The Oklahoma City Indians were an American minor league baseball franchise representing Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that played in the Texas League in 1909, 1933–1942 and from 1946–1957, and in the Western League from 1918–1932. It played at Western League Park, Holland Field and Texas League Park.
Minor league classifications varied somewhat during the Indians' lifetime, but the Western and Texas leagues of the era — rated Class A, A1 or AA — were high-level circuits that usually ranked 2-3 notches below Major League Baseball calibre.
The Indians won the 1935 Texas League championship and two years later captured 101 regular-season victories, but generally struggled in the TL standings. In the club's last three seasons, 1955–1957, it lost 90, 106 and 88 games. The team spent the post-World War II period as the Class AA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, but the Oklahoma City Indians' nickname long preceded that relationship. The Indians team spent many years as an unaffiliated franchise, and in its last two seasons was a farm club of the Boston Red Sox.
Baseball Hall of Fame player Rogers Hornsby managed the Indians for part of the 1940 season, and future Hall of Fame broadcaster Curt Gowdy launched his baseball announcing career with the postwar Indians.
The Oklahoma City Indians folded when the Texas League reorganized following the 1957 season. Five years later, the Oklahoma City 89ers, Class AAA affiliate of the Houston Colt .45s, debuted in the American Association.
Oklahoma City also fielded a Texas League team called the Mets or Metropolitans in 1910–1911.
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Famous quotes containing the words oklahoma, city and/or indians:
“I know only one person who ever crossed the ocean without feeling it, either spiritually or physically.... he went from Oklahoma to France and back again ... without ever getting off dry land. He remembers several places I remember too, and several French words, but he says firmly, “We must of went different ways. I don’t rightly recollect no water, ever.””
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“The Indians feel that each stage is crucial and that the child should be allowed to dwell in each for the appropriate period of time so that every aspect of his being can evolve, just as a plant evolves in the proper time and sequence of the seasons. Otherwise, the child never has a chance to master himself in any one phase of his life.”
—Alan Quetone (20th century)