Baseball history in Beaumont
The city of Beaumont was first represented between 1903 and 1905 by the Beaumont Oil Gushers, later renamed the Beaumont Millionaires in the South Texas League. It was later represented in the Texas League from 1912 to 1917 and 1919 as the Beaumont Oilers. After the Exporters folded, the city was later represented again in the Texas league from 1983 to 1986 by the Beaumont Golden Gators and in 1994 by the Beaumont Bullfrogs of the Texas-Louisiana league.
The Exporters first formed in 1920 and played at Magnolia Ballpark through 1929 and at Stuart Stadium thereafter. The team was ranked near the bottom of the Texas League standings during the 1920s. However, when the Exporters became an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s, its fortunes changed.
The 1932 club, featuring future Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, won 100 games and swept the Dallas Steers in the playoffs. Greenberg led the league with 39 home runs and 123 runs scored, while pitcher Schoolboy Rowe, who would star with Greenberg on the 1934–1935 Tiger pennant-winners, posted a league-best 2.34 earned run average. The Exporters won another championship in 1938, behind pitcher Dizzy Trout, the league's MVP. In 1942, the team won the regular-season pennant, but fell in seven games in the playoffs. Then the entire Texas League suspended operations during World War II.
After the war ended, the New York Yankees replaced Detroit as the Exporters' parent club in 1946. A series of last-place teams was followed in 1950 with a championship club managed by Rogers Hornsby — but it was known as the Beaumont Roughnecks that season.
The Exporters name was restored in 1953, but no more titles followed. As an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs (1954) and Milwaukee Braves (1955), it trailed the other seven Texas League teams in attendance. The Exporters then moved to Austin in 1956.
A revised club known as the Exporters then entered the Class B Big State League in 1956 as a St. Louis Cardinals' affiliate. It struggled on the field, finished last in the BSL in attendance, and briefly transferred to Texas City, Texas, playing as the Texas City Exporters, during July before returning to Beaumont. The following year, 1957, Beaumont remained in the Big State League as the Beaumont Pirates, a Pittsburgh Pirates' farm club. The league then folded as an organized baseball circuit at the end of the 1957.
Beaumont remained without a minor league club until 1983 when the Amarillo Gold Sox, the Class AA Texas League affiliate of the San Diego Padres, relocated to become the Beaumont Golden Gators. The Golden Gators played from 1983 to 1986 before the franchise moved to Wichita, Kansas and became the Wichita Pilots in 1987. The franchise relocated to Springdale, Arkansas in 2008 to become today's Northwest Arkansas Naturals.[1]