Hartford Chiefs

Eastern League (1946-1952)

Background

We’ve written about countless Minor League Baseball re-brands here on Fun While It Lasted, but this may be the strangest circumstance for a re-brand that we’ve come across.

From 1938 until 1952 Hartford, Connecticut served as the Class A farm club of the National League’s Boston Braves. Between 1938 and 1945 Hartford’s local nine was known variously as the Bees, Laurels and Senators. And by “variously”, we mean it depended on which of Hartford’s rival newspapers you preferred. At one point, the team held a naming contest and the winner was the “Laurels”. While The Hartford Times was copacetic, the editorial staff of The Hartford Courant wasn’t having it.

Here’s Courant sports editor Bill Lee in 1946. Note Lee’s rhetorical knife twist at both The Times and the “Laurels” name in the last sentence.¹Lee, Bill. “With Malice Toward None”. The Courant (Hartford, CT). April 10, 1946

It was our feeling that the team carried [the Senators] name over a long stretch of years and that there never had been any necessity for the recent contest in which the name “Laurels” was the winning choice. So we stuck with the “Senators” and our friends in the afternoon field were stuck with the “Laurels”.

All this created the absurd and confusing situation that Courant beat writers sitting in the Bulkeley Stadium press box in 1945 would file “Senators” game stories while their Times colleagues covering the very same contest would write up the latest exploits of the “Laurels”.

In April 1946 officials from the Boston Braves travelled to Hartford to negotiate a truce. The Braves execs persuaded both papers to accept the “Chiefs” as a new compromise name.

“People Wanted…”

Hartford fell victim to the same forces of modernization and disruption that pummeled minor league baseball operators all across the country during the 1950’s. Turnstile counts at Bulkeley Stadium dropped 64% from 1951 to 1952 as the club dropped to the bottom of the Eastern League attendance charts.

During the Chiefs final season in 1952, Chiefs President Charlie Blossfield pulled national press attention for his tongue-and-cheek advertising campaigns that poked fun at the deteriorating market for the Chiefs. One such ad, placed in New York papers, read:²ASSOCIATED PRESS. “Charlie Blossfield Seeks Customers In New York To Replace Absent Fans”. The Courant (Hartford, CT). July 25, 1952

People wanted from New York to watch baseball games in Hartford to replace people from Hartford who watch baseball games in New York. Pleasant working conditions. New England accent not necessary, but helpful. Our players know about this ad. Send applications to Chas. Blossfield, Gen’l M’gr, Hartford Chiefs, Hartford, Conn.

Notable Names

By 1957 both the Boston Braves and the Hartford Chiefs were no more. Both teams relocated after the 1952 season. But Hartford’s long-time partnership with the Braves organization was still felt as the Milwaukee Braves captured the 1957 World Series with a 7-game victory over the New York Yankees.

Three of the four members of Milwaukee’s outstanding starting rotation enjoyed standout seasons in Hartford.

• Milwaukee ace Warren Spahn won 17 games for the Hartford Bees in 1942
• Braves 18-game winner Bob Buhl pitched a full season for the Hartford Chiefs in 1949
• Spot-starter Gene Conley dominated the Eastern League as a 20-year old rookie for the Chiefs in 1951, posting a 20-9 record with a miserly 2.16 ERA.

Key bullpen performer Ernie Johnson (7-3, 3.88 ERA) toiled parts of four seasons for the Chiefs between 1946 and 1950. A solid major league pitcher for nine seasons, Johnson is best remembered today as the broadcaster of both the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves from 1962 until 1999. He was inducted into the Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame in 2001.

Gene Conley, it must be mentioned, was a two-sport prodigy. In addition to winning his World Series ring with the Milwaukee Braves in 1957, he would also win three NBA titles as a member of the Boston Celtics from 1958 to 1961. In a neat bookend to his two-sport career, Conley returned to Hartford in 1966 to close out his playing career in the same city where he got his start as a pitcher for the Chiefs in 1951. Only this time, Conley suited up for the Hartford Capitols basketball team as their player-coach during the late 60’s.

Future National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Travis Jackson, a standout shortstop for the New York Giants from 1922 until 1936, managed the Chiefs during the 2nd half of the 1951 season.

Aftermath

The Boston Braves dropped their sponsorship of the Hartford franchise in late 1952. A few months later the club moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Bulkeley Stadium was demolished in 1960. Nearby New Britain, located fifteen minutes south of Hartford, became the region’s de facto baseball hub for many years, hosting an Eastern League ball club for 33 seasons between 1983 and 2015.

In 2015, Hartford poached New Britain’s Eastern League franchise with the promise of a brand new 6,000-seat ballpark. The New Britain Rock Cats moved north and became the Hartford Yard Goats in 2016. After construction delays pushed the opening of Dunkin’ Donuts Park to 2017, the Yard Goats debuted that April as Hartford first pro baseball team since the Chiefs’ departure 65 years earlier.

Hartford Chiefs Shop

In Memoriam

Pitcher Ernie Johnson (Braves ’46-’48 & ’50) passed away following a long illness on August 12, 2011 at the age of 87. Brattleboro Reformer obituary.

Links

Eastern League Media Guides

Eastern League Programs

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