• Source: Hartford Chiefs

      • The Hartford Chiefs was the final name of the American minor league baseball franchise representing Hartford, Connecticut, that played in the Eastern League (then Class A) between 1946 and 1952. Hartford was an affiliate of the Boston Braves for 15 seasons. The team, which played at Bulkeley Stadium, was known as the Bees from 1938 to 1945. They were also called the Laurels due to reporting by the Hartford Times newspaper (although Baseball America's Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball calls the 1938 team the "Bees"); The 1944 Laurels were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Hartford was renamed the "Chiefs" in 1946 when their parent club, temporarily known as the Boston Bees, reverted back to being the Boston Braves.


      Long baseball tradition


      The Connecticut capital had been in organized baseball since the Hartford Dark Blues were a charter member of the National League in 1876–77. After those two years in Major League Baseball, Hartford was represented in eleven different minor leagues — including three earlier versions of the "Eastern League." When the Class B Northeastern League folded after the 1934 season during the depths of the Great Depression, Hartford was without professional baseball for three seasons. Then Hartford joined the former Class A New York–Pennsylvania League. The arrival of the Hartford franchise and Trenton, New Jersey, caused the NYPL to change its identity to the Eastern League in 1938, with 2012 marking the 75th consecutive season the league has used the name.


      Affiliate of Boston's NL franchise


      The 1938 Laurels made the Eastern League playoffs and Hartford qualified for the postseason nine times in its 15-year history (including 1943–46 in succession), but the franchise never captured the league's playoff title. While the 1942 team included a future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, Warren Spahn, the Boston Bees/Braves of the era did not have an extensive player development system. Class A was prior to 1963 a higher-level circuit, close to today's Double-A ranking, and the Hartford franchise was the Braves' most advanced minor league affiliate through 1945. In 1946, however, the Braves began to build out their farm system, adding Triple-A and Double-A affiliates and expanding their presence in Classes B, C and D. They also worked with a second Class A farm club, the Denver Bears of the Western League, from 1949–51.
      But after winning the 1948 National League pennant, the big-league Braves experienced a dramatic fall-off in attendance, and played their last season in Boston in 1952. The Hartford Chiefs did not survive them; the franchise was transferred to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as an unaffiliated team for 1953. Meanwhile, the MLB Braves moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during spring training of 1953. They had two Class A affiliates that season: the Lincoln Chiefs of the Western League—inheritors of the Hartford team's nickname—and the Jacksonville Braves of the Sally League, whose star player in 1953 would be 19-year-old Henry Aaron.


      Notable alumni




      Yearly record




      2016 return to Eastern League


      In 2015, after more than six decades without a team in organized baseball, Hartford officials led by then-mayor Pedro Segarra proposed building a new baseball stadium (to be known as Dunkin' Donuts Park) in the city's North End to attract the nearby New Britain Rock Cats of the modern Double-A Eastern League. The renamed Hartford Yard Goats debuted in 2016 but played the entire season on the road — with some games moved to Norwich, 40 miles (64 km) to the southeast — because of construction delays.
      Despite continued problems in completing the stadium, the team began play in Hartford's new ballpark in 2017.


      References




      External links


      Baseball Reference

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