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Looking back at 125 years of New Orleans baseball

It’s been 125 years since the first pro baseball game was played in New Orleans — and in that time some great players and managers have worn the uniforms of the Pelicans and Zephyrs.

That first pro game was played in 1887 by the New Orleans Pelicans, a team that became a mainstay in the Southern League. The team was also a solid draw: in 1947 the Pelicans drew 400,036 fans to Pelican Stadium (shown above), at the intersection of Tulane and South Carrollton avenues. That ballpark was torn down in 1957, and the Pelicans played a few seasons at City Park Stadium before leaving town.

Pro baseball returned in 1977 for a single year when the New Orleans Pelicans played for a single season at the Superdome; it wouldn’t be until 1997 that the Zephyrs moved from Denver, playing first on the UNO campus before Zephyr Field opened.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a nice history of pro baseball in New Orleans in today’s edition.

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