Paducah Chiefs
The minor league team that represented Paducah, Kentucky, in the first half of the 20th century was called either the Paducah Chiefs or the Paducah Indians (save for one year as the Polecats and one year as the Red Birds) at various times. Chiefs was the moniker in 1903, 1911-12, and 1949-55. The name honors Chief Paduke, the leader of a Chickasaw band that was friendly to the settlers of the area in the early 19th century. A monument to Paduke stands in the center of Paducah.
Save for two seasons in the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League, the Paducah Chiefs played all of their time in the Kitty League, a Class D league of teams from Kentucky, Illinois, and Tennessee that spanned the first half of the 20th century.
The Chiefs won the 1913 Kitty League pennant with an excellent 80-47 record. They were pretty successful throughout their run in the 1950s as well, winning 67 games a few times, but they wouldn't win another title until the Kitty League dissolved in 1955, a bittersweet way to win a championship. They finished 64-39 and were declared champions with fewer wins than Mayfield but a better winning percentage.
During their run the Paducah Kitty League teams produced several future major leaguers. Ben Tincup, a Native American of the Cherokee tribe, pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1913-14 and 1918, then came back to the majors a full ten years later for a handful of innings with the 1928 Chicago Cubs. Tincup pitched into his forties, appearing for Paducah in 1937, 1939, and 1941, that last season at age 48. He finished a 30-year minor league career in 1942 with a mark of 250-195 and a 3.45 ERA in 3,761 innings, and was a fair hitter as well, with a .275 career average.
Jim Frey, a future American League pennant-winning manager, played his first year of minor league baseball with the Paducah Chiefs as an outfielder, during the club's Mississippi-Ohio Valley League years, posting a .325 average in over 400 plate appearances as a 19-year-old. An arm injury kept him from the majors, but he spent several productive years in Triple-A and posted a .305 average in over 1,500 minor league games. His real fame came as manager of the 1980 American League champion Kansas City Royals; he had picked up a World Series ring in 1970 as a coach for the Baltimore Orioles.
Grover Land, while not the most accomplished major leaguer, might have been the most interesting character Paducah produced. A catcher from Frankfort, Kentucky, Land played his first year of minor league baseball in Paducah in 1904 and by 1908 had made the majors as a light-hitting but tough defensive backup catcher with the Cleveland Naps. His major league career wrapped up with two years for the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League. According to the Society for American Baseball Research, Land was a fighter on and off the field. Players claimed he was the toughest catcher in the majors to slide into home plate on. In 1911 he was arrested for assaulting the gatekeeper at Cleveland's ballpark for not letting two of his friends in, and the same year he was arrested in Frankfort for shooting the keeper of a Greek restaurant (who survived). In 1926 his wife claimed he fired a revolver at her during a dispute (he missed). Land spent several years as a major league coach for the Cubs and Reds.
