The 1958-1959 Season

 

 

On April 10, 1959, the San Francisco Bay Bombers would take on the Hollywood Ravens in the first National Roller Derby League regular season West Coast league game.

 

The venue was San Francisco's 14th Street Armory (pictured above) located on 14th and Mission Streets.  The Armory would be home for the Bay Bombers and the NRDL for most of the 1959 Western regular season.

 

However, before going on about the Western season, the actual league season would resume in the fall and winter of 1958.  Roller Derby would return.  It was announced that the season would begin in October 1958.  The Eastern/Midwestern portion of the season would skate games in New York, Chicago and Miami Beach per sources.  An isolated number of games would take place in Buffalo, New York, Minneapolis and Green Bay.

 

The latter part of the season would be on the West Coast.  While most of the games focused on the San Francisco Bay Area, there were some games in the San Joaquin Valley and as far away as Seattle, Washington.   

 

The New York Chiefs would begin with home series against the Chicago Westerners, Brooklyn Red Devils, Hollywood Ravens and the California (eventually) San Francisco Bay Bombers according to a 1958 program.  These games were at the 9th Regiment Armory in New York.

 

The Chicago Westerners had several series of their own.  They would face the Bombers and Los Angeles Braves at the Chicago Coliseum.

 

The remaining eastern team, the Brooklyn Red Devils, would skate their "home" games against the Bombers in Miami during the early portion of 1959.  The games were either at Miami Stadium or the Exhibition Hall. 

 

The Western season eventually would begin with the Ravens defeating the Bombers, 26-22 before a crowd of 3718.  This was despite the fact that the San Francisco Giants opened the 1959 Major League Baseball Season the same day!  The Bombers would eventually win the first ever series, 11 games to nine.

 

The Armory would continue to be a venue for visiting teams most of the season.

 

Over the remainder of the season, the Los Angeles Braves would defeat the Bombers in the second series, 11 games to 10.

 

In the third series, the Bombers would rebound taking the series from the Brooklyn Red Devils, five games to four by winning the final game.

 

The Bombers would split the next series with the New York Chiefs at five games apiece.

 

The Los Angeles Braves would return to the Bay Area only to have the Bombers get even with a 4-2 series triumph.

 

In late July-early August, the Chicago Westerners would make their first regular season appearance in the Bay Area and would nip the Bombers, seven games to five.

 

Then, for much of August, the Bombers would face an all star group known as the New York All Stars.  The 17 game series would go to the Bombers, nine games to eight.

Finally, the final series would be against the returning Westerners.  In the final Roller Derby game skated at the Armory, the Bombers would take three of the five game series by defeating Chicago, 22-20.  

 

The Bombers would win the 1959 regular season pennant and would go on to the Roller Derby World Series.  That series of two nights would begin on Thursday, September 3, 1959 at the Cow Palace.  More on the playoffs in the next post.

 

Here were the final 1958-1959 standings per the 1959 Roller Derby program.....

 

Bombers....................70-54     .564

Westerners................67-54     .554

Chiefs........................70-57     .551

Braves.......................53-47     .530

Red Devils.................46-71     .393

Ravens......................42-65     .3925