John Spalding

John Edward Spalding

Resident of San Jose

Born in Oakland in 1930, died on March 14, 2012. He is survived by Barbara, his wife of nearly 60 years; his son, Ken Spalding (wife, Mary) of Dayton, NV; daughters, Kathy Spalding (husband, Bill Brungardt) and Janet Spalding Weinberger (husband, Steve) of Sebastopol, and grandchildren Joan Brungardt and Hannah and Hank Weinberger.

John and Barbara grew up in San Leandro and were classmates at San Leandro High School, graduating in June, 1948. John attended Santa Rosa Junior College and City College of San Francisco before enlisting in the Navy in December, 1950. He served four years as an enlisted man aboard the patrol frigates USS Hoquiam (PF-5) and USS Everett (PF-8) and the destroyer escort USS Alvin C. Cockrell (DE-366) in the Pacific during the Korean War. After his honorable discharge in 1954, John came to San Jose with Barbara and attended San Jose City College during the spring semester in 1955. He attended San Jose State, covering sports and student government for the Spartan Daily. He was graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism and a history minor in February, 1957, and went to work for the San Jose News as a general assignment reporter two days later. Following the four-month San Jose newspaper strike that ended in June, 1959, John was assigned to cover San Jose City Hall for both the Mercury and News. He continued in that assignment until 1970, when he became the city's first administrative assistant to the mayor. He held the position with Mayors Ron James, Norman Mineta and Janet Gray Hayes before returning to the Mercury News in 1975 where he was a reporter, rewrite man and editor until his retirement in January, 1991.

Retirement gave him the chance to pursue his interests in both history and sports. John wrote and self-published five books, four about minor league baseball in the 19th Century California League ("Always on Sunday") and the 20th Century Pacific Coast League ("Pacific Coast Stars," Vols. 1 & 2, and "Sacramento Senators and Solons") , and concluded his days as an author in 2000 with "A History of Sports in Santa Clara County, 1900-1999." As one of the country's major collectors of pre-1942 sports cards and memorabilia, John was a regular columnist from the 1970s into the late 1990s for numerous sports collector publications, including Sports Collectors Digest, the hobby's most influential publication.

From 1995 until he resigned in 2005, John was a member of, first, the San Jose Hall of Fame Selection Committee and later the San Jose Hall of Fame Board of Directors. He was a member of the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame Selection Committee. In 2000, John became historian for the California Interscholastic Federation's Central Coast Section, which oversees the operations of high school sports from San Francisco to King City. The results of his work can be seen on the CCS web site's history section. John also provided historic articles and information about champions dating back to 1914 in all sports to the CIF's San Francisco Section, which has posted this material on its web site. He researched and provided similar information about champions to the Bay Area's two other CIF entities, the North Coast Section and Oakland Section.

His continuing interest in high school sports led John to spend many of his free hours since 2000 as the chief researcher for the Bay Area Sports Stars website, a 35,000-name data base that lists the achievements of outstanding coaches, high school athletes and other sports figures who attended any of the the more than 300 high schools that exist in the San Francisco Bay Area's nine counties. His other major pastime was watching basketball at all levels. A self-described "hoops junkie," John was a spectator at more than 9,000 high school, junior college, college and professional games in the 60-plus years between 1945 and his death. For 10 years in the 1970s and early 1980s, John operated the 24-second shot clock at half of the Golden State Warriors' home games. He also was a referee for the Warriors' Girls League during the two years it's four teams played preliminary and half-time exhibition contests at the pro team's home games.

No services will be held and the Neptune Society will scatter his ashes.