Bluefield Blue-Grays
Bluefield has enjoyed minor league baseball continuously since the 1950s, and baseball in Bluefield dates back to at least 1937, when the Bluefield Blue-Grays started play in the Mountain State League. The Blue-Grays set up shop for the 1937 season and played through 1955, with a gap from 1942 to 1946.
Bluefield is actually two towns that straddle the West Virginia-Virginia border. The Bluefield baseball team has played at Bowen Field on the Virginia side since it opened in 1939. The interesting thing about the field is that it is run wholly by the city of Bluefield, West Virginia, while the field itself sits entirely in Bluefield, Virginia. The stadium underwent a major rebuild in 1973 after fire destroyed most of the wooden grandstand and press box, and in the 1990s orange chair-back seats that had formerly been installed in Anaheim Stadium were added.
It all started, however, with the Blue-Grays. The team kept the name from its inception in 1937 through the 1955 season, affiliated in turn with the Boston Braves, Washington Senators, and Boston Red Sox. Initially they played in the Mountain State League. When that league disbanded during World War II there was a four-year period with no minor league baseball in Bluefield. After the war the team re-formed and joined the Appalachian League. While the Blue-Grays never won the Mountain State League title, they did win the Appalachian League in 1949, 1950, and 1954.
Bluefield did not produce many major leaguers during the Blue-Grays years, but a few notable names are Victor Sorrell, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers from 1928 to 1937, and Ken McBride, who played seven seasons in the 1960s for the White Sox and Angels. Also notable is Ralph Beard, who never made the majors; his best athletic talent was in basketball, where he was a three-time first-team All-American for Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky and a two-time national champion.
Though the Blue-Grays name went away after 1955, baseball in Bluefield did not. There has been an Appalachian League team in Bluefield in all but one season since. Today the Appalachian League is a summer collegiate league, with the Bluefield Ridge Runners playing in Bluefield.
