‘A League of Their Own’ Grandstand Destroyed in Fire

The wooden grandstand, locker rooms, press box and dugout of Jay Littleton Ball Park, a baseball field in California that was featured in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” were destroyed in a fire on Thursday, a city spokesman said.

Aerial footage showed scorched debris ringing a grassy baseball diamond at the park in Ontario, Calif., which is about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

Firefighters responding to the fire at 11:25 p.m. local time on Thursday encountered flames engulfing the wooden structures of the stadium, which they were unable to save, Dan Bell, Ontario’s communications director, said on Saturday.

“This is an old-school, 1937, all-wood grandstand construction,” Mr. Bell said. “Once it lit, it just went up.”

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire. Mr. Bell said the city had closed the field to the public four years ago because of the dilapidated and dangerous condition of the grandstand. The city had been considering finding funds to restore it.

“A League of Their Own,” which also starred Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell and Tom Hanks, told the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a professional league founded in 1943 when many minor league teams were disbanded because the draft was sending players and other men to fight in World War II. The league lasted 12 seasons.

In one memorable scene from the movie, the character played by the actress Geena Davis does a split and makes a spectacular catch in front of the grandstand.

In addition to “A League of Their Own,” the ballpark served as a setting for the 1992 movie “The Babe,” starring John Goodman, and the 1988 movie “Eight Men Out.”

Representative Norma J. Torres, Democrat of California, whose district includes Ontario, said on social media on Friday that the site had been “generations of families’ favorite ballpark since the 1930s.”

The park, which the city designated a historic landmark in 2003, was originally called the Ontario Ball Park, home to the semiprofessional baseball team, the Ontario Merchants.

It was, at that time, a modern baseball facility with a wooden grandstand that could seat 3,500, team locker rooms and a press box complete with radio transmission towers on the roof, according to a historic structure report conducted by the city in 2019.

Because wood construction was susceptible to fire, most professional baseball stadiums from the early 20th century were built with less flammable materials, such as brick, concrete and steel.

For economic reasons, amateur ball parks like Ontario’s continued to be built of wood, the report said.

The park was later renamed for Jay Littleton, a semiprofessional baseball player from Ontario who went on to work as a Major League Baseball scout, according to a 2003 obituary.