Coming Sunday: The recognition of L.A. baseball past

Dick Beverage, a national president for the Society for American Baseball Research and head of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society, tries to help others figure out from a map how the old Vernon Park was laid out nearly 100 years ago on the corner of 38th and Irving in the city of Vernon, about three miles south of downtown L.A. during Saturday's Los Angeles Former Baseball Sites Tour.

You wind through a maze of former meat packing plants and current donut/Chinese food restaurants, gentlemen's clubs and abandoned warehouses, in parts of Los Angeles you really aren't sure you care exist.

But to see the sites of five former ballparks that have come and gone from the city's historical cradle, it's what you need to be prepared for. And, in the end, it's worth the trip.

We took part on the first Society for American Baseball Research five-hour busride tour through L.A. to see how some of the deceased ballparks have been remembered. In some cases, they're in dire need of recognition.

Starting at Washington and Hill streets near the 10 Freeway in the Furniture and Decorative Arts District (bet you didn't even know that's what it was called) and ending up at CBS' Television City near Farmer's Market, we wound through the town trying to imagine just how alive baseball was on the minor (and even brief major) league levels, going back as far as the early 1900s.

Covering the sites of Washington Park, Vernon Park, Wrigley Field, the Coliseum and Gilmore Field, we've got the highlights and photos snapped along the way. We'll include more details on Sunday.