Remembering The Evangeline League: 1935

The Evangeline League was a minor league baseball league that ran in southern and central Louisiana from 1934-1957.

The league, which had it's name taken from Evangeline, the epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, began as a 6-team class D league in 1934, and then expanded to 8 teams the next season, before shutting down for two seasons following the 1943 season due to World War II.

After resuming play in 1946, the Evangeline League remained a class D league, before being promoted to the class C level in 1949.

The league remained in operation until 1957, when two of the six remaining teams dropped out, suspending play that season with no champion being named.

The Evangeline League, which featured a betting scandal back in 1946, featured teams in cities such as Lafayette, Abbeville, Crowley, Opelousas, Rayne, Jeanerette, and Lake Charles.

Despite the stability of the league, the only franchise they lasted all 21 seasons was the Alexandria Aces, while New Iberia had a franchise every season, with the exception of the final one.

Because of the close proximity of the franchises, a number of heated rivalries developed, with crowds that would certainly quality as raucous, getting into it with umpires, players, managers, and one another.

It was an immensely popular league for over two decades, with some franchises actually outdrawing some Major League Baseball franchises, in terms of attendance.

All summer long we'll be going back in time and look back at the Evangeline League, which was commonly referred to as the "Pepper Sauce League", "Hot Sauce League", or "Tabasco Circuit".

Yesterday, we looked back at the inaugural season, 1934.

Today, the 1935 season:

The Evangeline League expanded from six teams in 1934 to eight teams in 1935.

Lake Charles and Jeanerette, who shared a team in 1934, had their own in 1935, with a franchise from Abbeville joining the bunch as well.

The Jeanerette Blues, an affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, defeated the Lafayette White Sox, an affiliate of the St. Louis Browns, four-games-to-two in the finals, after the two teams finished as the leaders in wins during the regular season, with 84 and 74, respectively.

The Alexandria Aces finished the year with 72 wins, followed by the Opelousas Indians (69), the Rayne Rice Birds (65), the Abbeville Athletics (54), the New Iberia Cardinals (48), and the Lake Charles Skippers (44).

Alfred "Chubby" Dean, a distant cousin of Dizzy and Paul Dean, who went on to play eight season in Major League Baseball, led the league in batting, hitting a .383 for Opelousas, while compiling a league-leading 189 hits.

Alexandria's Cecil "Dynamite" Dunn had a monster year, hitting a .355 with 18 home runs, 13 triples, 183 hits and a .561 slugging percentage in 131 games. He led the Evangeline League in total bases (288), runs scored (113), RBI (122) and slugging percentage, finished tied with Rayne's Arthur Bartelli for the lead in home runs (18), and finished tied with Jeanerette's Sid Gautreaux in RBI's (122), while finishing second in hits and batting average, behind Dean.

Clausen Vines was the top pitcher in 1935, leading the league in both wins (25) and strikeouts (184).