A kid standing out in a canyon for hours, all by himself, holding a burlap sack -- waiting for a nonexistent animal to run towards him.

A young man pulling up trees with his bare hands.

What possibly could all this mean?

Why, it's the Cubs on Catalina, of course!

The Chicago Cubs trained in Avalon from 1921-1951. Which might get you to wondering: what exactly did they do while they were on the Island?

Plenty. Plenty of baseball, of course -- but plenty of antics, pranks, and merriment too. After all, they were strapping young men, far from home, largely unsupervised, and it was -- for the most part -- the roaring '20s and the glitzy heyday of the Island's glamour years, the '30s.

"My first Spring Training ever was on Catalina," smiles former Cub Bob Kelly. "It's a long way back down to earth from there!"

Johnny Klippstein felt the same way: "You'd wake up in the morning and think, 'This must be a dream, being out here on an island.' "

In fact, the lure of Catalina actually extended Billy Rogell's career. After being traded from Detroit to the Cubs, "I was ready to quit in 1939 -- but my wife wanted to go to Catalina!" Even when camp ended and Billy hit the road, his family decided to stay behind. "After I left, Mum -- I called her Mum -- she spent a month there. We took our two boys out."

"Mother always had a twinkle in her eye when she talked about that place," says Charlie Owen (Mickey's son).

The team escaped the wind chills of Chicago Februarys to take the Santa Fe to Los Angeles. They'd hop either the S.S. Avalon or the S.S. Catalina for the ride over -- except the last few seasons, when they flew, and 1942, when they took water taxis because of wartime fears.

They trained in French Lick, Indiana, from 1943-1945 -- and practiced in a barn to avoid the snow. "It was so cold," Phil Cavarretta recalls, "even the horse droppings were frozen."

A long way down from Catalina, indeed.

While on the Island, they'd use the Country Club as their locker room. Sometimes the team would stay at the Atwater Hotel or Las Casitas, but usually it was Catalina's long-gone grand resort at Descanso Cove.

"We stayed at the Hotel St. Catherine," Della Root Arnold (Charlie's daughter) recalls. "It was beautiful. They had a great big lobby with oriental rugs and big, soft furniture. They had a jewelry store and a little curio shop. The dining room was all glass, overlooking the ocean. Off to the left, they had this little room where the guests could play pool.

"The island itself hasn't changed much, but it's sad to see where the St. Catherine was -- it was such a beautiful hotel. It was a time that will never happen again."

After a few weeks, they'd head Overtown for some exhibition games at Wrigley Field...then back on the train for the return trip to Chicago.

They were in L.A. in 1933 when the Long Beach Earthquake hit -- staying in the downtown Biltmore, which swayed seven feet. They were about to continue their exhibition series against the New York Giants, which had started on the Island. The Giants had come over in 1932 too, bringing a bevy of stars like Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, and manager John J. McGraw to play on Catalina.

Islanders usually tossed a big parade for the Cubs when they arrived at the Steamer Pier. The costumes and music confused a rookie or two, though: "Say, Mr. Grimm. I thought we were going to Catalina Island. Isn't this place Mexico?" teenage pitcher Johnny Hutchings asked his manager in 1936.

Rookies were often sent in search of the nonexistent bowling alleys belowdeck during the channel crossing -- but the greatest prank of all time took place right on the island in the late '20s.

Roy Hansen appeared to the veterans that he'd just fallen off a turnip truck, so he was the ideal candidate for a snipe hunt. (The snipe is closely related to the jackalope, a creature which looks like a rabbit with antlers but has never been seen by human eyes, either.) The rules of play: Two of the older ballplayers hand Roy a burlap bag and position him at the bottom of a Catalina canyon. The snipe hunt goes best when two people chase 'em into the gully from opposite walls of the mountains -- so the rookie is in the perfect spot to catch a few of the confused beasts in his sack.

Young Roy waited...and waited...and waited...until hours later, he trudged back to the hotel after sunset -- where he found the entire Cub team waiting for him in the lobby, falling over with laughter. From that moment on, Roy Hansen became known as Snipe Hansen -- a name so ingrained that it's even how he's listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia.

The boys found other ways to amuse themselves. Kiki Cuyler and trainer Andy Lotshaw often won dancing contests at the Casino, for instance, and they occasionally invited Big Band members to suit up and work out with the team.

Movie stars were aplenty. One of the Cubs, pitcher Clay Bryant, dated starlet Grace Bradley on Catalina. She made more than 50 films, and married William Boyd -- otherwise known as Hopalong Cassidy. She's in her eighties now, still teaching exercise classes at a retirement center Overtown. "Catalina was a great place -- very alive, things going on, people had their boats," she says. "There were beautiful little places there; it was a great little getaway."

Phil Cavarretta was playing ping-pong in the hotel basement in 1936 when Betty Grable marched over and grabbed his paddle. "I can beat you," she boasted. With his manhood on the line in front of all his mates, young Cavy had to give it everything he had -- but he managed to prevail.

