Crowley Millers

The Crowley Millers, based in Crowley, Louisiana, joined the Evangeline League in 1951 and won the league championship in their second season. Crowley had long carried the nickname "Rice Capital of the World," and the Millers took their name from the rice processing mills that anchored the city's economy.

The Crowley Millers arrived in the Evangeline League in 1951, having spent the previous season in the Gulf Coast League before that circuit folded. The 1952 championship came with an 81-59 regular season record under manager John George, capped by a four-game sweep of the Baton Rouge Red Sticks in the finals. The Millers were even stronger in 1953, finishing the regular season at 84-54 for first place, before falling to Thibodaux in the playoff semifinals. In their later years the Millers carried a working agreement with the Kansas City Athletics. They remained in the circuit through the Evangeline League's final 1957 season, when the league folded before a champion could be declared.

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.