Riverside Press-Enterprise feature: Keep 76 ball rolling

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

BOB PRATTE

David Hamm, the affable owner of the Palm Desert 76 gas station on Highway 111, heard good news last week.

His station will be a rare location with one of those 76 balls that became endangered when the chain's owner, ConocoPhillips, began taking them away. I am not aware of another station in the Coachella Valley or San Gorgonio Pass with a 76 ball. Hamm, instead of lamenting its loss, now can cheer.

"We thought we were going to have to get rid of it," said the station's manager, Dennis Finnell.

Hamm was saddened by the planned loss of the ball but did not fight its proposed removal. Finnell said Hamm was glad to hear a ball will be on his property.

The orange 76 ball, which debuted at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, was a familiar symbol to Southern California drivers since the 1960s.

Hamm's station was doomed to lose the ball in a few months during the installation of new signs and the painting of a red-and-white ConocoPhillips color scheme, which retains the old 76 logo, but in red.

The 76 stations on Beaumont Avenue near Interstate 10 in Beaumont and Hargrave Street off the freeway in Banning both received the red-and-white treatment but do not have balls. The Smoke Tree 76 in Palm Springs lacks a ball too.

ConocoPhillips, which acquired the 76 stations in 2002, began taking the old balls down a year later. Upset people started opposition Web sites and circulated petitions to try to save the balls.

ConocoPhillips marketing specialists, concerned about the backlash, relented and announced they would have balls at 100 high-profile stations. The Palm Desert station was chosen, but the ball won't be the nostalgic orange globe that now is in place. ConocoPhillips is replacing the orange balls with a new, red version displaying the 76 logo.

People love the old orange ball. In the gas biz, there is little affection for high prices and a lack of service. Why not keep something that is liked?

The choice of Hamm's service station is particularly appropriate. He actually provides service. He only charges a few cents extra for full-service gas pumping, customers know attendants by name and mechanics work on cars. It's an old-school place where the orange ball would be a symbol of small-business values from another era.

Monty Sabbah, owner of the 76 station on Monroe Street in Indio, was not so lucky. He lost his 76 ball during his station's repainting last spring. He wasn't even allowed to truck the old orange ball home. "They took it away," he said.

His customers were saddened by its removal. They told him it was a symbol that endured from their youth.

Sabbah said he only sees a few remaining 76 balls in Los Angeles and is not aware of any in the desert or Pass, besides the Palm Desert station.

"I like the old 76 ball," he said. "You remember it from years ago.

"It was sad. The 76 station in Smoke Tree Village in Palm Springs lacks a 76 ball too. We still have pictures and the memories."

Sabbah also has a small supply of those old 76 orange antenna balls. He's not a stingy man. In the tradition of the orange ball, he's willing to give them away to the first customers who ask.

Reach Bob Pratte at 951-763-3452 or bpratte@PE.com

On October 28, the intrepid J. Eric Freedner made a fascinating discovery...

"This may make Kim sad and Earl mad, but I found Swain Sign Installers on 5th Street in Ontario, CA late this afternoon. Here's what I saw: New 76 "hubcap" signs ready to go. Ironically, an old orange 76 sign (flat style) can be seen from the alley, across I-10 Freeway. Rows of new ConocoPhillips 76 price signs, all in crates. This is definitely the source of the new signs! Whether Swain makes them on site or just gets them in and only installs them, I do not know. Another view of the new 76 signs... And now the sad stuff... An old 76 ball, broken into pieces and stuffed into a big roll-off, awaits a final trip to the dump! This is the only one I saw at Swain's - none stored at the yard - so I guess they break them up as they come in and have them hauled away? At least I caught up with this before the sun went down. What can I say, other than sometimes preserving gas history is a bit painful?"

David Palmer of Pacific Grove, CA spotted a rare and hideous sight last week: a native Californian 76 Ball on its pole, flattened and riding to its grave on a misty coastal highway. Bearing all its heavy spherical weight on its face, the poor, disgarded ball was actually caving in on its underside.

THIS is how little ConocoPhillips thinks of the beloved 76 Ball brand.

In Pacific Grove, the local ball still spins... but for how long? And here are some more handsome spheres from along the Monterey Coast. Below: so clean it sparkles! (not like the grubby balls in L.A.) Below: even in thick fog, the blue and orange shine brightly.

Thank you, David, for your invaluable documentation and devotion to the cause.

Visit David's Lighthouse Avenue blog.

Reporter Darleene Powells, who filed a swell piece on our 1947project Crime Bus tour earlier this year, was witness to this sad scene as she drove to the Y this morning:

Yes, that is the wonderful spinning ball at Monterey and Avenue 60 in the tiny NE Los Angeles township of Hermon, the same ball featured on the KTLA Morning News' feature on the Save the 76 Ball campaign.

Darleene notes: I'd read about this a couple of times on Franklin Avenue (here, here and here) and later noted to myself, a little smugly, that the 76 station near my house still featured its meatball. I have to admit I was hoping that this 76 station, tucked into an area of Los Angeles doesn't feel like Los Angeles, would escape notice, but alas. There goes the ball, sitting sadly on its 6.

It's ironic, as we enter the Easter season, to see this icon of modern design pulled down from its pole... perhaps not such a huge leap to the image of the dead Christ taken down from the cross? Like Christ, we hope our beloved 76 Balls will be resurrected, as ConocoPhillips crunches the numbers and sees that since consumers do have a choice, many of them are no longer shopping where the 76 Ball doesn't fly.

Save the 76 Ball! It's not too late!