In mid-summer 1950, the Tri-City Braves were still in the hunt to win the Western International League baseball pennant.

The team fell short, finishing third in the eight-team Western International League (WIL) behind eventual pennant winner, the Yakima Bears, and second place Tacoma.

As the Tri-Cities marks the diamond jubilee of professional baseball’s arrival, the memories of that inaugural season – and many that followed – continue to resonate with longtime fans across the region.

The Tri-City Dust Devils, playing at Gesa Stadium in Pasco, continue the long and rich professional baseball tradition in the Tri-Cities as a franchise in the Northwest League which replaced the WIL beginning in the 1955 season. 

The Braves would finish that first season 75 years ago with an 83-66 record under Manager Charlie Petersen, drawing 91,797 fans to its new ballpark, Sanders Field, located off the northeast corner of Clearwater Avenue and Neel Street in Kennewick.

The area then was still rural in landscape, with a few farms, grape vineyards, orchards, fields and a smattering of businesses.

Cornerstone of success

Team batting was the cornerstone of the Braves’ success in their inaugural season of professional play. The Braves led the WIL in team batting with an average of .294, and in on-base percentage at .394. It also led the league in home runs with 75 and was second in runs scored with 925 to Yakima’s 960.

Tri-City Braves’ James Warner led the league with 143 runs scored in 1950 during a season highlighted by individual performances of players for a Tacoma Tigers team that won 90 games. The individual batting crown was won by Glenn Stetter who hit .369 while playing for both Tacoma and Spokane. Tacoma’s Richard Greco led the WIL with 203 hits, with 154 runs batted in, and with 36 home runs.

In individual pitching, Tacoma’s Robert Kerrigan led the league as a 26-game winner, and Thomas Kipp of Tacoma had the best earned run average at 2.76. Strikeout leader was Yakima pitcher Lloyd Dickey with 224.

Pitching woes were the downfall of the Braves’ inaugural season, finishing in the bottom half of the league in team pitching.

Its pitching highlight, however, was in its ace, Lou McCollum. He was the starter of the first game and threw the first pitch in Tri-City Braves’ professional baseball history on April 18, 1950, to Vancouver Capilanos’ third baseman Jimmy Robinson standing in the batter’s box, with Braves catcher Nick Pesut behind the plate. 

Behind McCollum as he fired the first Tri-Cities professional pitch ever were infielders Vic Bucolla, Al Spaeter, Artie Wilson and Neil Bryant, and outfielders Jim Warner, Clint Cameron and Dick Faber.

Some 3,684 first-night ever fans looked on. The Capilanos would win that first-ever Braves game 8-3 in 11 innings.

McCollum would become a 21-game winner for the Braves that season that is still, 75 years later, the record for most wins in a season by a Tri-City pitcher. He and Kerrigan were the WIL’s only 20-game winners in 1950.

In 1960, Fred Hicks would become only the second 20-game winner for the Braves with a 20-8 record.

McCollum pitched the first two seasons for the Braves during a nine-year minor league career that began with the Wilmington Blue Rocks of the Interstate League and the Newport News Pilots of the Virginia League, both on the East Coast. He hurled four seasons with Wenatchee of the WIL in the 1940s. The 6-foot-4, 190-pound right-hander also had a stint with the AAA Sacramento Solons of the Pacific Coast League, one notch below the major leagues, where he recorded a win.

Recording the Braves’ first win as a pitcher was “Bullet” Joe Orrell the night after McCollum’s opening night outing. The first home run ever hit at Sanders Field was by Wimpy Quinn of Tacoma. The park’s first grand slam came by the Braves’ Clint Cameron.

The Tri-City Braves played five seasons in the WIL before that league disbanded and the new Northwest League (NWL) replaced it in 1955, with the Eugene Emeralds winning the NWL’s first pennant. Jack Warren of the Braves won the 1953 Western International League batting crown by hitting .354.

Sanders Field was literally built from the ground up in less than two months before opening of the 1950 WIL season, going from a landscape of rocks to a complete ballpark with seating for 4,000 by opening night.

It received Major League dimensions. It was 340 feet from home plate to the fence down the right and left field lines, and 400 feet to centerfield.

Ballpark’s namesake

The ballpark was named for Henry Sanders, a prominent Connell wheat rancher, businessman and sportsman who arrived in Connell in 1899. Money was sorely needed in 1949 when the Tri-City Athletic Association was trying to raise $100,000 to buy vineyard land for the new ballpark. Sanders donated $10,000.

In 1969, Sanders Field became Sanders-Jacobs Field to honor Tom Jacobs, general manager of the Tri-City team, who died in 1968. He spent years bolstering the team and was credited by many with sustaining a minor league baseball franchise in the Tri-Cities for many years leading up to his death.

Former and future major league players performing or managing in the park numbered in the hundreds, and included Hall of Famers, World Series participants and even a Cy Young Award winner.

Gale Metcalf of Kennewick is a lifelong Tri-Citian, retired Tri-City Herald employee and volunteer for the East Benton County Historical Museum. He writes the monthly history column.