Chuck Connors played for the '51 Cubs on Catalina -- before he became a star. "Chuck Connors owes me money," protests Avalon native Marcelino Saucedo. "They'd come to our games, and say they'd give us a quarter for each hit we got," Marse says. "But if we'd go something like three-for four, and try to get 75 cents after the game, they wouldn't pay us -- Connors would say something like, 'Nah, bloopers don't count. We meant line drives!' "

And then there's Dutch Reagan...

Dutch was a young radio announcer for the Cubs in the '30s. He came over with the team in 1936 and 1937 -- when he hopped over to Hollywood for a screen test and changed careers. The grizzled, grumpy old newspapermen didn't approve of the newfangled medium -- or its announcers -- so they didn't exactly treat young Dutch well. One night, things boiled over at an Avalon watering hole. 'Jimmy the Cork' Corcoran, a Chicago reporter, took a swing at Reagan. Reagan ducked, and the punch landed solidly into the large girth of Ed Burns, another sportswriter. Dutch avoided any damage to his face, so his screen test could proceed without incident...just a few days later.

Dutch, of course, did changed careers (not to mention the name he answered to) and became a movie star. He decided to become Governor of Catalina (and the rest of California) later on, then leader of the free world. He currently resides Overtown with his wife, Nancy.

All these extracurricular antics should not suggest that the Cubs did not work hard here. They practiced enough to get to the World Series several times while training in Avalon (1929, 1932, 1935, and 1938). They brought several managers over -- like Rogers Hornsby, Charlie Grimm, Frankie Frisch, and Roy Johnson (whose lifetime managerial record is 0-1). Actually, they didn't really have to bring Roy -- also known as Hard Rock -- because the long-time Cub coach lived on Catalina for several years.

As time went by, a few locals managed to earn a tryout with the team. Conrad Lopez impressed Grimm enough that the Cubbies gave him a contract in 1948. Conrad was assigned to Bisbee (in Arizona), where he hit with such authority that he was promoted to Visalia. Alas, he got sick and then went off to Korea...and never went back to baseball.

Barber Lolo Saldaña had a tryout that same afternoon -- but didn't fare as well. Grimm watched Lolo win the city golf championship; impressed with the teen's athleticism and ability to perform under pressure, Jolly Cholly approached Lolo. "Grimm says, 'I like what I see. I'm having a tryout for a young man this afternoon. I understand you play baseball too.' I told him, 'I'm not that caliber.' He says, 'That's okay, I like your style.' So I go out, and he hit me about six balls. He hit 'em hard! I was just a kid, and I was so nervous -- three or four went right under my legs, and I bobbled the others. Eddie Waitkus was over on first base, and the ones I bobbled I managed to throw to him, after I bobbled 'em two or three times. I was still all shook up from the tournament -- it was nervous time. Well, he came over and patted me on the back and said, 'Kid, I'll see ya next year. But when they did come back, the Cubs had fired him and Frankie Frisch was the manager."

Locals would lead the ballplayers in hunts for genuine animals, too -- like wild boar, goats, quail, and fishes. Roy Smalley even stayed over one winter, helping out with ranch duties...like skinning a dead bison that had gotten caught in a fence. A lot of 'em golfed every spare minute, naturally. And Hack Miller used to uproot trees around the Island. He'd also been known to lift pianos and cars (this was in the '20s -- before golf carts)...and bend steel with his bare hands, too.

Some of the players didn't follow the team back to Chicago. The Wrigleys also owned the Los Angeles Angels of the old Pacific Coast League, who played at the other Wrigley Field (at 42nd & Avalon) in the big city across the channel. Players who needed more seasoning would often be assigned there, to pursue the cross-town rivalry against the Hollywood Stars. And the baseball division also sponsored the Catalina Cubs, a semi-pro team that squared off against a variety of other clubs in the '30s and '40s.

But it all came crashing to an end in 1952, after the Cubs announced they'd be training in Mesa, Arizona. Baseball was changing, and the need for exhibition opponents -- and revenues -- was becoming more and more important. No one knew it would be permanent, since the shift during the War was so recent, and the Cubs had often spent part of their training time in L.A., anyway.

But it was permanent. The Cubs never came back, and it doesn't seem possible now that they ever will.

In all, 19 Cubs who trained in Avalon are in the Hall of Fame -- greats like Grover Cleveland Alexander (later portrayed by Reagan in the 1952 film, The Winning Team), Dizzy Dean, Cavarretta (the 1945 National League MVP), Hack Wilson (who hit 56 home runs in 1930), and plenty more. About 50 of the guys who trained here -- 51 years or more in the past -- are still alive.

The little grandstand, like the St. Catherine, is gone now -- but its foundation is still visible next to the field. The Country Club walls and menus are filled with old Cub photos, and the Museum recently displayed a fabulous exhibit of Cub memories. And plenty of Islanders - kids at the time, and now sporting a little grey - will always treasure the memories with a smile.