Fire Destroys Historic Baseball Park Featured in A League of Their Own

The Jay Littleton Ball Park was destroyed in a fire Thursday night.

By Nicole Drum

This might be one time where it's okay to cry when it comes to baseball.  According to EW, The Jay Littleton Ball Park located in Ontario, California was destroyed in a fire that started on Thursday night. The field was a filming location for 1992's A League of Their Own. The park had also been featured in other films and television projects. It was built in 1937. In a press release, the Ontario Fire Department indicated that there were no victims in the fire and it's cause remains unclear. An investigation is ongoing.

"It's a terrible loss for our community, Ontario's director of communications Dan Bell said. "Everyone here either played or had relatives or kids who played on that field over the years. In 87 years of existence, a lot of people played on that field."

"When units arrived, they saw fully engulfed grandstands of the ballpark," Bell added. "So, they went into full attack mode and tried to put it out as quickly as possible, but being a wooden structure of grandstands from 1937, it went up pretty quickly. So, the end result is, unfortunately, a total loss of the grandstand structure. The grandstands are all gone, the dugouts are all gone, everything associated with being a spectator at that field is gone. The field itself is intact, but any observation area for a game is destroyed."

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The park grandstands were built in 1937 and the field was the home of the minor league Ontario Orioles for their one (and only) season in 1947. In addition to being a community landmark, the field has been featured in numerous Hollywood productions, including 1948's The Babe Ruth Story, 1988's Eight Men Out, a 1999 episode of X-Files, and both the 1992 A League of Their Own film and the more recent Amazon television series of the same name. Prior to the fire, the field – which was given historical landmark status in 2003 --  was still being used for both little league and high school games in the Ontario community and it is possible that they will rebuild, though it's something that will need to be evaluated.

"We'll have to look at what we're gonna do in the future with that field" Bell said. "Being such a significant part of our city's history, we'll look at how we move forward with it."

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