A hopefully on-going history of Tacoma, the Rainiers and the PCL in general. Mostly cribbed from Wikipedia, Baseball Reference, and various official sites. Part one available here.
The Tacoma Tigers of the Pacific National League had folded, the league nearly collapsed underneath them, and the South Puget Sound was without professional baseball yet again. The California League had become the Pacific Coast League, and a 50-year run as the dominant baseball entity in the western United States had begun. Despite the victory over the PNL, all was not perfect for the PCL. Despite finishing second in 1903, the Sacramento Solons were plagued by low attendance. The team was moved to Tacoma in 1904, and the Tigers were alive again.
The 1904 season was a legendary one. The Tigers finished with an astonishing (both for the number of wins and the total number of games) record of 130-94. They went on to defeat the Los Angeles Angels in 10 games (one finished in a tie) to win the PCL Championship. In 1905, the team's moniker changed to the Wanderers, and that is certainly what they did. After the mid-season point – due to decreasing attendance – the franchise was shifted... back to Sacramento. In a truly bizarre series of events, the Wanderers played the second half of the season in Sacramento, but kept the Tacoma Wanderers name. To make matters even weirder, at the conclusion of the 1905 season the franchise would move to Fresno, play one season as the Fresno Raisin Eaters (one of the great nicknames), then moved – you guessed it – back to Sacramento. The PCL would be Tacoma-free for the next 55 years.
Labels: Rainiers 101, Tacoma Rainiers