Dallas Rangers 1958–1964 Dallas, Texas |
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League | Pacific Coast League (1963–1964) |
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Previous names
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Previous parks
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Burnett Field |
The Dallas Rangers were a high-level minor league baseball team located in Dallas, Texas from 1958 to 1964. The team was known by the Dallas Rangers name in 1958, 1959, and 1964 and as the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers from 1960 to 1963. It played in the Double-A Texas League in 1958, the Triple-A American Association from 1959 to 1962 and the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 1963 and 1964. Its home stadium was Burnett Field.
Both Dallas and Fort Worth had long and storied histories in the Texas League.
Dallas was a mainstay in the Texas League from 1902 to 1958. Over the years, it was known by many nicknames—the Griffins (1902), Giants (1903–1918), Marines (1919), Submarines (1920–1921), Steers (1922–1938), Rebels (1939–1942, 1946–1947) and Eagles (1948–1957), before it was dubbed the Rangers in its final TL campaign.
The Fort Worth team was called the Panthers (1902–1931) and the Cats (1932–1942, 1946–1958, 1964).
In 1959, the American Association expanded and admitted both cities, Dallas as an unaffiliated club and Fort Worth as an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. Dallas outdrew Fort Worth, 130,000 to 97,000, and the two teams were merged in 1960 as the top farm team of the Kansas City Athletics. The Dallas Cowboys, Clint Murchison's new NFL franchise, were originally to be called the "Dallas Rangers" because the baseball team's owners had told him in 1959 that they were disbanding. When the owners reversed course the following year, Murchison volunteered to rename his new team to avoid confusion.