Inhabitants of Acadiana revel in their often-untethered passion for life, their joie de vivre. It is a cultivated image, incongruous against the unsparing confines of the American Gothic South. This ebullience erupted in an unlikely place in 1934. Wrestling with the woes of the Great Depression, Lafayette and its sibling towns discovered solace from the rigors of a diseased economy in America’s pastime.
For the region’s modest but beloved baseball league, which came to be called the Evangeline League, a Class D (lowest classification) professional organization of teams was formed, assembled from a nucleus of seventeen to twenty-four-year-old semi-pro players who ricocheted around the bayou country of south Louisiana playing games for a few dollars on weekends.
The idea was born during 1933’s spring training. Tee Paul Leblanc, a lanky Lafayette fireballer, threw an eye-opening shutout in an exhibition game against the defending Class AA New Orleans Pelicans. “You know,” exclaimed Pelican manager Larry Gilbert in the fourth inning, “I don’t think we can beat this boy!” Tee Paul’s hometown crowd exploded with his last inning strikeout, and a hat was passed around, collecting for the smiling young hurler over $200.
Prominent businessmen were enlisted to invest in the league, and enthusiasm amongst them was abundant. Six teams were formed: The Lafayette White Sox, the Opelousas Indians, Rayne Rice Birds, the New Iberia Cardinals, the Alexandria Aces, and the Lake Charles Skippers. Rayne’s largest backer was a wealthy rice farmer who could neither read nor write, but he believed that his town would profit from its proximity (only twenty miles) to Lafayette. New Iberia and Opelousas also orbited tightly around Lafayette, by far the largest of the six with 14,635 residents. Heated rivalries were guaranteed, as between Opelousas and Alexandria, and when Jeanerette and Abbeville joined the league a year later, New Iberia was their archenemy. But everyone’s bête noire was the White Sox of Lafayette. The hub city in Acadiana had the best ballpark, the coldest beer, and the most money—the “evil empire” of the Evangeline.
Still, profits were thin in 1934, the league’s inaugural year. All the clubs sold outfield fence space (usually $25), program ads, stock sales, and “corporate” season tickets. Opelousas, suffering from poor attendance, used a novel approach, arranging that $1 a week from each of the over-100 slot machines in town be dedicated to the Indians. At the urging of team secretary Austin
Fontenot, who also happened to be the town’s attorney general, the machines displayed signs: “This Machine Operated for the Benefit of the Opelousas Baseball Club.” According to road secretary Frankie Deitlein, when a Life magazine reporter arrived to do a story on the Indians, Deitlein was assigned as his chaperone. His main task was to keep him from photographing the slots, which was the real reason for the reporter’s visit. Three days were spent in the little town, gambling, drinking, and visiting a brothel. “I gave him such a good time,” Deitlein revealed, “that he promised not to develop the photos.” Life never carried the story.
Meanwhile, the league was fast developing a reputation for the unorthodox, a badge proudly worn. Crowds appeared just to see the show. It may have been to see Frank Martelli, the Skippers’ hard-hitting first baseman, play barefooted. Or, to engage in some playfulness at the Rayne ballpark, where the backstop was just inches from the home plate umpire. When the action lagged, fans amused themselves by dropping cigar ashes down his collar.
Umpiring was hazardous. When one of them once missed a borderline pitch, White Sox catcher Walter Stephenson forever endeared himself to Lafayette’s fans after turning and punching him, knocking off his mask. When peace was restored, the public address announcer assured the tempestuous fans that a telegram was being sent to the league office threatening that the team would withdraw from the league if this umpire was allowed to continue calling games. More cheers. Police were called to escort the besieged ump off the diamond. The rest of the game was left to a single official, who presumably was quite apprehensive finishing the contest.
"Crowds appeared just to see the show. It may have been to see Frank Martelli, the Skippers' hard-hitting first baseman, play barefooted. . . When the action lagged, fans amused themselves by dropping cigar ashes down [the backstop's] collar."
