Elmira Pioneers

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The Elmira Pioneers are an amateur baseball team based in Elmira, New York, playing in the New York Collegiate Baseball League. Prior to the 2006 baseball season, the team was a professional team.

The Pioneers finished 19-24 in 2006, their first season in the league. However, that was good for second place in the league's West Division and they made the playoffs. They lost in the first round to the Allegany County Nitros.

They play their home games at Dunn Field.

1 History
2 Notable Pioneers
3 External Links

[edit] History

While the Pioneers now play in an unaffiliated, amateur league, Elmira has a long history of hosting Major League-affiliated professional teams. Most of those teams also were known as the Pioneers.

[edit] 1885-1931: The Early Years

The Elmira Colonels played in the New York State League in 1885 and again in 1889. Two years later, the Elmira Gladiators were one of six teams in the original New York-Penn League. That league failed, but in 1892, the Gladiators were one of the original teams in the original Eastern League. The leam lasted one year in the league.

The Pioneers name first appeared in 1900, when the team joined a new New York State League that was founded a year earlier.

The Elmira Red Jackets, presumably named after the Seneca chief, were charter members of the new New York-Penn League in 1923. The team was known as the Elmira Colonels from 1924-31 and remained unaffiliated through those years.

[edit] 1932-1972: Becoming A Farm Team

The Colonels signed on with the St. Louis Cardinals and changed their name to the Elmira Red Wings for the 1932-34 seasons. They resurrected the Pioneers name for their unaffiliated 1935 and '36 seasons before signing on with the Brooklyn Dodgers and re-establishing the Colonels name for the 1937 season. The league became the Eastern League in 1938 and the Elmira team maintained its affiliation with the Dodgers -- known as the Pioneers -- through 1940 despite losing its home stadium, the original Dunn Field, to fire in 1938. The Pioneers re-established ties with the Dodgers from 1946-55.

Elmira did not field a team in 1956, but joined the Class-A short-season New York-Penn League in 1957 as a Washington Senators affiliate. The Pioneers switched affiliation to the Philadelphia Phillies for the 1959-61 seasons.

The Pioneers returned to the Eastern League for the 1962 season, this time affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles through 1968. Their manager from 1962-65 was future Hall of Famer Earl Weaver. From 1970-72, the team was affiliated with the Kansas City Royals and actually known as the Royals in 1971. After the 1972 season, they moved to Jacksonville, Florida.

[edit] 1973-1992: The Red Sox Years

The New York-Penn League affiliate of the Boston Red Sox moved from Williamsport, Pennsylvania to Elmira for the 1973 season. The Red Sox remained in Elmira through 1992. The 1973 team was known as the Pioneers, but the team was called the Elmira Red Sox from 1974-76 and the Elmira Pioneer-Red Sox in 1977 and '78. They won the NY Penn League Championship in 1976. The Pioneers name returned for the 1979 season, though the team actually wore "Red Sox" uniforms.

In 1983, Clyde Smoll bought the team and changed its name to the Elmira Suns to match other teams he owned. The name proved unpopular in Elmira and the Pioneers name soon returned complete with uniforms featuring a stagecoach logo. The uniforms were mocked throughout the league as resembling softball uniforms and the team returned to the Red Sox uniforms after a couple of years.

[edit] 1993-2006: Post-Red Sox Years

The Pioneers were affiliated with the Florida Marlins from 1993-95, after which Smoll moved the team to Lowell, Massachusetts and reaffiliated with the Red Sox.

After some significant scrambling, an ownership group anchored by an Elmira native living in Maryland, John Ervin, got a team into the independent Northeast League which merged with the Northern League for a few seasons, then essentially re-established as the Can-Am League in 2005. The Pioneers played in the leagues from 1996-2004.