Remembering The Evangeline League: 1938

The Evangeline League was a minor league baseball league that ran in southern and central Louisiana from 1934-1957.

The league, which had it’s name taken from Evangeline, the epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, began as a 6-team class D league in 1934, and then expanded to 8 teams the next season, before shutting down for two seasons following the 1943 season due to World War II.

After resuming play in 1946, the Evangeline League remained a class D league, before being promoted to the class C level in 1949.

The league remained in operation until 1957, when two of the six remaining teams dropped out, suspending play that season with no champion being named.

The Evangeline League, which featured a betting scandal back in 1946, featured teams in cities such as Lafayette, Abbeville, Crowley, Opelousas, Rayne, Jeanerette, and Lake Charles.

Despite the stability of the league, the only franchise they lasted all 21 seasons was the Alexandria Aces, while New Iberia had a franchise every season, with the exception of the final one.

Because of the close proximity of the franchises, a number of heated rivalries developed, with crowds that would certainly quality as raucous, getting into it with umpires, players, managers, and one another.

It was an immensely popular league for over two decades, with some franchises actually outdrawing some Major League Baseball franchises, in terms of attendance.

All summer long we’ll be going back in time and look back at the Evangeline League, which was commonly referred to as the “Pepper Sauce League”, “Hot Sauce League”, or “Tabasco Circuit”.

Yesterday, we looked back at the 1937 season.

Today, the 1938 season:

The Evangeline League remained as it had been the previous three seasons, with eight teams in 1938.

The Lake Charles Skippers, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, defeated the Abbevile Athletics, an affiliate of the New York Giants, four-games-to-three in the finals, after the two teams finished with the most regular season wins, with 78 and 76, respectively, in the league standings.

The Rayne Rice Birds (74) finished with the third-most wins, followed by the Alexandria Aces (72), Lafayette White Sox (69), Opelousas Indians (64), New Iberia Cardinals (57), and Jeanerette Blues (45).

Abbeville’s Chris Flanagan led the league in batting and hits in 1938, batting a .384, along with 178 hits, while Robert Hood of Lake Charles paced the league with 18 home runs, and Lafayette's Carl Barnhart drove in 109 runs.

Abbeville, who had an outstanding pitching staff in 1938, had the league leaders in both wins, with Nathan Love (22), and strikeouts, with Donald Pulford (204),  while Rayne's Garth Mann finished with the best ERA. (2.09).