Remembering The Evangeline League: 1941

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 took a look back at the 1940 season.

Today, the 1941 season:

The Evangeline League remained the same in 1941, with eight franchises, but there were two differences.

The Pilgrims played in Natchez the entire season, and the Ray franchise disbanded 89 games into the season.

The New Iberia Cardinals, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, defeated the Alexandria Aces, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, four-games-to-three in the finals.

New Iberia was managed by Johnny Keane, who went on to manage the St. Louisiana Cardinals and the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball, including guiding the Cardinals to a World Series title in 1964.

The Red Birds finished with the most wins (88) during the regular season, followed by the Port Arthur Tarpons (78), Alexandria (77), the Lafayette White Sox (67), the Lake Charles Skippers (64), the Opelousas Indians (60),  the Natchez Pilgrims (49), and the Rayne Rice Birds (20).

New Iberia's Fred Baracco led the league in hitting, at a .372, finishing 25 percentage points ahead of Lafayette's Owen Reeves, while also scoring a league-high 116 runs.

Baracco also finished as the league leader in both doubles (47) and triples (11).

New Iberia’s Woody Fair led the league in homers, with 13, four more than Alexandria's Edward Bosek, while also driving in a league-high 113 runs.

1941 marked the second-consecutive season that Fair led the league in both homers and RBI's.

New Iberia’s Jim Noblett and Port Arthur's Al Hardouin Gordon Pixley led the league in wins, with 21 apiece, while New Iberia's Ed Puck paced the league with a 1.77 ERA.

New Iberia defeated Lafayette in the first round of the playoffs, while Alexandria eliminated Port Arthur, as the two teams advanced to the finals.

Lake Charles led the league in attendance in 1941, with over 27,000 paid fans.