Bakersfield Blaze

California League (1995-2016)

Background

Bakersfield, California was a mainstay of the Class A California League for 75 years. Between the league’s formation in 1941 and the Blaze’s final season in 2016, Bakersfield had a team in the circuit summer except for 1976-1977 and 1980-1981. Bakersfield was also one of the largest cities by population in the California League, smaller only than Fresno and San Jose.

The Blaze were the last of Bakersfield’s many Cal League ball clubs, making its home at Sam Lynn Park for 22 summers between 1995 and 2016.

The Blaze formed in late 1994 after Bakersfield’s long-time Major League patron, the Los Angeles Dodgers, decamped to San Bernardino. Unable to secure a new Major League player development contract immediately, Bakersfield owner Lowell Patton re-branded the team as the Blaze for the 1995 season and set up shop as a dreaded “co-op” team. Co-op teams were (the practice is now forbidden by Major League Baseball) ball clubs that cobbled together rosters of lightly regarded farm hands on loan from multiple Major League organizations and other assorted free agents and castoffs.

The Blaze endured two brutal summers as a co-op team in 1995 and 1996. The 1996 Blaze lost an astounding 101 out of 140 games. In all of organized baseball, only the Major League Detroit Tigers (53-109) lost more games than the Blaze that summer.

Bakersfield snagged a player development contract with the San Francisco Giants prior to the 1997 season, bringing the co-op era to an end.

Notable Names

Key future Major League stars who played in Bakersfield during the Blaze era included:

• Outfielder Josh Hamilton (Blaze ’02) won the American League MVP Award with Texas in 2010
• Pitcher James Shields (Blaze ’03’-’04)
• Pitcher C.J. Wilson (Blaze ’05)
• Pitcher Edinson Volquez (Blaze ’06-’07) pitched a no-hitter for the Miami Marlins in 2007
• Shortstop Elvis Andrus (Blaze ’07) developed into a two-time All-Star for the Texas Rangers
• First baseman Chris Davis (Blaze ’07) led the American League in RBI with Baltimore in 2013
• Catcher Yasmani Grandal (Blaze ’11)

Extinguished

Bakersfield held on stubbornly to its California League franchise into the 21st century despite the perilous condition of ancient Sam Lynn Park. Opened in 1941, the same year that the California League debuted, the park had challenged club owners in Bakersfield for decades. The diamond was installed facing west into the setting sun, requiring unconventionally late start times for night games.

The early 1990’s saw a minor league stadium building boom in the California League, particularly in the southern portion of the state. Bakersfield and Kern County officials declined to join in the orgy of ballpark construction and Sam Lynn Park rapidly fell behind modern stadium standards.

In 2012, local businessmen Gene Voiland and Chad Hathaway purchased the Blaze from the team’s absentee owner, the veteran minor league investor D.G. Elmore. Voiland and Hathway planned to raise $30 million in private financing for a new ballpark that would be park of the vast 260-acre Bakersfield Commons mixed use development project. But when Voiland and Hathaway’s fundraising effort fell well short of the goal, Blaze ownership reverted to Elmore. With the ballpark project dead, Bakersfield’s future in organized baseball was cast into serious peril.

Late in the 2016 season, California League officials announced the league would contract from 10 members down to eight for the 2017 season, while the Carolina League would add two expansion franchise to maintain the overall supply of Class A franchises in organized baseball. The Blaze and the Adelanto-based High Desert Mavericks were both set to be euthanized at the conclusion of the season.

The Blaze played their final game three weeks later.

Bakersfield Blaze Shop

Links

California League Media Guides

California League Programs

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