Jeannette Jays

The Jeannette Jays played in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, a Westmoreland County borough known as the Glass City for the plants that at one point made a large share of the country's glass containers. The Jays spent six seasons in the Class C Middle Atlantic League from 1926 through 1931.

That final season was the strangest in the franchise's history, and one of the strangest in the league's. Jeannette opened 1931 at 1-11 and the club simply left town. On May 23 it relocated to Altoona and became the Altoona Engineers, the only professional team to represent that city between 1912 and 1996. The Engineers lasted until July 18, when the same franchise moved again, this time to Beaver Falls, where it finished the year as the Beaver Falls Beavers. One club, three cities, three names, one season.

The league as a whole was coming apart that year. Hagerstown moved to Parkersburg in June and then to Youngstown in July, and in 1932 the Middle Atlantic League contracted from twelve teams to six.

Baseball came back to Jeannette in the Class D Pennsylvania State Association. The club played as the Jeannette Reds in 1934 under a Cincinnati agreement, sat out a year, and returned in 1936 as the Jeannette Little Pirates, who won the league championship. Renamed the Jeannette Bisons for 1937, the defending champions shut their gates on June 10, a month into the season, along with McKeesport. Their departure left the Association with four teams and forced a mid-season restart of the entire league schedule.