Vintage Rhode Island Shirts: Defunct Rhode Island Baseball Teams

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, but for most of baseball's first half-century it kept professional clubs in four cities, two of them mill towns on the Blackstone River. Providence answered to the Clamdiggers on and off from 1891 through 1905 and won pennants in 1894, 1900 and 1905, the last under Jack Dunn, the man who would later sign a teenage Babe Ruth. In 1926 the city won another as the Rubes, a Boston Braves farm club named, by every reference account, for its manager, Hall of Fame lefthander Rube Marquard. After World War II the Providence Chiefs played two New England League seasons at Cranston Stadium under a fire chief's helmet.

Up the Blackstone, the Pawtucket Slaters took their name from Samuel Slater's 1793 cotton mill, became the first tenants of McCoy Stadium, and made the playoffs in all four seasons from 1946 to 1949, with a 19-year-old Chuck Tanner in the lineup in 1948. Woonsocket's Speeders, named for a piece of mill machinery or perhaps a promise of speed, went 49-48 in the 1914 Colonial League, and the 1908 Trotters, named for their harness racing grounds, lasted exactly one game. Down the bay, the Newport Colts were credited with the 1897 New England League championship at Basin Field, which still hosts baseball every summer as Cardines Field. Our vintage Rhode Island shirts honor these defunct clubs with original designs grounded in real research.

Every team below links to its own collection, where you can read the full history and shop shirts, hoodies, and crewnecks for that club. Find your hometown team, or the one your grandfather used to talk about.