Fresno Cardinals

The Fresno Cardinals were a minor league baseball team that played in the California League from 1941-1956. The team was owned by the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League and was based in Fresno, California.

The city of Fresno had professional baseball as far back as 1898 when it had a team in the original California League, then considered an "outlaw" league ("i.e.", outside the bounds of Organized Baseball). The team dropped out of the league after that year, but the California League returned in 1905 with the Fresno Tigers, joined late in the season by Fresno native and future hall of famer Frank Chance. In 1906, the Tacoma Tigers of the Pacific Coast League moved to Fresno, playing as the Fresno Raisin Eaters for one season. In 1910, Fresno rejoined the old California League, which had entered Organized Baseball as the Class "D" California State League, but the league folded during the season. When the league reorganized, Fresno rejoined it in 1913, finishing second in a four-team league. After the season, the team and league folded.

When the modern California League was founded in 1941 as a Class "C" minor league, the Fresno Cardinals were a charter member, the others being the Anaheim Aces, Bakersfield Badgers, Merced Bears, Riverside Reds, San Bernardino Stars, Santa Barbara Saints, and Stockton Fliers. The Cards finished first, 6½ games ahead of the Saints, but lost the playoffs to the Saints 4 games to 1. In 1942, they finished second in a season shortened by America's entry into World War II. The league suspended play for the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons. In 1946, the California League resumed operations. The Cardinals won pennants in 1948 and 1952.

In 1955, the Cardinals fielded one of the best teams in the history of minor league baseball, ranked the 79th best minor league team of all time by baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright. It was one of only a handful of lower classification teams ("i.e.", Class A, B, C and D) to have been included in the top 100 minor league teams. The Cards finished 104-43 for a .707 won-lost percentage, 5½ games ahead of the San Jose Red Sox for the season as a whole. The league played a split season schedule, though, and the Cards finished second, 2½ games behind the Stockton Ports in the first half of the split season. In the second half, though Stockton faded, Fresno barely finished first, only one game over San Jose. In the playoffs, Fresno defeated Stockton 3 games to 1 to win the CL pennant. The 1955 Cardinals set league records for most runs (1,048), hits (1,500), and RBI (893) in a season. Their 104 games won and .707 winning percentage remain California League records to this day. The team won its last pennant in Fresno the following year, 1956.

The Fresno Cardinals had long been one of the league's more popular teams, due in large part to its affiliation with the major league Cardinals. Until 1955, St. Louis had been the major leagues' western-most city, with the St. Louis Cardinals winning many fans in the western part of the United States as a result. In addition, a large percentage of the population of Fresno and the surrounding area consisted of transplants from the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas, who arrived with a natural affinity for the Cardinals.

The televising of major league baseball games and other factors began taking its toll on minor league attendance during the 1950s, with many teams and entire leagues folding as a result. Scaling back their minor league operations, the St. Louis Cardinals sold their Fresno club after the 1956 season to the Greater Fresno Youth Foundation and ended their affiliation with the team.

In 1957 the team, now known as the Fresno Sun Sox, operated without a major league affiliation, and finished last. In 1958, the team entered into a working agreement with the San Francisco Giants and were renamed the Fresno Giants, winning the California League pennant in their inaugural year. In 1963, the entire minor league system was reorganized, with the California League granted Class A status for the first time. As a Class A team, the Fresno Giants won pennants in 1964, 1974 and 1987.

After the 1987 season, the San Francisco Giants moved their "farm" operations to San Jose. The Fresno team, now renamed the Fresno Suns and operating as an independent team, drew only 34,000 fans for the entire season in 1988, after which the team was sold and moved to Salinas for the 1989 season.

Minor league baseball returned to Fresno in 1998, when the owners of the Tucson Toros of the AAA Pacific Coast League moved their franchise to Fresno and renamed it the Fresno Grizzlies.

References

* [http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/milb/history/top100.jsp?idx=79 Team # 79--1955 FRESNO CARDINALS (104-43)] The Top 100 Minor League Teams: Team # 79--1955 Fresno Cardinals, by Bill Weiss & Marshall Wright, Baseball Historians