Greensboro Patriots
Greensboro's baseball teams have carried the Patriots name on and off since 1908, a reference to the Revolutionary War's Battle of Guilford Courthouse, fought just outside the city in 1781. The Patriots won Piedmont League championships in 1920 and 1926, and back-to-back titles in 1932 and 1933 with a young Johnny Mize, later a Hall of Fame first baseman, in the lineup.
The Patriots joined the Carolina League at its founding in 1945. The 1945 squad struggled badly, setting a league record with 479 errors on the way to a 53-83 finish, a mark only the 1948 club (49-93) would manage to top for futility. Greensboro briefly rebranded as the Pirates in the early 1950s before returning to the Patriots name in 1954 as a Boston Red Sox affiliate, leading the league in attendance that year with over 81,000 fans.
The team's most famous near-miss came in 1955, when the legendary Satchel Paige was signed to pitch a single game for Greensboro, only to have the contract voided by league president George Trautman. Greensboro kept the Patriots name through 1957, then switched to the Yankees in 1958.
