Sunday, January 29, 2012

Growing Up On A Field of Dreams




Whenever I share pictures of my hometown San Francisco, many ask "Why did you leave?" There's never a hesitation to respond that my sails wholeheartedly rode the winds of passion for theatre towards the East Coast.  My life in the theatre, however humble, has been a gateway to international travel, a balanced corporate life with matching skill sets, perennially produced cabarets, and my new experiences as a Broadway show investor.

As a young musical theatre hopeful, I would dim the living room lamps, open the curtains overlooking our quiet street, and bask in moon glow as I sing thru the score of "Cats".  This palatial home sits nestled amongst other Victorians in San Francisco's Inner Richmond cul de sac called Ewing Terrace. My recent yen for the warmth of home prompted a Christmas baking frenzy of shortbread cookies, as well as a google search of this stately sounding address of my youth - Ewing Terrace.

The search yielded an intriguing history of Ewing Field, which was a professional baseball field of the San Francisco Seals for only one season in 1914. I am far from being a baseball aficionado, but can relate to the fog that clouded the vision of many a baseball player and fanatic. That fog would roll down from University of San Francisco's Lone Mountain campus and greet me as I walked home from school. Somehow I don't think Seals owner Mr. Ewing had as fond of a recollection as his team played a lousy opening day game on May 16th 1914 due to the cold and fog that would symptomatically keep spectators away and confuse the ballplayers themselves in subsequent games. The team abandoned Ewing Field to return to Rec Park in 1915, leaving this $100,000 (approx 70m today) facility to its short lived reinventions until a spectator's lighted cigarette caused its demise in 1926.

Ewing Field stood vacant from 1926 until 1938 when the Catholic Church sold it to Heymann Homes for $150, 000. The old ballpark was demolished to make way for ninety five homes which sold for $7500-$8000,  sporting a subdivision with an "attractive pillared gateway entrance" and its homes with "gardened terraces similar to Presidio Terrace." Apparently, somewhere underneath one of the houses near Anza Street, probably still buried, is the historic Ewing Field time capsule - an iron chest containing names and photos of team players and other baseball memorabilia. It was buried a mere three feet beneath home plate on opening day 1914, so who knows how much further would I have had to dig to find such a treasure. 


"If you build it, they will come" is the frequently quoted line from the iconic 1989 baseball film, "Field of Dreams" starring Kevin Costner. Well, Mr. Ewing built it, and the Seals and their fans came. Although it was a relatively brief amount of time, his dream was nevertheless realized, and his field ensconced in San Francisco's baseball history.

There were many a nights I would fall asleep looking out my bedroom window onto our garden terrace and Anza's streetlights. While a part of me now thinks "If I only knew then...", the other part of me pays homage to Mr. Ewing's love for baseball ~ letting the time capsule serve its purpose (as it has for me) in being a field of dreams for those now living in my home on Ewing Terrace.