As for Stephenson, he was suspended, but once he returned to the lineup, so too did his recklessness. After each hit, he would wildly beat his chest while standing on base and yell, Tarzan-style. Before each game, he further enhanced his identity by scrambling up the backstop and screaming his patented yell to exhilarate his fans. It worked, not that they needed any additional influences, given that flasks of whiskey were as common in the stands as foul mouths and foul balls. Ladies and kids be damned.
Carl Gilmore, a pitcher, remembered that the plate umpire came to one game without his mask, so he had to position himself behind the pitcher on the mound. When he didn’t call an obvious strike, Gilmore angrily spit into the air. “The wind was blowing in hard that day. After the third spraying, he fined me $5.”
Police, always present, had to rush the field to guard one official at a game in New Iberia in 1936 after a close call at second base. Threatened by enraged fans, four beefy cops escorted him out of the park, whisking him to a police car. A swarm encircled them. Police finally managed to drive the terrified ump away, leaving behind a squawking mob.
Sometimes assaults would happen hours after a game. In a smoky Opelousas pool hall one night, two umpires were relaxing. “Some guy walks over and, without ceremony, socks one of them,” remembered a bystander, starting “a regular brawl” inside the establishment.
In another incident, J.A. Trotti, the popular mayor of Lake Charles, was watching a game in the grandstand and had to run onto the field to restore order. Furious fans had charged the official, threatening him after a bang-bang play at first. He was led away by security, but a throng continued to pour onto the diamond. After a long delay, the mayor finally persuaded everyone to return to their seats.
Abbeville, which, entered the league in 1935, soon contributed to the Evangeline’s reputation as the “Hot Sauce” League. At a game there against Lafayette, a close call at third went against the home team. Enflamed, fans charged the field in pursuit of both umpires, who received little assistance from local security. President Frem Boustany of the White Sox refused to allow his team to play in Abbeville again unless Mayor Nelson Hollier promised state militia protection for his players and officials. Nelson refused, replying that he could not guarantee the umpires’ safety unless “they treated the fans in a gentleman manner.”
A compromise was reached, but in June, 1937, the loop’s umpires resigned en masse because of the increasing violence. For two days, teams’ bench players officiated games. League president Walter Morris met with the disgruntled men, and police protection was redoubled. Still, the unhinged territorialism prevailed.
“If I took up everybody on all their dinner invitations, hell, I wouldn’t have been able to run.”
Salaries for these beleaguered officials were $35 per month in 1934 ($200 after the war) with no expense accounts. They purchased their own equipment and paid for travel themselves. Most did not have cars, and it was not uncommon for them to travel with team members to and from games in someone’s car or in a rented school bus. On one occasion umpire Monk Mollazzo stole a ride to a Lake Charles game in a player’s car. Passing a watermelon patch, he ordered the driver to stop. Mollazzo crawled under a fence, stuffed a ripe one under his arm, and returned to the car. Someone spotted him and fired a shotgun at the car as they zoomed away.
Players in 1934 were paid $135 per month, although this could be improved when owners paid their best athletes lagniappe under the table. Austin Fontenot would often hand players $10 before they came to bat for encouragement. Local merchants commonly offered “sponsorships” as well. One in New Iberia provided a free shirt and another a movie pass for a home run. Lake Charles barbers often allowed free haircuts to Skipper players. A café in Rayne awarded a “delicious” frog dinner for the first stolen base of the season. The first to beat out a bunt earned a “complete Shinola outfit,” and an electric fan went to the first player to strike out. In baseball’s version of tipping, hats passed hand-to-hand in the bleachers to reward a player for an exceptional play or winning hit—or something else. When a Lake Charles Skipper’s wife lost a child at birth, a collection at a game garnered the couple $96.35. Tom Patton, the White Sox radio announcer called it “a beautiful relationship.”
