Columbus lore
May 3, 2007 - International League (IL1)
Columbus Clippers News Release
The Columbus Clippers are currently playing the Rochester Red Wings. Did you know that the two franchises were the Triple-A affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1931-1954?
The two clubs were mirror images of each other. Columbus played in the American Association. Rochester played in the International League. The Red Wings' Silver Stadium and Columbus Red Bird Stadium were identical. More people have seen a minor league baseball game at Cooper Stadium than any ball park in history. Silver Stadium is second on the list.
The Cardinals shuttled over two hundred players between the two clubs during those two dozen seasons. Many of the names in Rochester's Hall of Fame are identical to those in Dysart Park.
During that time frame, Rochester won four I.L. pennants, Columbus won four A.A. flags. The Red Wings won two Junior World Series. The Red Birds won six. They never played each other in the classic.
Lew Byrer, the Columbus Citizen Sports Editor for 35 years, always wrote that St. Louis sent the best players to Rochester. The Cardinals always insisted that this wasn't true.
When Columbus won the Junior World Series in dramatic fashion in 1950, the St. Louis brass thought they had finally quieted Byrer. It hadn't. Lew kept up his editorial barrage.
The Cardinals decided to show Byrer just how bad a Triple-A club could be. They sent the majority of the championship Red Birds back to Double-A Houston and filled the 1951 Red Birds with untried youngsters. The club lost 101 games. The team was so bad, pitcher Cot Deal led the club in home runs. Houston naturally won their league's pennant.
The Columbus-St. Louis relationship never really recovered. Attendance suffered when new Cardinal owner Gussie Busch discovered that a local ordinance in Columbus didn't permit him to sell Budweiser at Red Bird Stadium. So he didn't allow any beer in the ball park. (Isn't that a sacrilege?) Attendance plummeted to just 84,995 in 1953.
The Cardinals pulled up stakes and moved the Red Birds to Omaha in 1955. The Columbus Jets era started that same season.
The Rochester series continues Thursday and Friday. Come on out to The Coop and enjoy these two traditional franchises do battle.
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