Stockton Mariners

California League (1978)

Tombstone

Born: September 15, 1977 – California League expansion franchise¹
Re-Branded: 1978 (Stockton Ports)

First Game: April 13, 1978 (W 4 -2 vs. Lodi Dodgers)
Last Games: August 31, 1978 (L 6-2 @ Visalia Oaks)

California League Championships: None

Stadia

Billy Hebert Field
Opened: 1953

Ownership & Affiliation

Owner: Joe Gagliardi

Major League Affiliation: Seattle Mariners

Attendance

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Print Download

Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007

Background

At the end of the 1972 season, the city of Stockton lost its long-time California League minor league baseball franchise after 27 seasons. During that entire stretch from 1946 through 1972 the local nine were known as the Stockton Ports.

In 1978 the California League added expansion clubs in Stockton and Bakersfield to build the circuit’s membership back to eight ball clubs. Long-time Cal League owner and exec Joe Gagliardi backed the Stockton franchise. He soon struck an affiliation with the American League’s Seattle Mariners for the new Stockton club. Stockton would take on the ‘Mariners’ name for the 1978 season.

Stockton finished its only season as a Seattle farm club with a 63-77 record under field manager Bobby Floyd. Pitcher Jim Lewis (12-11, 2.12 ERA with 14 complete games) was Stockton’s lone representative on the California League’s post-season All-Star team.

Nine Stockton Mariners eventually made it to the Major Leagues. The most notable was the late Dave Henderson, an affable outfielder who became a cult hero among Boston Red Sox fans for his series-saving walk-off home run against the California Angels in the 1986 American League Championship Series. Hendu would later win a World Series ring with the Oakland Athletics in 1989.

One and Done

A complicated postseason shuffle of ownership stakes, Major League affiliations and league memberships saw the Mariners era in Stockton come to an end after only one summer. Stockton Mariners owner Joe Gagliardi had also operated the San Jose Missions of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League in 1977 and 1978, but did so under a lease from the team’s actual owner, Save Mart Supermarkets baron Bob Piccinini. When Piccinini sold his Pacific Coast League franchise to a new owner in Utah in the fall of 1978, Gagliardi brought San Jose back into the California League, where that city had been a league cornerstone for decades up until 1976. Gagliardi essentially moved his California League franchise from Stockton to San Jose, taking the Seattle Mariners affiliation with him to the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, Stockton Mariners business manager Phil Hendricks applied for and received a California League expansion franchise for Stockton and secured a new affiliation with the Milwaukee Brewers. Hendricks revived the historic Stockton Ports identity for the 1979 season.

The Ports remain in Stockton and in the California League to this day.