Las Vegas Wranglers (baseball)

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Las Vegas Wranglers
Minor league affiliations
Previous classes
  • Class C (1947–1952, 1957–1958)
Previous leagues
Major league affiliations
Previous teams
Minor league titles
League titles 1 (1949)
Team data
Previous names
  • Las Vegas Pirates (1958) [1]
Previous parks
 Cashman Field (1948–1952, 1957–1958)
Park @ Las Vegas Boulevard & Bonanza Avenue (1947) [1]

The Las Vegas Wranglers were a minor league baseball team that played in various leagues in the 1940s and 1950s. They were Las Vegas's first professional team in any sport.

Contents

1947

The Wranglers were a charter franchise of the Class C Sunset League in 1947. Despite Paul Zaby's league-leading .402 batting average and a historic offensive season from Calvin Felix, the Wranglers (a Boston Braves affiliate) finished just 73-67, third place, and were beaten in the semifinals by the Riverside Dons. Ex-major leaguer Newt Kimball was Las Vegas's player-manager, also winning 14 games as a pitcher that year. [2]

The 21-year-old Felix led the league in nearly every offensive category in 1947, including 52 home runs, the second-most ever hit in a pro league by such a young player. (Tony Lazzeri, also then 21, hit 60 home runs for the Salt Lake City Bees in 1925, but that team played 200 games). [3] [4] Felix was sold to the Triple-A Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League after the season [5] but never played for them. Instead, he wound up with the unaffiliated Denver Bears of the Western League in 1948 and with the Santa Barbara Dodgers in 1949. By 1953, Felix was with the Triple-A Montreal Royals, but was sent down to the Texas League the next season. He never played in the majors. [6]

Actor Cameron Mitchell pitched one game for the Wranglers in 1947. Las Vegas, needing all the pitching help they could get in the offense-minded Sunset League, signed Mitchell after he shut out the Triple-A Los Angeles Angels for four innings in an exhibition game. [7] However, the actor was shelled, allowing 11 runs in less than an inning to the Ontario Orioles. [8]

Later years

Las Vegas continued to be one of the circuit's top teams the next three years. In 1948, the Wranglers moved up to second place and made to the championship series before losing to Reno. However, the team drew only around 600 fans per game (Las Vegas' population was only around 20,000 then) and faced a $15,000 deficit at season's end, partially because they were no longer affiliated with the Braves. In 1949, however, the Wranglers blew the league away with an 88-38 record and easily claimed the pennant, with attendance climbing to over 1,000 per contest. Due to budget cuts, there were no playoffs that year, and the '49 Wranglers had claimed Las Vegas' first pro sports championship (and last one for 37 years, until the Las Vegas Stars won the Pacific Coast League (PCL) crown in 1986). After a third-place finish in 1950, the top teams in the Sunset League merged with the Arizona–Mexico League to form the new Southwest International League in 1951.

Declining attendance vexed minor-league ball throughout the country in the early 1950s, and Las Vegas was no exception: despite two more winning seasons in 1951–52, the Wranglers (along with the rest of the SWIL) died after the 1952 season.

Baseball returned to Las Vegas in 1957, but the new team (also called the Wranglers) finished fourth in the Arizona–Mexico League, then folded. On May 26, 1958, however, the San Jose Pirates of the California League moved to Las Vegas, renaming themselves the Wranglers. But the team finished a poor seventh and disbanded after the season when the league contracted from eight teams to six.

Las Vegas would not have another professional baseball team for a quarter-century, until the Las Vegas Stars joined the PCL in 1983. [9]

Notable alumni

Source: [9]

Year-by-year record

YearLeagueRecordFinishManagerPlayoffs
1947 Sunset League 73-673rd Newt Kimball Lost in first round
194878-622nd Ken Meyers Lost League Finals
194988-381st Ken Meyers none League Champs
195076-693rd Ed Wheeler Lost in first round
1951 Southwest International League 72-715th Newt Kimball
1952 Southwest International League 70-663rd William DeCarlo none
1957 Arizona–Mexico League 62-744th Red Marion none
1958 California League 54-81 overall7th Jack Paepke San Jose moved to Las Vegas May 26

References

  1. 1 2 "Las Vegas Professional Baseball History". MiLB.com. Retrieved March 7, 2025.
  2. ↑ "1947 Las Vegas Wranglers Statistics". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  3. ↑ "SABR Minor League Newsletter" (PDF). Society of American Baseball Research . June 2002. p. 8.
  4. ↑ "Tony Lazzeri Minor Leagues Statistics". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  5. ↑ "Studying the stars". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. February 28, 1948. p. 14. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  6. ↑ "Calvin Felix Minor Leagues Statistics". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Movie star will pitch for Las Vegans against Reno Silver Sox Friday Night". Nevada State Journal. August 31, 1947. p. 10. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  8. 1 2 "Orioles battle for playoff berth tonight". The Daily Report. September 2, 1947. p. 12. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  9. 1 2 "Las Vegas, Nevada Encyclopedia". Baseball-Reference.com.
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