One Wisconsin-born Lafayette outfielder remarked: “If I took up everybody on all their dinner invitations, hell, I wouldn’t have been able to run.” When he tried paying for his meal at a restaurant, inevitably the waitress would tell him that someone had already paid for it.
Home fans were even good to opposing players. Larry Jones, an Abbeville pitcher, was forced to endure a heckler who would harass him, even at away games. Once in New Iberia, his nemesis was in the stands yelling his usual insults. Nearby sat a New Iberia fan, also screaming at Jones. Between innings, the Abbeville fan approached the New Iberia howler, telling him to “shut his damned mouth!” Perplexed by this outburst, the New Iberia supporter replied, “You’re riding him too!” “Yeah,” retorted the Abbevillian, “but he’s a friend of mine!”
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Shortstop Art Visconti recalled: “When we went down to Cajun country, we caught hell. They were real good, warm people. I’d ride them back when they’d ride me. I’d yell, ‘How you coonies doin’ tonight?’ They’d yell, ‘Man, you’re goin’ to lose tonight, ya!’ ”
The parks themselves were anomalies. In one, telephone wires were strung along the foul lines. A fly ball was considered “in play” if it deflected from a wire and could be caught for an out. The right field fence at Rayne’s park was just 220 feet from home, so a ball lofted over it was ruled a ground rule double. Still, over 1,000 fans attended opening day there against Opelousas in 1935, locked and loaded. Jeanerette, population 2,228, entered the circuit in 1935 despite the inconvenient placement of an 8’x10’ pumphouse in their home park’s right field. Officials had to determine whether a ball hitting it on the fly could be caught.
Many of the Evangeline players were castoffs from other leagues in other states. In the early years Lake Charles even had an outfielder from Portugal on the roster, and shortstop Stanley Kravis, a Pole, played on several teams in the circuit. White Sox outfielder Zenon Ochoa was Mexican and spoke no English. When he was on first, his interpreter became his base coach. Considering their reputation for xenophobia, the Cajuns readily embraced non-Louisianans—as long as they could play! Abbeville, which entered the league in 1935, boasted several team members from Tennessee. They were astounded by the graciousness extended to them by the fiery fans from Vermilion Parish. Never, they told one reporter, had they found such hospitable folks, adding that there were more fans in Abbeville in proportion to the population than in any other section of the country they had visited. The town captured the coveted attendance trophy on opening day in 1935 with 1,463 fans. New Orleans sportswriter Bill Keefe did some arithmetic. Astounded by the league’s popularity, he compared attendance there with the Double A New Orleans Pelicans: “If New Orleans drew as much in a baseball way as Rayne or Abbeville … the Pelicans would have an attendance of 14 million …”
Until the 1950s, Acadiana’s African American baseball fans supported their own semi-pro teams, and new bleachers were expanded to accommodate their growing numbers in each park. Just as vocal and fervent as their white counterparts, over one hundred regularly attended Rayne Rice Bird games in the early years. It wasn’t until 1956, nine long years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in the majors, that five Black players appeared on the rosters of the Lake Charles and Lafayette clubs. Sadly, members of the league resisted this move toward integration, and voted to oust the two teams if they did not dismiss the players in question. Lafayette promoted theirs and Lake Charles declared their three “not good enough,” releasing them. One was Filipe Alou, who went on to play brilliantly for seventeen years in the majors. League President Ray Mullins claimed that racism had nothing to do with the decision.
World War II interrupted league play, which by then had expanded to Natchez, Mississippi and Port Arthur, Texas, both towns with legitimate Louisiana pedigrees. Thibodaux, Houma, Hammond, and Baton Rouge entered teams after the war as well, but with air conditioning, television, and a successful boycott of the games by Black fans after the expulsion of Alou and the others, the league barely survived the 1957 season.
It was a Camelot existence, however brief. The league demonstrated Acadiana’s exceptionalism and idiosyncracies, enhancing its enormous pride and energizing an identity for these mostly small towns during the grim days of the Depression and thereafter.
