Category:Allentown Cardinals

The Allentown Cardinals were a minor league professional baseball club. The club played in the Class "B" Interstate League (1944-1952) and the Class "A" Eastern League (1954-1956). The club previously operated as the Allentown Fleetwings in the Interstate League (1940-1943), and before that as the Allentown Dukes (1939), also in the Interstate League. The team played at Fairview Field in South Allentown between 1939-1947), and at Breadon Field in South Whitehall Township (1948-1956).

The "Dukes" started in 1939, being associated with the Boston Braves as a class "C" minor league team in the Inter-State League, owned by Pete Weimer. This was one of many teams which called themselves the Allentown Dukes, none of which had any actual relationship to each other, just used the same name. To accommodate the Dukes, a new park was built on the city's South Side, Fairview Field (now Earl F. Hunsicker Bicentennial Park)m and the team won the league championship that year. Fairview Field was opened originally in 1913 on an open lot which was owned by the Lehigh Valley Transit Company.

The 1939 Dukes won the Interstate League championship. However, the creditors closed in on Weimer and in 1940, the Dukes folded. The club was purchaced by Alvin Butz, and renamed the Allentown Fleetwings (aka "Wings"). The Wing replaced the Dukes in the Interstate League as a class "B" team. The Wings were associated with the St Louis Cardinals in 1940; the Philadelphia Phillies in 1941, and then again with the Cardinals in 1942 and 1943.

In December 1943, the Fleetwings were purchased by the St Louis Cardinals, and the team was renamed the Allentown Cardinals, informally known as the Allentown Redbirds. It remained in the Inter-State league as a Class-B team. Although Fairview Field often was filled with spectators, it was inadequate as a stadium for minor league professional baseball.

It was the Allentown Professional Baseball Association that took the initative in replacing Fairview Field as a venue for the Cardinals. The Association required a tract of land on the Seventh Street Pike, just north of Allentown in South Whitehall Township. However they lacked the resources to build a new stadium on the land. The Cardinals took over from the Association and in 1948 built the new Breadon Field, which was named for Sam Breadon, then owner of the St Louis Cardinals. This was a major departure for the Cardinals, as the team was playing in rented Sportsmans Park in St Louis, and only owned ballparks at the AAA level, in Columbus, Ohio and Rochester, New York.

In August 1948, the team moved to the new stadium and began play. The Redbirds were a pretty good team, winning the Inter-State League championship in 1944 and 1949, and 2nd in 1951 and 1952. In February 1953, the Class-B Interstate League, which the Allentown Cardinals were a member of, folded and the field was closed for organized baseball. In 1954, Organized baseball returned to Allentown with a new Class-A Allentown Cardinals team in the Eastern League. The team played in Allentown for three seasons.

In January 1957, citing financial losses, the St Louis Cardinals decided to shut down operations in Allentown, and put Breadon Field up for sale. The Cardinals Class-A teams in Allentown and Sioux City, Iowa were consolidated and reformed as a single team, located in Columbus, Georgia.