Williamsport Grays
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Williamsport Grays 1923–1962 Williamsport, Pennsylvania |
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| League titles | 3 (1923, 1934, 1960) |
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The Williamsport Grays were a minor league baseball based in Williamsport periodically between 1924 and 1962. The club was first established in 1923, however it did not adopt a formal name. Rather the name, Williamsport Billies, was used by the local media when referring to the team in Williamsport. Other names found in local papers included the Bald Eagles, Hinchmanites, and even the Bills, a name adopted by the Eastern League clubs of the 1980s. The Billies played their games at Williamsport High School athletic fields, now on the campus of the Pennsylvania College of Technology They team later played all their home games in Bowman Field which is currently the home of the Williamsport Crosscutters of the New York–Penn League.
The Billies' name was changed to the Williamsport Grays for the 1924 season, a name that stuck with many of the organizations in Williamsport throughout much of the 20th century.
In 1953, the club was referred to as the Williamsport A's or Williamsport Athletics a Class AA affiliate of the Philadelphia Athletics. The Athletics names lasted for just the 1953 season. The franchise was purchased at the end of the 1952 season by five anonymous businessmen from the Detroit Tigers. The ownership group moved to establish a working arrangement with the Philadelphia A's owned by Connie Mack.
From 1947–1949 and again in 1951–1952, The team was named the Williamsport Tigers were a AA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Detroit had a working relationship with Williamsport from 1946 until 1952.
The Tigers were owned by Earle Halstead a former American Association umpire and businessman from Dearborn, Michigan. Halstead gave up his business ventures in favor of owning a minor league baseball team. Halstead arranged for the Williamsport franchise to have a working agreement with the Detroit Tigers of the American League. But later went on the scout for the Milwaukee Braves, signing Bob Buhl and Red Murff (who later himself became a scout and signed Nolan Ryan). In 1960, he bought the Baseball Blue Book, Inc., which published the "Baseball Blue Book", frequently referred to as the bible of baseball. He later patented a curveball pitching machine and formed the company named Tru-Pitch, Inc., which revolutionized batting practice on all levels of baseball.
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