page_title: Nashville Vols
section_title: Early days (1901–1933)
hierarchical_section_title: Nashville Vols / History / Early days (1901–1933)
caption_attribution_description: English: A postcard of the 1908 Nashville Vols, a minor league baseball team from Nashville, Tennessee
context_page_description: The Nashville Vols were a Minor League Baseball team that played in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1901 to 1963. Known only as the Nashville Baseball Club during their first seven seasons, they were officially named the Nashville Volunteers in 1908 for the state's nickname, The Volunteer State. The Vols played their home games at Sulphur Dell, which was known as Athletic Park until 1908.
  The Volunteers played as charter members of the Southern Association from 1901 to 1961. They were classified as Class B, Class A, Class A1, and Double-A. During their 61 seasons in the circuit, the Vols won eight SA pennants, nine SA playoff championships, and four Dixie Series championships. The 1940 Vols were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. After sitting out the 1962 season, the club returned for a final campaign as a part of the Double-A South Atlantic League in 1963.
  Nashville served as a farm club for eight Major League Baseball franchises across 29 seasons and were unaffiliated in the other 33 seasons. A total of 26 managers led the club and its over 1,200 players.
context_section_description: After the city's three-year absence from professional baseball, the Nashville Baseball Club was formed in 1901 as a charter member of the Class B Southern Association. The team did not receive their official moniker, the Nashville Volunteers, until 1908. The Nashville club played their home games at Athletic Park (Sulphur Dell).
  Before the start of the inaugural season, Nashville participated in a three-game exhibition series against the Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team. Nashville won all three games. The team began the regular season in Chattanooga, sweeping the Chattanooga Lookouts in three games, before returning home to Athletic Park for the home opener. The game's lineup, led by player-manager Ike Fisher, consisted of second baseman Ed Abbaticchio, right fielder Doc Wiseman, first baseman Ike Fisher, catcher James Ballantyne, center fielder Lang, left fielder Tom Parrott, third baseman George Reitz, shortstop Snapper Kennedy, and pitcher Ted Corbett. Over 2,000 people witnessed the 9–7 Nashville loss. By July 4, they were in second place (31–21), one game behind the Little Rock Travelers. By mid-August, Nashville had moved into first, leading the Memphis Egyptians by two games. Teams throughout the circuit expressed dissatisfaction with the league's umpires. After a number of games were protested and teams' records adjusted, the Nashville club was declared the Southern Association's first champions. The team repeated their success in 1902 by once again being declared league champions. The Nashville Club's final record was 82–42, six-and-a-half games ahead of Little Rock.
  From 1903 to 1907, the Nashville club was unable to muster anything better than a fifth-place finish. 1904 was their only winning season and by 1907 the team was in last place. Still lacking an official team name, the club was referred to as the Finnites when Mickey Finn managed the team from 1905 to 1906, the Dobbers when John Dobbs managed the team in 1907, and the Senators, probably due to the nearby Tennessee State Capitol building which overlooked Athletic Park.
  In 1908, Nashville Tennessean sports writer Grantland Rice held a contest to name the team. The public was invited to mail in votes for one of three team names: the Limerocks (from the abundance of limestone in and around Nashville), the Rocks, and the Volunteers (from the state's nickname, The Volunteer State). The winner and new official team name was the Volunteers, though this was often shortened to Vols. Rice also gave Nashville's Athletic Park a new name: Sulphur Dell, a reference to the location's prior name of Sulphur Springs Bottom.
  The newly named Volunteers also became a farm team of the American League's Cleveland Naps in 1908. Nashville's John Duggan pitched a no-hitter on September 10, against Little Rock; Nashville won, 1–0. The club, under manager Bill Bernhard, entered the final day of that season with an opportunity to win the league pennant. The championship was to be decided by the last game of the season between the Vols and the New Orleans Pelicans at Sulphur Dell. Both teams had the same number of losses (56), but the Pelicans were in first place with 76 wins to the Vols' second-place 74. A crowd of 11,000 spectators witnessed Vols pitcher Carl Sitton hurl a three-hit, 1–0 shutout, giving Nashville their third Southern Association pennant by .002 percentage points. Rice called it "the greatest game ever played in Dixie." One account recalls "By one run, by one point, Nashville has won the Southern League pennant, nosing New Orleans out literally by an eyelash. Saturday's game, which was the deciding one, between Nashville and New Orleans was the greatest exhibition of the national game ever seen in the south and the finish in the league race probably sets a record in baseball history."
  Before the start of the 1909 season, the National League's Chicago Cubs and American League's Boston Red Sox held their spring training in Nashville. The Volunteers held an exhibition game against the Cubs in which the visiting Cubs defeated the home team, 3–0. Nashville also par
caption: The 1908 team
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