Remembering The Evangeline League: Chubby Dean

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 remembered Harry Nolan.

Today, Alfred "Chubby" Dean

Dean, a distant cousin of Dizzy and Paul Dean, was a left-handed first baseman/pitcher, who played one season in the Evangeline League, before going on to spend eight years in Major League Baseball with a couple of different franchises.

In 1935, his only season in the Evangeline league, Dean led the league, hitting a .383, along with a league-high 183 hits, while playing for the Opelousas Indians.

At age 20 in 1936, Dean made it into Major League Baseball, appearing 111 games with the Philadelphia Athletics, all as a first baseman, while hitting a .287 with 48 runs driven in.

In 1937, Dean hit a .262 in 102 as a first baseman, before making the switch to being a pitcher.

A native of Mount Airy, North Carolina, Dean appeared in 54 games as a pitcher in 1939, mostly as a reliever, before splitting time between starter and reliever over the rest of his career.

Dean played for the Athletics from 1936-1941, before playing the last two years of his career with the Cleveland Indians, from 1942-1943.

As a hitter, Dean ended his 9-year MLB career hitting a .274 with 3 home runs and 128 runs batted in, while going 30-46 with a 5.08 ERA. as a pitcher.

After his playing days were over, Dean was Director of athletics for the Army at Fort Dix and for the European Command at Nuremberg Germany.

Dean passed away in 1970.