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 Chris Flanagan

Today, Garth Mann

Mann, a right-handed pitcher, spent two seasons in the Evangeline League, from 1937-1938, before going on to have a very brief career in Major League Baseball, one that lasted only one game.

In 1937, with the Rayne Rice Birds, in his first year of professional baseball, Mann went 3-5 with a 3.77 ERA.

A native of Brandon, Texas, Mann followed that with a terrific 1938 campaign, going 14-7 for Rayne, along with a league-leading 2.09 ERA.

Six years later, in 1944, Mann spent one day in the Major Leagues with the Chicago Cubs, appearing as a pinch-runner.

That turned out to be the only game Mann would ever play in the big leagues.

Mann had seven double-digit winning seasons during his twelve years in the minor leagues, accumulating a career record of 125-96 with a 3.44 ERA, pitching 2,009 innings in 335 games.

A successful businessman and thoroughbred horse owner following his baseball days ended, Mann passed away in 1980 in Waxahachie, Texas at the age of 64.

More From 103.3 The GOAT