Dick Dobbins collection on the Pacific Coast League, 1866-1999, bulk bulk 1903-1999

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Summary

Abstract:
The Dick Dobbins collection includes materials pertaining mainly to the Pacific Coast League (PCL), and the teams that comprise the league. Material in the collection was created by Dobbins, as is the case of his audio interviews with PCL baseball players, coaches, staff, and others; or collected by Dobbins in his role as a baseball historian. The collection comprises records of the Pacific Coast League's head office, official publications, and materials relating to Pacific Coast League teams and individual players. Included are programs, scorecards, yearbooks, articles, final statistics, records, player sketches, blue books, baseball cards and photographs of teams, players, PCL staff, and stadiums. Teams with the largest amount of materials are the Oakland Oaks, the San Francisco Seals, and the Los Angeles Angels. Also included are typescripts for Dobbins' works on the Pacific Coast League, Nuggets on the Diamond and The Grand Minor League. Also included in the collection are scrapbooks and newspaper clippings on the league as a whole and for specific teams, and a small amount of material related to Major League Baseball.
Extent:
64 Linear Feet (52 boxes, 34 volumes, 18 albums, 6 oversize boxes)
Language:
Collection materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[identification of item, date] Dick Dobbins collection on the Pacific Coast League (MS 4031). California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The Dick Dobbins collection comprises materials pertaining to the Pacific Coast League (PCL), and teams that make up the league. Much of the material in the collection was created by Dobbins, such as his audio interviews with PCL baseball players, coaches, staff, and others, and his amateur photography taken and developed in his makeshift home darkroom, then later signed by the players. The collection also includes materials collected by Dobbins in his role as a baseball historian, including records of the Pacific Coast League's head office, official publications, programs, scorecards, yearbooks, articles, final statistics, records, player sketches, blue books, baseball cards and photographs (both official and his own), and of teams, players, PCL staff, and stadiums. Teams represented in the collection are the Oakland Oaks, the San Francisco Seals, and the entire PCL in general. Also included are typescripts for Dobbins' works on the Pacific Coast League, Nuggets on the Diamond and The Grand Minor League; scrapbooks and newspaper clippings on the league as a whole and for specific teams; and a small amount of material related to the Major League Baseball crossover when it came out to the West Coast.

Biographical / historical:

Dick Dobbins, born in Berkeley, and a resident of Alamo, California, began collecting baseball cards in 1946, the beginning of a life-long passion for the Pacific Coast League (PCL). In the late 1960s, after many years of collecting cards, photographs, and other PCL-related memorabilia, Dobbins developed a business dealing in baseball memorabilia. Later, he organized the first Northern California sports memorabilia show, which focused as much on the PCL as it did on Major League Baseball. He authored many articles on topics such as collecting memorabilia, the history of baseball in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the PCL. He was a consultant to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the San Francisco Examiner, and historian and free-lance photographer to the San Francisco Giants. In 1994 he authored (with co-author Jon Twichell) a definitive history of baseball in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nuggets on the Diamond. He subsequently authored The Grand Minor League: an Oral History of the Old Pacific Coast League, which was published posthumously in 1999. In 2019 he was inducted into the Pacific Coast League's Hall of Fame as Historian.

The Pacific Coast League (PCL) was founded in 1903, and consisted of four franchises from the California League - Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles - and two new franchises in Portland and Seattle. For the next 54 years, the PCL was the dominant baseball presence on the West Coast, eventually adding franchises in Hollywood and San Diego. For much of that time, the PCL had no contractual affiliation with the rest of professional baseball, and was often referred to as the "Third Major League." While major league teams from the American and National Leagues routinely negotiated with PCL teams for the rights to individual players, the PCL was not part of the major/minor league system. The PCL's talent pool was extraordinary, as evidenced by the number of National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees beginning their careers in the PCL, including Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, "Lefty" Gomez, the Waner brothers, Ernie Lombardi, and Harry Heilman.

As the population on the West Coast grew and transportation over longer distances became less time-consuming and expensive, there was a push to move Major League Baseball west. In 1958, the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the New York Giants to San Francisco, ending the unopposed popularity of the three most affluent PCL teams, as well as the independent status of the PCL. Shortly after the arrival of Major League Baseball to California, the PCL was incorporated into Major League Baseball's national farm club system. The PCL still operates as of 2009 as a AAA minor league, the most advanced classification below Major League Baseball.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Mrs. Judith P. Dobbins and family, December 1999. Transferred to Stanford University Librarie, 2025.
Processing information:

Processed by Wendy Welker and Tanya Hollis, with the assistance of Doug McWilliams, Matthew Kroot, and John C. Lamberson, 1999-2006. Funding for processing this collection was provided by Mrs. Judith Dobbins. Finding aid updated May 2025.

Arrangement:

Arranged mainly as received, organized by document type, in four series: Series 1: Pacific Coast League Records; Series 2: Printed Materials, Scrapbooks, and Clippings; Series 3: Dick Dobbins Personal Papers, Research Materials, Writings and Collections; Series 4: Photographs and Albums. Many documents were removed by Dick Dobbins and never refiled; Doug McWilliams, a colleague of Dobbins, assisted with the refiling of the documents in their original order.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Special Collections and University Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged three business days in advance. For more information on paging collections, see the department's website: https://library.stanford.edu/libraries/special-collections.

Terms of access:

While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/spc/using-collections/permission-publish.

Preferred citation:

[identification of item, date] Dick Dobbins collection on the Pacific Coast League (MS 4031). California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.

Location of this collection:
Department of Special Collections, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6004, US
Contact:
(650) 725-1022
chscollection@stanford.edu
Website