Fort Wayne Chiefs
The Fort Wayne Chiefs were an early pioneer of baseball in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Chiefs played intermittently between 1917 and 1935 for a total of eight seasons with seven of those seasons in the Central League and one in the Triple I League (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League).
The Chiefs played in their initial 1917 season, finishing last in the Central League. The league would disband for WWI and when the league returned after the war, Fort Wayne wasn't represented. However, the league itself had trouble and disbanded in 1920, starting up play again in 1928 this time with the Chiefs again represented.
The 1928 Chiefs had a standout among their ranks; future Hall of Famer Chuck Klein. Klein had 26 HRs and batted .336 in 88 games for the Chiefs. He would leave mid-season and make his major league debut for Philadelphia in what was a strange situation. It became known to Major League Commissioner Landis that the St. Louis Cardinals owned two Central League franchises, the Chiefs and the Dayton Aviators. He ordered the Cardinals to sell the Chiefs and their players, which put Klein up to the highest bidder. The Chiefs somehow survived all that to finished third and then win the playoffs.
This being the Great Depression, the Central League had stops and starts, which led to the Chiefs playing the 1929, 1930, 1932, and 1934 seasons. The Chiefs won an abbreviated 1934 season that saw the league start with six teams, finish with four, and the Chiefs finish with a 19-4 record. The Chiefs would move to the Triple I league for the 1935 season, which would be their last before folding.
After the Chiefs folded, Fort Wayne would only have one season of men's pro ball until 1993, when Fort Wayne Wizards started up. However, there would be 10 seasons of women's pro ball, as the Fort Wayne Daisies of the AAGPBL played from 1945 to 1954.
The Triple I and Central Leagues were Class B minor leagues that ran in the early 1900s consisting of teams from across the Midwest. In the 1800s and first half of the 1900s, teams existed in thousands of small towns across the United States, as Americans looked for recreational activities and entertainment in the era before TV.
