Southeastern League Archives - All Mississippi Baseball

totally random

Today’s subject: Buddy Blair. Columbia native Blair, a decorated athlete in college, enjoyed a short but sweet big league career. As a 31-year-old rookie with the Philadelphia A’s in 1942, the lefty-hitting third baseman got a hit in his first game and another in his last game that same season. Blair (given name Louis) hit .279 for Connie Mack’s last-place A’s, with five homers, 66 RBIs, 26 doubles and 48 runs in 137 games. Over the next three years, he served in World War II in the Air Force. He returned to baseball in 1946 — but not to the big leagues. Blair was a player/manager from 1946-50 with Vicksburg in the Class B Southeastern League. In 1949 with the Billies, he won the only pro game he ever pitched. Blair, who died in 1996, was a three-sport star at LSU, lettering in basketball and track as well as baseball. He originally signed with the New York Yankees in 1936 and spent six years in their minor league system.

make a toast

Most local baseball aficionados are well aware that this year marks the 15th anniversary of the arrival at Trustmark Park in Pearl of the Mississippi Braves, who moved from Greenville, S.C., in 2005. (Hopefully, there will be a 2020 season during which to celebrate that fact.) This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Jackson DiamondKats’ one and only – and otherwise forgettable — season at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium and the 30th anniversary of the Jackson Mets’ final season at Smith-Wills. The 1990 JaxMets, managed by Clint Hurdle, won a division title and made the Texas League playoffs, marking the 10th postseason appearance for the Double-A club in its 16 years in Jackson. This year also marks the 80th anniversary of a somewhat forgotten championship team, the 1940 Jackson Senators. Playing in the Class B Southeastern League, the Senators went a league-best 89-58 that season and crushed both the Selma Cloverleafs and the Pensacola Fliers in the playoffs, going 4-1 in each series. Managed by Footsie Blair, the unaffiliated Senators played at League Park, a stadium near what is now the Fairgrounds. (It was destroyed by a tornado in 1953.) That team was led by future big leaguer Tom McBride, a .316 hitter who topped the SL in hits with 194 (according to statscrew.com); Paul Fugit, who batted .317 with 11 homers; and 16-game winners Harry Durheim and Gordon Maltzberger, who led the loop in ERA and later coached in the majors for several years. The Senators’ championship in 1940 was the last league title celebrated in the Capital City until Davey Johnson’s JaxMets won the TL pennant in 1981.