Martinez's waterfront park has two halves. The City of Martinez runs the eastern section, with group picnic areas, ballfields, bocce courts and soccer fields. The East Bay Regional Park District runs the quieter western section, with open lawns, small family picnic areas, ponds, creeks and nearly 3 miles of trails through the marsh and along the shoreline. Wikipedia puts the whole park at 343 acres, and the San Francisco Bay Trail passes through it.

On Dec. 6, 2016, the park district renamed it Ted and Kathy Radke Martinez Regional Shoreline. Ted Radke served on the district board from 1978 to 2014. Kathy Radke worked to save Mt. Wanda from development and preserve the Franklin Hills.

Visiting

Parking is free. The main lawn and picnic area at 300 N. Court St. is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from November through February. The Grangers' Wharf staging area at 101 Berrellesa St. closes at 4:30 p.m. in those months. Bikes are allowed on park trails. Dogs are not allowed in the marsh, the duck pond area or other interior areas, and must be on a leash of 6 feet or less in parking areas. The district has no reservable picnic sites here.

To fish from shore, anyone 16 or older needs a state license, but no park permit is required. The district says the Carquinez Strait has striped bass, sturgeon, shark, some flounder and catfish. The adjacent Martinez Marina, run by the city, has a fuel dock and boat repair yard.

Bocce and DiMaggio

The district says Martinez was a fishing village by 1876, largely Italian, and in 1882 the town had two of the bay's 12 canneries. The fishermen brought bocce, still played here on wooden-sided courts lined with crushed oyster shells. The first Northern California Open Bocce Ball Championships were held at the park in 1979.

That same year, the park's ballfields were dedicated to Martinez native Joe DiMaggio, the son of a fisherman, who played for the New York Yankees from 1936 to 1949. The complex has four diamonds.

The Forester

West of the shoreline, the remains of the schooner Forester have sat in the mudflats since 1935. Launched in Alameda on Nov. 10, 1900, the 205-foot ship hauled lumber from the Pacific Northwest to China, India and Australia, and on its last voyage, in 1932, it came back with copra. In 1975 an electrical fire burned it to the waterline, and its skeleton is still visible.

Martini town

The park district's history page also retells the local legend of the martini. A celebrating gold miner was served a "Martinez Special" and, after a few, couldn't manage the "z." The Hulet Hornbeck Trail links the shoreline area to the John Muir National Historic Site.