Ten real minor league teams from the 1890s to 1949, each named for a line of work, matched to the person on your list who does it.
Small-town ball clubs a century ago did not hire branding agencies. They took the name of whatever the town did all week: it made nails, it grew wheat, it passed laws, it built ships. That makes them a surprisingly good way to shop for people. These vintage baseball shirts carry a nickname that once described someone exactly like the person you're buying for and, best of all, nobody else at the party will be wearing one.
We make shirts for more than 400 defunct minor league baseball teams. Here are ten, sorted by occupation, each with the real story behind the name.
For the whiskey drinker: Peoria Distillers (Illinois)
Before Prohibition, Peoria was known as the Whiskey Capital of the World, with more than a dozen distilleries running by the late 1800s and more rye coming out of town than anywhere else. The ball club carried the name into the Three-I League, won its pennant in 1911 and 1916, and was in first place at 43-23 when the league shut down in July 1917. In 1898 Joe McGinnity, later a Hall of Famer known as Iron Man, pitched all 21 innings of a single game for Peoria, and the club's 1913 manager, Pants Rowland, won the 1917 World Series with the White Sox. The Peoria Distillers never played again after the 1917 shutdown. Our design is a whiskey barrel with a bat on its shoulder, and it looks pleased with itself. If the whiskey drinker on your list leans toward bourbon, Kentucky had Distillers too. The Lawrenceburg Distillers played one season in the Blue Grass League in 1908 and went 33-35. The Owensboro Distillers were 8-3 in the first KITTY League season when the club disbanded on June 1, 1903.
Shop Peoria Distillers shirts →
Shop Lawrenceburg Distillers shirts →
Shop Owensboro Distillers shirts →
For the carpenter: Ironton Nailers (Ohio)
Ironton sits on the Ohio River and was built on iron, including the Kelly Nail and Iron Company. The Ironton Nailers joined the Class D Mountain States League in 1911, a circuit of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia towns, and went 44-77. In 1912 the club played as the Forgers and was in first place when the season stopped early. The Nailers name came back for three more seasons in the Ohio State League. Our nail has a bat, a scowl, and the look of something that has been hit on the head for a living.
For the farmer: Fargo-Moorhead Graingrowers (North Dakota)
Fargo and Moorhead grew up on wheat, and the visitors center there today sits in an old grain elevator. The Fargo-Moorhead Graingrowers played in a small regional circuit from 1914 to 1917 and won the title in 1915 and 1917. The second one came under a doctor. Manager Bob Unglaub was killed in a railroad shop accident after the 1916 season, and his replacement, Denny Sullivan, was a practicing physician who took the job partly because Fargo was a good place to open a practice. His club was 36-16 and in first place when the league shut down in July 1917. The farmer on our design is carrying a scythe, not a bat, so we took some liberties with the design but we think it still works.
Shop Fargo-Moorhead Graingrowers shirts →
For the fisherman: Leesburg Anglers (Florida)
Leesburg's club entered central Florida's league in 1937 as the Gondoliers, a name that matched its new ballpark at Venetian Gardens, a city park on Lake Harris. After winning the 1938 pennant, the club held a naming contest that winter, and the winner looked at the big lakes around town and picked the Leesburg Anglers. The Anglers won the 1941 league championship, the last season before the war shut the circuit down. Our design is an old fisherman with a pipe and a lure hooked in his hat, and a pennant that says 1941 Champs, as they won the league that year.
Shop Leesburg Anglers shirts →
For the deputy: West Palm Beach Sheriffs (Florida, 1928)
The West Palm Beach Sheriffs were the city's first team in central Florida's league and lasted exactly one season. They opened on April 26, 1928, at Daytona Beach and lost 7-5, and manager Ernie Burke was ejected in the fourth inning for arguing a call at first base, in the first game the franchise ever played. The league went dark after that season, and in September 1928 the Okeechobee hurricane came ashore in Palm Beach County. West Palm Beach did not have another team in the league until 1940. Our sheriff has a star on his shirt and both hands resting on a bat, like a man who has heard enough from the umpire.
Shop West Palm Beach Sheriffs shirts →
For the lawyer or politician: Frankfort Lawmakers (Kentucky)
Frankfort is Kentucky's capital, and its club in the Class D Blue Grass League from 1908 to 1912 was named for the people who worked at the statehouse. Records call it the Statesmen in the early years and the Frankfort Lawmakers by 1912, and some references used Lawmakers from the start. Under either name it won the pennant in 1908 and again in 1912, going 85-42. Then the league folded, so the champions never got to defend the title. Our lawmaker wears a fedora and a mustache and looks like he means business.
Shop Frankfort Lawmakers shirts →
For the firefighter: Spokane Smoke Eaters (Washington, 1902)
A smoke eater is American slang for a firefighter. Whether that is why Spokane's 1902 club took the name, nobody has found a paper from that year that says so. We can only point at the word and take a guess. The Spokane Smoke Eaters finished last at 46-75. They did have Tony Mullane, a 43-year-old pitcher with 284 big-league wins behind him, who finished his playing career with 20 games for Spokane. Our design gave the job to a Dalmatian in a fire helmet, blowing a small cloud of smoke.
Shop Spokane Smoke Eaters shirts →
For the pilot: Dayton Aviators (Ohio)
Dayton was home to Orville and Wilbur Wright, and the city still has the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The Dayton Aviators played in the Class B Central League from 1928 to 1930. In 1929 a 19-year-old second baseman named Billy Herman, in his second pro season, hit .329 for them in 138 games. He went on to 10 straight All-Star teams with the Cubs and others and reached the Hall of Fame in 1975. Our aviator is a kid in goggles and a flying scarf, mid-windup.
For the Navy veteran: Bremerton Bluejackets (Washington)
A bluejacket is an enlisted sailor, and Bremerton grew up around the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, so the name needed no explaining. The Bremerton Bluejackets played in the Class B Western International circuit from 1946 to 1949, the city's first minor league team and still its last. Their pitcher Hub Kittle threw seven shutouts in 1947, a league record, and kept pitching long enough to retire the side at age 63 in 1980. Our design is a baseball in a sailor's cap and neckerchief.
Shop Bremerton Bluejackets shirts →
For the steelworker: Youngstown Steelmen (Ohio)
Youngstown made steel in the Mahoning Valley, and for five seasons between 1910 and 1915 its ball club said so. The Youngstown Steelmen had a young shortstop named Everett Scott on the roster in 1911 and 1912. Scott went on to play 1,307 big-league games in a row for the Red Sox and Yankees, the record until Lou Gehrig passed it. That makes him a fitting player for a steel town: he showed up every day. Our steelworker is taking his cut in front of a blast furnace.
Shop Youngstown Steelmen shirts →
Why vintage baseball shirts make a good gift
A team shirt from a club that folded a century ago is a baseball gift for men and women who already own every big-league cap they want. It says something about the person wearing it, and it comes with a story they can tell when someone asks. If your list runs to other jobs, or other towns, our retro baseball shirts cover hundreds of them, and some of the names are stranger than these: we wrote up the nine strangest last month.
These towns named their teams after the work that paid for the tickets. Every design is ours, drawn from what the record shows, and where the record goes quiet, as it does on the Smoke Eaters, we say so.
There are 400 more where these came from.
See every team, A–Z by stateBuy 2 shirts, get the 3rd half off. Any tee, hoodie or crewneck.
Leave a comment