Through Opening Day , we ’ll be looking at the history behind some of the enceinte team names in Minor League Baseball .
There are a lot of missions in Texas . Perhaps most far-famed is the Alamo Mission in San Antonio . It ’s not hard , then , to understand why the San Antonio Minor League Baseball squad , currently a two-fold - A affiliate of the San Diego Padres , adopted the sacredly significant moniker and corresponding logotype . But just like the missions themselves , the team ’s use of the name has a rich history .
baseball game first came to San Antonio in 1888 as a charter fellow member of the Texas League . That first year was shaky and the original team folded halfway through the season . But the squad that opened the class in Austin locomote to San Antonio and twine up that inaugural time of year there . Three years later on , a new San Antonio team rejoined the Texas League bearing the name Missionaries .
It was an pertinent name , but the team would be know as the Gentleman , Bronchos , Aces , Bears , and Indians before they reintroduced the reference to the Missions to coincide with their first Major League tie-up with the St. Louis Browns in 1933 . The San Antonio squad kept the name and the tie when the Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles , and survive the Texas League ’s hiatus during World War II . The name also stuck throughout their first stint as an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs . It was n’t until they joined the Houston Colt .45s dealership in 1963 that they gambol a Modern nickname : the Bullets , to fit the theme .
The Missions came back into being when the affiliation reverted to the Cubs later that decade . When they joined the Milwaukee franchise in 1972 , they adopted the Brewers ' nickname for their own . Although the association only survive one time of year , the name stuck through long time pass as part of the Indians ' and Rangers ' system , until the team joined the Dodgers ' menage in 1977 and took their name .
An possession change before the 1988 season see the San Antonio Dodgers return to their roots and be reborn as the Missions . A quarter of a C and a duet tie change after , the name still stands , a will to the long chronicle of baseball in San Antonio .
See all ourmascot stories .
