Before College Glen Little League was born, area kids played baseball at American River Little League, which was located near the corner of Manlove and Kiefer, on the same property as the Rosemont Cabana Club. The league was growing quite large in the early 1970s, and parents began wishing for a closer Little League option for our own neighborhood. Around this time word got out that the land that American River LL and the swim club sat on was going to be sold to a developer (which is why the Rosemont Cabana Club no longer exists). All of these factors together were the impetus for a hard working group of local parents to decide it was time to get to work on establishing a Little League to call our own!
The year was 1974. These parents formed the original Board of Directors and came up with the name College Glen, honoring both the College Greens and Glenbrook neighborhoods, which were the league’s original boundaries. The first charter was obtained from Little League International in the Fall of 1974, so College Glen LL had arrived, without even having a permanent location identified.
The Board had a financial donor lined up who was planning to fund a good amount of the money necessary to get the league started, including buying a parcel of land at the corner of La Riviera and Streamview. Unfortunately at some point the donor fell through. Not to be discouraged, these dedicated parents literally went door to door around the neighborhood collecting money for the league. They set up a booth at the flea market (then known as Auction City Flea Market) on November 3, 1974, with donated discards and made $250. All in all, many thousands of dollars were raised from the community. The kids still needed a place to play though.
The area on the corner of La Riviera and Streamview was owned by Sacramento City Unified School District at that time, and was just a big open field with lots of weeds and uneven mounds of dirt. Only cyclone fences separated it from the recently completed Highway 50 (the sound barrier walls wouldn’t come along for another couple of decades). Without the donor’s financial backing, the Board sought the help of our City Council representative. Thankfully there was much less red tape in those days, and a lease was negotiated with the school district and finalized on December 1, 1974. College Glen LL officially had its land!
Now the real fun began, as these hard working parents began the massive task of preparing a place to play baseball out of the weeds and dirt piles, and trying to have it ready for Opening Day in April. In early 1975, construction company Teichert donated two pieces of heavy equipment for a weekend, and in just two days the land was surveyed and graded, home plate locations were marked, and the now-leveled dirt was ready to build upon. An irrigation system was dug, and grass was planted for the outfields. On a rainy Saturday that Spring, many parents helped out with the heavy job of rolling out the sod for the infield. The original three diamonds were beginning to take shape.
The herculean construction task was completed, but not quite in time for College Glen LL’s very first Opening Day, which was held April 12, 1975. The first games of our inaugural season were actually held at Bancroft Elementary, but not for long. It is quite the impressive accomplishment that the brand new fields were ready just two short weeks later, and the first games ever played at the College Glen LL complex happened on Saturday, April 26, 1975.
There were 315 players that first season on 26 teams competing in Farm, Minors, Majors, and Seniors (13-15 year olds) divisions. A Big League team (16-18 year olds) came the next year, and Pee Wees debuted in 1979. The fields were mostly dirt at the beginning, and cones were set up instead of outfield fences, which were constructed in the next couple seasons. The cones were placed 250 feet from home plate on the Majors field! It was also difficult for umpires to determine from this distance whether a ball actually flew past the cones or bounced over them, leading to some early on-field disagreements. The original snack bar was no more than a tent set up over the original President’s trailer. It took about two to three years before everything was completely built out. There were many instances that Board members had to “pass the hat” during game days to raise money as more funds were needed for various improvement projects. There were even cheerleaders in the early years!
College Glen LL had its first taste of district-wide success in 1977, when one of its Majors teams, the Dodgers, went undefeated through the entire regular season, and also swept its way through TOC to win CGLL’s first ever championship banner. Many players from that team propelled the Majors All-Stars to win the district championship that year as well. Topping off the successful season was our Big Leaguers bringing home the title as well. Three years in, and College Glen LL had certainly established itself.
A permanent snack bar was completed in 1981, and the league continued to grow. The 1980s were a very successful decade for CGLL, with our Majors All-Stars winning the district championship in four out of five years from 1983 to 1987. The 1987 team also won the section championship, and remains the only team at the Majors level to ever advance to the State level. They won their first game at the State tournament held in Antioch, but eventually bowed out in the SemiFinals. Participation was at its highest during the 1980s, with often more than 30 teams and almost 400 players in most seasons.
Numbers began to decline in the 1990s, dropping below 300 players for the first time. A bright spot was 1992, when our Seniors All-Stars became the second CGLL team to advance to the State tournament. We added the Juniors division (13-14 year olds) in 1999, splitting off from Seniors (now 15-16 year olds), which would continue for another decade. Aside from a brief spike up in 2003, the decrease in players continued into the 2000s where the majority of seasons featured less than 200 players. The tide was beginning to turn however. Our Juniors Astros team won TOCs in back-to-back years, 2005 and 2006. Numbers began to climb again as a new generation of coaches began to make its mark. The new Tee Ball field debuted in 2007, moving that division front and center as everyone enters the complex, instead of out where the new Farm field (completed in 2021) currently resides.
College Glen LL hit its stride once again in the 2010s, averaging about 250 players, and winning championships almost every year. This time it was the Juniors All-Stars having the most success, winning the district title four times out of six seasons from 2012-2017. The 2015 team also won sections, and made it all the way to the State Championship game, losing a heartbreaker. Our Minors All-Stars teams also won districts three times during this decade.
Participation dipped significantly in 2021 of course as the nation hadn’t emerged out of the pandemic yet, but College Glen LL has now grown for three consecutive years and in 2024 we officially surpassed our pre-pandemic numbers.
The 2021 Majors All-Stars did something that no CGLL team at that level had done in 31 years. It took winning four straight games out of the loser’s bracket to do it, including a thrilling comeback in the championship game against the team that had sent them to the loser’s bracket in the opening game of the tournament, but CGLL had finally claimed another Majors All-Stars banner. The team would reach the championship game of the section tournament before ultimately getting knocked out. In 2022, the Major River Cats won the Tournament of Champions and the Junior All-Stars claimed the D5 Championship. The Junior Cubs kept the CG winning ways going with a TOC Championship in 2023. The 2024 post-season was a copy and paste of the 2015 post-season as both the Minor All-Stars and Junior All-Stars won the District 5 Championships, and the Juniors went on to capture the Section 4 Championship before ultimately getting knocked out in the semifinal of the State Tournament.
College Glen LL has won banners in five consecutive years (we’re ignoring 2020 of course when there were no tournaments), including six in just the last three years. All in, College Glen Little League has captured 44 championship banners in the history of the league!