You most likely never heard of the Paris Pirates, but they were a Class C minor-league baseball team that played for half a season in 1934. Their brief journey is a friendly reminder that if you build it, sometimes they don’t come. However, over 90 years later, small towns follow a similar formula to the small Texas town.
Paris had been home to several professional clubs since 1896, and it featured interesting names, including the Red Snappers, Bearcats, North Stars, Rustlers, Survivors, and my favorite, Parasites. Membership was steady through the teens and twenties, but the town would go six seasons with professional baseball. It was primarily due to not having a proper ballpark.
Talks of a new grandstand began the winter before for use for a semi-pro baseball team. At the time time, the amateur ball was deemed a better option than one in a professional circuit. However, once talk of a modern structure began circulating, the East Texas oil boom produced operating capital from newly wealthy baseball enthusiasts, and representatives from the West Dixie League and East Dixie League looked at placing a team in Paris.
In January of 1934, a five-year ballpark lease was signed to build a 1,000-seat grandstand and fencing on the site of the old ballpark. The cost would be $2,500 and an additional $500 for field grading. An extra $500 was raised towards the construction of the stadium that would be used for all levels of baseball.
The modern stadium held 20 boxes, bleacher sections down each foul line, showers and locker rooms, and restrooms for men and women. Every piece of timber for the grandstand was made out of oak except the foundations and posts made of bois d’arc.
“These stands and fences will be here for a long time after we are gone, bearing fire or a tornado,” said J. King, a supervisor in charge of the construction.
The stadium would become the property of the citizens of Paris with the town underwriting the project cost on the assumption that “you furnish the park and we’ll furnish you the team.” In February, Paris was awarded a franchise in the West Dixie League. Work began on March 20, 1934.
The name Pirates was chosen by a committee of fans the morning of the first game to be held that afternoon. Two winners picked the name from a name-the-team contest sponsored by the club and the Paris News. The winning contestants won season passes for the season. There is no mention of why the name was chosen or why it was selected by the winners.
Opening day included city and county offices closed, local schools dismissed at 3 o’clock and Paris store owners allowing employees to leave work early to attend the game if they so wished. A parade with a live band, players, and firemen led a procession down North Main Street towards the entrance of the new ballpark.
Around 800 fans packed the covered wooden grandstand for the opening afternoon game, and a near tragedy was narrowly missed. The game was delayed in the second inning when a section of the stands was vacated when foundation blocks, weakened by water, began to slip slightly. Fans were vacated from the upper portion of the grandstand without injuries.
The stadium was named League Park and it was sandwiched between East Hickory and East Center Street. Attendance was lackluster from the start, and it appeared that more fans would watch a game from behind the outfield walls. The cost to enter was 40 cents for men and 25 cents for women, but reports told of folks paying 5 or 10 cents to stand on top of a truck and watch the game from outside the outfield fencing on East Center Street, leading to local sports editor Dub Furey, Paris News to quip.
“The Paris fans will turn on in greater numbers to watch the proceedings from outside the park than inside is a distinct reflection on our citizenship as well as our baseball fans.”
The distinctive dimensions led newspaper reporters in other cities to comment on the short left field porch that was only 251 feet from home plate, while the right field fence was 315. A 17-foot screen was erected behind left field after 25 home runs were hit during a four-game span and perhaps a majority were hit off the bat of Lou Frierson who on May 30 made history.
The 27-year-old outfielder hit five consecutive home runs and added 8 RBIs in a 17-12 loss to the Jacksonville Jax. In the four-game stand, Frierson went 9-17 with 8 home runs and 13 runs batted in. Soon, the Bucs imposed a rule that counted home runs over the left field fence as a ground-rule double. The next day, another record was set when 16-year-old rookie Harold Wells connected for 7 consecutive hits in a 20-12 victory for the Bucs.
Despite these record-setting accomplishments, the team struggled to win on the field. This resulted in low turnouts at the gate and financial headaches for team owners Wayne Windle and Fred Nicholson, who decided to switch a June 21 homestand with the Tyler Governors to the East Texas Fair Association Fair Grounds in Tyler without public notice. When the Daily News contacted team owners, Windle and Nicholson sent a telegram to the newspaper with the following message.
“Because of the constant loss of money in Paris we are forced to turn the situation over to the league at present. We don't know if or where they will place the club. We are indeed sorry you are not notified of the games (with Tyler) being transferred as the league office is now handling the situation.”
The Bucs dropped their final game 19-3, sputtering to a 17-45 record. Windle and Nicholson could continue with a new club in town, transferring a new team from another city in the league or another classification. There was a possibility of beginning the second half with a new club, but nothing materialized. The Bucs relocated to Lufkin, Texas, where a crowd of 1,000 welcomed the new club dubbed the Lumbermen.
Baseball was a tough sell in town and fans “talk a good support for the team” but won’t purchase a ticket to watch a game. It is unknown how much money was lost on the season, but many in the know said that the club was close to breaking even, especially since the city paid for the construction of the stadium. How Windle and Nicholson left town left a sour taste in the mouth of Furey who was more than happy to wax poetic about it the next day in his daily newspaper column.
“The whole thing is regrettable. Two sides agree. One keeps its pact, and the other fails. For whatever reason and however well it may be justified the fact remains that the club owners agreed to do something they failed to live up to, and that, as we see it, has sounded the death knell of baseball in Paris.”
League Park would never host a minor league team but house semi-pro, amateur, and high school baseball for the next few seasons. When professional baseball returned in 1946 after the war, a new stadium was constructed three-tenths of a mile west on East Hickory Street with standard dimensions. Baseball would fare better this time around, lasting until 1957.
Sadly, pro ball or summer collegiate baseball would not return. However, the site of League Park still exists with a ball field called McGill Field. The Boys and Girls Club sits to the left of the playing field.
The Paris Pirates are a blip, like many other franchises, in the history of minor league baseball. Omitted from the mind of the collection conscious, the strategy of building a stadium to lure a franchise has not changed. Almost a century later, cities across the country hope to find civic pride with a baseball team. A few find it, while others strike out.
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Follow all of Marc’s stadium journeys on Twitter @ballparkhunter and his YouTube channel. Email at Marc.Viquez@stadiumjourney.com
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