76 Ball fan Marcello Vavala reported earlier this week that there were signs that the station at Santa Monica and Sawtelle might be about to lose its ball. Sure enough, the ball was cut from its pole the next morning, and dragged away to be destroyed.

Sean McKinley snapped this photo with his phone:

And Marcello shares some observations, to help spot 76 Balls that face immediate danger. Unfortunately, we were not able to organize a protest to try to save this particular ball, but next time we might. PLEASE, if you see a 76 Ball that fits Marcello's description, drop us a line via our contact form ASAP.

Marcello reports: The new signage is up and the orange ball has been taken away. The replacement happened very fast, probably within 5 hours.

There are some observations I've made which may be helpful in the future (if they haven't been made already.)

1. The ball removal was the last phase of the remodel. If I remember correctly, the station itself received its red color scheme about a full month before the ball was removed. So perhaps that can be a signal for balls that will be removed soon--orange balls at red stations.

2. In this case, there was some site preparation. The area surrounding the pole was taped off--it was apparant that work was going to take place there. But just one day in advance.

3. The actual ball removal happened early in the morning. The pole was down at 8:30am so the work may have begun at 7am, maybe even 6am.

Hope this helps.

Marcello

76 Ball pal Arnold Fernandez created a piece of code that will make a graphic plea to Save the 76 Ball when added to your Myspace bulletin page. You can also use it as a comment to other users, and if they click on the picture they'll be taken to this site. Please consider helping to spread the word with the following piece of code--thanks! So you can see the code below, we have added some extraneous text. Anywhere you see the international sign for moolah ($), please delete that symbol.

$<$a href="http://www.savethe76ball.com" target="_blank"$><$img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/KiSsElOMeLo/Chevy%20Dreams/savethe76card_168.jpg" border="0" alt="Save The 76 Ball"$>$<$/a>$

And please be the 76 Ball's friend by visiting his Myspace account, http://www.myspace.com/savethe76ball

Ronald Smith recently sent us an email:

The fleet oiler USS Mispillion made the 76 ball a welcome sight to ships of the US 7th fleet during the Viet Nam war. Thanks Union Oil for providing one of your rotating 76 balls, which we mounted on the second deck over looking the stern of our ship. The 76 ball became a familiar sight to aircraft carriers, destroyers, even the hospital ship "Repose" and the battleship "New Jersey" as they approached the floating "76 Station" on station with the 7th Fleet. The USS Mispillion broke every existing record for supplying fuel and supplies during that deployment! The 76 ball was our symbol, and we took great pride in it!

And thanks to the kind folks at the USS Mispillion website, we can share a view of that brave 76 Ball with you!

Save the 76 Ball! It's a veteran!