guess teams from Seattle and Portland worked their way down south and back again, to keep their travel times within reason...

If you put together a Pacific Coast League association I hope you will post it as a template, so fans like me can revive some fond memories of that period...Have you been to this site: http://members.tripod.com/~acorns/solons/index.html? Use the little blue links at the bottom of the home screen for historical info. I didn't see any park dimensions there, however...Best of luck, Lee

[Michael Hopcroft]

Oh, I've put together the Pacific Coast league quite a few times (not stocked with PCL players, of course), but the principal problem remains the parks. The association itself is easy unless you want to account for the extra-long schedule and series lengths that PCL teams played in that era.

Heck, even expanding the current major leagues by two teams cayuses PureSim's association manager to break (it doesn't have a structure that lets you do less than six expansion teams from the current setup). I'd just completed three successful; years GMing the Seattle mariners from 2001-03 (three trips to the World Series and two wins) and wanted to take over an expansion Portland beavers club. Since the Montreal franchise had been very successful on the field, I wanted to put an expansion team in Washington (the Washington Grays) and put them both in the American league so each would have 16 teams. The current division structure would have been left intact, with Portland sliding into the west and Washington giving the East a sixth team. But the PureSDim structure did not allow for that!