Publication Date: Wednesday Oct 14, 1998

Batter up! Meet the Mayfield nine of 1898

Since the end of the Civil War, baseball has always been one of the nation's favorite sporting activities. Back at the turn of the century, amateur baseball was the most popular form of the game. Small cities and communities would field their own teams, then travel down the road a piece to play a rival.

The accompanying photograph is my favorite from the 5,000-plus images in the Palo Alto Historical Association's archives. It is an image of the Mayfield baseball team on June 30, 1898. Mayfield was the community centered around present-day El Camino Real and California Avenue and annexed to Palo Alto in 1925.

We know little about the success of the Mayfield team on the field. It competed against teams from nearby towns, sometimes traveling as far as Gilroy. Their home field was Dornberger's Grove, a privately owned parcel at Page Mill Road and Park Boulevard.

The Mayfield players were the sons and grandsons of some of the earliest residents of what is now Palo Alto.

There were three Mesas on the team. Brothers Joe and Tony shared pitching and right field, and Jack Mesa was the shortstop. The brothers were grandsons of Juana Briones, who came to this area in 1844, retiring from a busy life in Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). John Soto, the catcher, was a cousin of Lucas Greer, the last of the Greer family to live in the family home at Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real, where Town & Country Shopping Center is today.

Ed Dornberger, the second baseman, was the son of Lambert Dornberger, the owner of the parkland where they played. Lambert Dornberger was a native of Alsace-Lorraine (as were many early residents of Mayfield), having settled in Santa Clara County in 1856. Ed was a member of Palo Alto High School's pioneer class of 1887, and after attending Stanford University had a career as a dentist.

Adolph Dubs, centerfielder and team captain, was the son of Michael Dubs, another native of Alsace-Lorraine, who was a business partner of Lambert Dornberger. The family home was on Page Mill Road, where Adolph most likely was born. Other players on the team included Howard Hogan at first base; Tommy Walley in left field, and Jack Maloney guarding the line at third.

Next door to Mayfield, on the fledgling Stanford campus, baseball had also taken firm root.

From its beginning in 1891, baseball has always played a part in Stanford's campus life. The intercollegiate Stanford baseball team of 1898 fielded a competitive team. It appears the major problem for the team was finding suitable opponents. Aside from the Santa Clara and the University of California, there were no local schools fielding teams in 1898, so the Stanford team also played games against a group of alumni and the Olympic Club of San Francisco.

Baseball games were also played between the classes. In 1897, the freshmen beat the sophomores 25-9, while the seniors were drubbed by the juniors, 18-1. In the championship game, the frosh won 6-5 over the juniors. Members of the intercollegiate baseball team joined fellow classmates in forming these class teams.

The most interesting baseball games on campus during the 1890s were the annual faculty/student games. There is a famous photograph of university President David Starr Jordan with a baseball bat in his hands awaiting the next pitch from the student pitcher. While there is no record on the outcome of his at-bat, Jordan and his faculty teammates enjoyed a long winning streak against the students in their annual game.

It should be remembered that the early Stanford faculty was a relatively young group of men and women. President Jordan was 40 years old when the school opened in 1891, and he was referred to as the 'old man.' Several of his staff were still in their 20s at a time when the students were nearly as old.

The secret weapon accounting for the faculty's success against the students was James Perrin Smith, Stanford's professor of paleontology. Smith was a highly successful pitcher during his college days at Vanderbilt University. He would spend his summers pitching in semipro leagues in Tennessee between school terms. A friend enticed him to pitch for a professional team, which he did under an alias for one game. After winning the game, he retired from baseball to concentrate on his academic pursuits, except to pitch the faculty-student game each year. It is reported that he did not lose a game until he was in his 40s.



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