Mobile Bears

The Mobile Bears, based in Mobile, Alabama, played in the Southern Association from 1918 through 1931 and again from 1944 through 1961, the longest run of any professional club the city ever had. Mobile had entered the Association in 1908 as the Sea Gulls and changed the name to the Bears in 1918, at which point it stuck for four decades.

The best of the early years came in 1922, when Mobile took the pennant and then beat the Fort Worth Panthers four games to two in the Dixie Series. Fort Worth won six straight championships in their own league between 1920 and 1925, and Bears manager Bert Niehoff is the only Southern Association manager who ever beat them.

The franchise then left town and came back. In July 1931 the club, playing that season as the Marines, moved to Knoxville and became the Smokies. Thirteen years later, in July 1944, the Knoxville franchise moved back to Mobile and took the Bears name again.

The second stint was the stronger one. As a Brooklyn Dodgers farm club the 1947 Bears went 94-59 and won both the pennant and the Southern Association championship, with Cal Abrams leading the league in runs scored and John Hall leading it in earned run average. Two members of that roster went on to unusual second acts: George Shuba won a World Series with Brooklyn in 1955, and Chuck Connors became better known as Lucas McCain on the television series The Rifleman. Mobile added a second Dixie Series title in 1955 and playoff championships in 1945, 1947, 1955, and 1959.

The end came quickly. In 1959 Gordy Coleman led the Association in batting while hitting 30 home runs, and the Bears lost the pennant to Birmingham by two and a half games before beating the Barons four games to one in what turned out to be the last playoff series the league ever held. The Southern Association folded after the 1961 season and the Bears went with it.