Nashville Vols
| Nashville Vols | |||||
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| Dixie Series titles (4) |
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| League titles (9) |
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| Pennants (8) |
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| Ballpark | Sulphur Dell (1901–1961, 1963) | ||||
The Nashville Vols were a Minor League Baseball team from Nashville, Tennessee, that played from 1901 to 1963.[1] They were known only as the Nashville Baseball Club for their first seven seasons. In 1908, they became the Nashville Volunteers (usually shortened to Vols) because Tennessee's nickname is "The Volunteer State".[2][3] The Vols played their baseball games at a ballpark called Athletic Park,[4] which was renamed Sulphur Dell in 1908.[2]
The Nashville team started playing baseball in 1901 as one of the first members of a new league called the Southern Association (SA).[1][5] They played in this league until it disbanded after the 1961 season.[1][6] The league had different difficultly levels: Class B (1901), Class A (1902–1935), Class A1 (1936–1945), and Double-A (1946–1961). Over 61 seasons in the SA, the Vols won eight league pennants, nine playoff championships, and four Dixie Series titles.[7] They did not play in 1962.[8] The Vols played one final season in the Double-A South Atlantic League in 1963.[1][9]
For 35 seasons, Nashville was not partnered with any Major League Baseball (MLB) team. For 27 seasons, they had affiliations with six MLB teams: the New York Giants (1934–1935, 1952–1954), Cincinnati Reds (1936–1937, 1955–1960), Brooklyn Dodgers (1938–1940), Chicago Cubs (1943–1951), Minnesota Twins (1961), and Los Angeles Angels (1963).
After the Vols stopped playing, Nashville did not have a professional baseball team for 14 years. In 1978, the Nashville Sounds started playing in the Double-A Southern League.[10] The Sounds their games at Herschel Greer Stadium for 37 seasons until moving into the new First Horizon Park, which was built on the site of Sulphur Dell, in 2015.[11]
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The 1901 Nashville Baseball Club won the first SA pennant.
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The Vols played at Sulphur Dell from 1901 to 1963.
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A game at Sulphur Dell
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The seats at Sulphur Dell
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The baseball field at Sulphur Dell
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Nashville, Tennessee Encyclopedia". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Volunteers Will Meet the Barons". The Nashville American. Nashville. May 4, 1908. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ "It's Up to the Bugs". The Nashville American. Nashville. February 18, 1908. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ "Sulphur Dell". Stats Crew. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
- ↑ "Base Ball, Southern League". The Nashville American. Nashville. December 16, 1900. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Williams, F. M. (January 27, 1962). "City Loses Baseball for 1962". The Nashville Tennessean. Nashville. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ O'Neal, Bill (1994). The Southern League: Baseball in Dixie, 1885–1994. Eakin Press. pp. 306–308. ISBN 978-0-89015-952-1.
- ↑ Williams, F. M. (August 22, 1962). "Vols Meet Friday to Talk '63 Plans". The Nashville Tennessean. Nashville. p. 19 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Williams, F. M. (December 12, 1962). "Vols Officially Hire Ed Doherty, Accept Agreement with Angels". The Nashville Tennessean. Nashville. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Weiss, Bill; Wright, Marshall (2001). "69. 1980 Nashville Sounds". Minor League Baseball. Archived from the original on January 13, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
- ↑ Ammenheuser, David. "Coming Home to Sulphur Dell". The Tennessean. Retrieved December 1, 2023.