Ludington Tars

The Ludington Tars, based in Ludington, Michigan, were the final identity of a club that had played under other names before it. "Tar," often "Jack Tar," is old nautical slang for a sailor, dating back to the 1600s and 1700s, derived from sailors using tar to waterproof their ropes, sails, and clothing. It's a fitting name for a club on Lake Michigan's shore, and a natural successor to the team's earlier name. The franchise began in 1912 as the Ludington Mariners in the Michigan State League, playing through 1914 before a five-year hiatus during World War I, then returned in 1920, still as the Mariners, for a three-season run in the Class B Central League.

Those Mariners teams were the class of the Central League in the early 1920s, winning the regular-season pennant in both 1921 and 1922. The 1922 title didn't hold up in the postseason, though: Ludington lost the playoff to the Grand Rapids Billbobs, five games to three.

The club took the Tars name in 1926 and joined seven other Michigan clubs, from Bay City, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Port Huron, and Saginaw, when the Central League merged midseason with the Michigan-Ontario League to form a new Michigan State League. Ludington went 45-51 in that one-season league, which folded after 1926 and didn't return.

The Mariners name resurfaced in 1993, not as a professional club but as the Ludington Mariners Old Time Base Ball Team, a vintage reenactment squad that still plays by 1860s rules.

The Central League itself was a Class B circuit that ran, often sporadically, from 1903 into the 1930s (with a later 1948-51 revival), fielding teams mostly from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.