File:Abalone League Historic Plaque.jpg

English: Photograph of the Abalone League Historic Plaque in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

"This was the site of the Charles and Helen van Riper house and the site of the baseball diamond for the Abalone League. The Carmel Cymbal newspaper described Carmel’s community obsession this way:

"There is, in this seaside town of Carmel, a baseball league the like of which does not exist in the rest of America. Six teams make it up, the indoor bat and ball are used, the players are a cross-section of present-day society – bankers, carpenters, artists, delivery boys, truck drivers, school teachers, housewives (for the women and girls play along with the men) running in ages from twelve to seventy years and with this so-called baseball played on a diminutive side-hill diamond among the pine trees overlooking the sea, with broomstick-like bat and grape-fruit like ball. There is seriousness, and at times a cave-man savagery, that causes the hair of those in control of the league to curl violently from the roots outward. One would think that the fate of the nation depended on the way in which the abalone league games are run and that the business of life consisted not in running grocery stores or selling real estate, but in winning one’s game on Sunday afternoon.”