History of the West Dixie League: Minor League Baseball (1934–35)

The West Dixie League was a short-lived (1934–35) minor baseball league created through the division of the Dixie League. Founded in 1933, the Dixie League was a Class C organization that featured teams in Louisiana (Baton Rouge and Shreveport), Arkansas (El Dorado), Mississippi (Jackson), and Texas (Henderson, Longview, Tyler, and Waco). The league split in 1934 and created the East and West Dixie leagues. The latter was comprised of the three remaining Texas teams (the Waco club had relocated to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, during the 1933 season), with the addition of Jacksonville, Palestine, and Paris. The East Dixie League kept El Dorado, Pine Bluff, Jackson, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, while adding Greenville, Mississippi.

One of the West Dixie League’s new teams, the Jacksonville Jax, was by far the best in the league. It finished the 1934 season with a record of 83–42, sixteen games ahead of the second-place Henderson Oilers, and forty games ahead of the last-place Lufkin Lumbermen (as the Paris Pirates were known after relocating to Lufkin halfway through the season). The Jax were led by player–manager Wally Dashiell, who played seventeen seasons in the minor leagues but just one game for the Chicago White Sox in 1924.

Although the Paris/Lufkin franchise struggled to a 43–82 record, left fielder Lou Frierson led the league with forty home runs. He struck five home runs on May 30, during a game against Jacksonville that the Paris Pirates lost 17–12.

Another notable player was the Tyler Governors’ first baseman, Kerby Farrell, who led the league in runs scored. Farrell eventually reached the big leagues in 1943 with the Boston Braves, but his real claim to fame was as a minor league manager. He won more than 1,700 games over twenty-two seasons. In the big leagues he managed the Cleveland Indians for one season (1957) and served as a coach for the Chicago White Sox (1966–69) and the Indians (1970–71).

Also on the Tyler roster was outfielder Fernando (Fern) Bell, the league batting champ with a .373 average. Bell eventually amassed more than 1,500 hits in the minor leagues and played in the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1939 and 1940.

In 1935, the second and last season for the West Dixie League, the Paris/Lufkin franchise was replaced by the Shreveport Sports, the only non-Texas team in the league. This soon changed as the franchise was moved to Gladewater, Texas, by owner Dick Burnett on June 4. Once again, Wally Dashiells’s team finished first—although he was now the manager of the Tyler Trojans rather than the Jacksonville Jax. Unlike the 1934 season, Dashiell’s first-place finish was not a romp, as the Trojans finished just one game ahead of the Palestine Pals. The Jax finished at .500 (66–66), but they defeated Palestine in the first round of the playoffs and then polished off Dashiell’s Trojans with three victories in four games (the other game was a tie).

Although the West Dixie League was short-lived, a number of notable Texan players participated. One was player–manager Ray “Flash” Flaskamper, who managed the Longview Cannibals in 1934, then took over the Henderson Oilers in 1935. Flaskamper had played twenty-six games for the Chicago White Sox in 1927, but he had a lengthy minor league career. He played sixteen seasons of minor league ball and amassed 1,766 hits.

Another notable player–manager was Ernest Lee “Tex” Jeanes, a nephew of Hall of Fame center fielder Tris Speaker. Jeanes, a native of Maypearl, played college baseball at Trinity University in San Antonio. He played major league ball for five seasons in the 1920s (for the Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and New York Giants). The bulk of his career, however, was in the minor leagues. In seventeen seasons he accumulated 1,820 hits.

Pitcher Hugo Klaerner, a Fredericksburg native, won twenty-four games and hurled 248 innings for Pine Bluff of the East Dixie League in 1934. This performance caught the attention of the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared in three games later that season. In 1935 he pitched for Longview of the West Dixie League. He won twenty games and led the league in earned run average with 1.80. He subsequently pitched five seasons in the Texas League, but he never again got called to the major leagues.

Though not a Texan, Merv Connors of the Palestine Pals led the league with twenty-nine home runs in 1935. Another minor league lifer, he played parts of the 1937 and 1938 seasons with the Chicago White Sox. He ended his career batting .306 for the Carlsbad Potashers of the Longhorn League in 1953. When he finally retired, he had amassed 2,115 hits.    

In 1936 the league continued, albeit rebranded as the East Texas League. In addition to the six surviving West Dixie League franchises, Marshall and Kilgore were added to the mix.