Tombstone
Born: 1965 – Affiliation change from Burlington Indians
Folded: Postseason 1971
First Game:
Last Game:
Carolina League Champions: None
Stadium
Fairchild Park (3,000)
Ownership & Affiliation
Owners: Alamance Baseball Club, Inc. (John Davis, Charlie Roddy, Cliff Elder, et al.)
Major League Affiliation: Washington Senators
Attendance
Alamance Senators attendance consistently ranked at the bottom of the Carolina League charts. The Burlington club ranked dead last in the circuit in 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971.
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Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007
Background
The Alamance Senators were a Class A farm club of the American League’s Washington Senators based in Burlington, North Carolina during the late 1960’s. Today, the team is referred to on Baseball Reference and Wikipedia as the “Burlington Senators”, but at the time the team was known in the local press (and on its own game programs, such as the 1968 sample above) as Alamance, after the North Carolina county in which Burlington sits.
Top players to emerge from Burlington during this era included:
- Pitcher Joe Coleman (Sens ’65) who won 62 games for the Detroit Tigers during a three-year stretch from 1971 to 1973
- Infielder Toby Harrah (Sens ’68-’69) who became a four-time All-Star for the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians
Demise
After the 1971 season the Washington Senators moved to Texas and became the Texas Rangers. The Rangers initially planned to move their Carolina League operation to Durham, North Carolina for the 1972 season and it appeared that Burlington would go without pro baseball for the first summer since 1957. However, the proposed Durham club fell apart over the winter and the Rangers scrambled back to Burlington in time for the 1972 season.
The re-named Burlington Rangers played just one season before leaving town in 1973. The city went over a decade without baseball until the Burlington Indians of the Appalachian League set up shop in 1986. The city has been a mainstay in the Appy League ever since.
Trivia
Burlington’s Fairchild Park (later known as Burlington Athletic Stadium) started out as Danville, Virginia’s League Park. When Danville’s local team folded in the late 1950’s, League Park’s grandstand and outfield fence was dismantled, sent by train to Burlington and put back together for the 1960 Carolina League season. It remains in use to this day.
Alamance Senators Shop
Editor's Pick
Baseball in
North Carolina's Piedmont
By Chris Holaday
Bordered by the Appalachian Mountains to the west and the flat coastal plain to the east, North Carolina’s foothills region, also called the Piedmont, is home to a remarkable baseball heritage. Piedmont has long been famous for its minor league teams, including the Durham Bulls and the Carolina Mudcats, but it’s not just the professionals who helped shape the area’s baseball tradition. College programs like those at the University of North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, and NC State have all figured prominently on the national scene at one time or another. High school teams from towns including Sanford have ranked among the nation’s best, while American Legion teams have captured the national championship.
Writer and baseball historian Chris Holaday crossed the Piedmont, tracking down former players from all levels of the game. The result of his travels is this singular collection of rare photographs documenting America’s pastime as it has been played in central North Carolina.
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