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 Alexandria Aces
Professional baseball first came to Alexandria, Louisiana in 1907 in the class D Gulf Coast League. The Alexandria White Sox finished second in their first of three seasons.
Although the Cincinnati Reds held their spring training in Alexandria in 1914 and 1915, Alexandria’s most enduring early professional baseball team was the Alexandria Reds, who competed in the Class D Cotton States League from 1925-1930.
The first Alexandria Aces team, which began in 1934, played in the Evangeline League, which was Class D until 1942 and from 1946-48 before being upgraded to Class C from 1949-57. Those Aces were the first to use Bringhurst Field, built for the club in 1933.
The minor league classification structure was overhauled in the 1960s, but the Aces returned as a team in the AA Texas League in 1972, then affiliated with the San Diego Padres. That stint lasted only four years.
In 1994, professional baseball returned to Alexandria with the independent Texas-Louisiana League. The Aces were charter members in the league, led in their first season by former major-leaguer Pete Falcone, and won the inaugural Eastern Division championship. The Aces won back-to-back league championships in 1997 and 1998 under the direction of manager Stan Cliburn. The team folded after the 2003 season but returns in 2006 as part of United League Baseball, a new independent league made up primarily of teams that once played in the Texas-Louisiana or Central Leagues. |
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