Bluefield Blue Grays

Mountain State League (1937-1942)
Appalachian League (1946-1955)

Tombstone

Born: 1937
Folded: 1956

First Game:
Last Games:

Mountain State League Champions: 1939
Appalachian League Champions: 1949, 1950 & 1954

Stadium

Bowen Field
Opened: 1939

Ownership & Affiliation

Owner: ?

Major League Affiliations:

1946 – 1951: Boston Braves
1953: Washington Senators
1954-1955: Boston Red Sox

Appalachian League Baseball

Where Rookies Rise

By Allen LaMountain

Long-time Appy League beat writer Allen LaMountain wrote this exhaustive chronicle of the Rookie circuit in 2014, offering a history of each city in the circuit and profiles of dozens of the future Major League stars and Hall-of Famers who got their first taste of pro ball in places like Bluefield, Elizabethton, Johnson City and Kingsport.

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Background

The Bluefield Blue Grays was the name used by a pair of minor league baseball teams that represented the West Virginia/Virginia border city for the better part of two decades between 1937 and 1955.

The Blue Grays as one of the six founding members of the Mountain State League in 1937. All six clubs were from the state of West Virginia and the league membership would remain West Virginia-only, with the exception of the Ashland (Kentucky) Colonels, who joined in 1939.

Despite a 4th place finish (out of 6) in 1939, the Blue Grays rallied to win the Mountain State League playoffs, besting the pennant-winning Williamson Red Birds 3 games to one in the championship series.

In March 1943, Judge William G. Branham, the president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, declared the Mountain State League disbanded and its handful of remaining franchises, including Bluefield, disbanded.

Into the Appy League

In 1946, as Minor League Baseball surged back to life following the widespread league closures of the World War II years, a new version of the Blue Grays joined the Appalachian League. Initially, the new Blue Grays served as a farm club of the National League’s Boston Braves from 1946 through 1951. The Blue Grays won back-to-back Appy League crowns as a Braves affiliate in 1949 and 1950. They would add a third and final league title under the Boston Red Sox’ banner in 1954.

The most prominent player to take the field for the Blue Grays was 18-year pitcher Bill Monbouquette, who made ten appearances for the club during its final season of 1955. Monbo became a four-time All-Star for the Boston Red Sox and hurled a no-hitter for the Major League team on August 1st, 1962. He was also the last former Bluefield Blue Gray to play professional baseball, pitching his final game for the San Francisco Giants in September 1968. He was inducted in the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2000.

The Appalachian League suspended operations and did not take the field for the 1956 season. When the league made a comeback in 1957, Bluefield re-joined as a Brooklyn Dodgers farm club and took the Bluefield Dodgers name.