Alexandria Aces
The Alexandria Aces, based in Alexandria, Louisiana, were the only franchise to compete in every one of the Evangeline League's 21 seasons, playing home games at Bringhurst Field from 1934 through the circuit's final year in 1957. The most celebrated player to come through Alexandria was Hall of Fame pitcher Hal Newhouser, who began his professional career with the 1939 Aces as a 17-year-old, going 8-4 with a 2.34 ERA before a midseason promotion to Class A Beaumont and then a major league debut with the Detroit Tigers that same September. Newhouser would go on to win back-to-back American League MVP awards in 1944 and 1945, and no pitcher won more games in the 1940s than his 170. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992. Also on the 1939 Alexandria staff was Virgil Trucks, another future Detroit Tiger who would throw two no-hitters in a single 1952 season.
On the field, the Aces won Evangeline League championships in 1936, posting a dominant 96-42 record under manager Art Phelan, and again in 1940. In the circuit's final 1957 season, Aces pitcher Bob Riesener completed a 20-0 campaign before the league itself collapsed mid-season around him.
The Aces name resurfaced in 1972, when Alexandria hosted a Class AA Texas League club affiliated with the San Diego Padres. Future Hall of Famer Duke Snider managed that revival team in its first summer, and pitcher Randy Jones appeared in Alexandria in 1972 and 1973 before winning the 1976 NL Cy Young Award with San Diego.
The Evangeline League was a Class D minor league (Class C from 1949) that operated primarily in southern and central Louisiana from 1934 through 1957, with a wartime pause from 1943 through 1945. Named for the Acadian folk heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1847 epic poem, the league was nicknamed the "Pepper Sauce League" or the "Tabasco Circuit" by fans and sportswriters, a nod to the Cajun country setting and the volatile brand of baseball played there.
