Remembering The Evangeline League: 1950

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 1949 season.

Today, the 1950 season.

The Evangeline League remained the same in 1950 as it was the previous two years, with eight franchises in the same eight cities.

The only change of note was that the New Iberia franchise change their nickname to the Rebels, marking the third-consecutive year that that they had a different one.

The Baton Rouge Red Sticks, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, won the championship in 1950, defeating the Hammond Berries, four-games-to-none in the finals.

The Lafayette Bulls finished with the most wins (86) during the regular season, followed by Baton Rouge (82), Hammond, along  with the Thibodaux Giants and the Alexandria Aces, who were all tied for the third-most wins (71), New Iberia (66), the Houma Indians (53), and the Abbeville Athletics (50).

Thibodaux's Charles Williams, a right-handed hitting infielder from Dyersburg, Tennessee, was the league’s leading hitter in 1950, batting hitting a .381, 21 points ahead of Zane Skinner of Baton Rouge.

Williams, who was 22-years old at the time, also finished as the league leader in hits (218) and runs batted in (150).

Hammond's Ray Dunn eclipsed the 30-home run mark for a second-consecutive season, belting 39 to lead the league in that category.

Thibodaux right-hander Marshall O'Coine, a native of Canada, led the league in wins (24), while Lafayette's Tommy Spears led the league in ERA. (2.60) for a second-consecutive season.

Hammond defeated Lafayette in the first round of the playoffs, while Baton Rouge eliminated Hammond, as the two teams advanced to the finals.

Baton Rouge led the league in attendance in Rouge  1948, drawing 106,345 fans.