Despite its name, Augusta, Georgia’s long-running Minor League Baseball club of the mid-20th century had an on-and-off relationship with the Detroit Tigers over the decades. The team’s final years as a Tigers farm team from 1955 to 1958 yielded superb baseball teams but were marred by a horrific and fatal stadium tragedy in May 1955.
South Atlantic League (1938-1950) Tri-State League (1951-1952, 1954-1955) Born: 1938 Folded: January 31, 1953 Re-Born: 1954 Folded (Again): 1955 First Game: April 20, 1938 (W 5-4 @
This ball club was but one of many iterations of the Knoxville Smokies, a traditional name for the Marble City’s various minor league baseball teams dating back to the mid-1920’s. The glory years came from 1959 to 1964 when the Detroit Tigers stocked Knoxville with a procession of top flight prospects, many of whom became key contributors to Detroit’s 1968 World Series championship team.
The Class A Columbia Reds of 1960-1961 marked a brief return to South Carolina’s capital city by the Cincinnati Reds, who previously sponsored a South Atlantic League farm club in Columbia from 1938 to 1955.
The Columbus Cardinals (not to be confused with the Ohio-based Columbus Red Birds of the same era) were a Class A farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals for a decade after World War II. The Cardinals played in the old South Atlantic League, which featured ball clubs in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
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