23 Facts About Orleans Cardinals

Orleans Firebirds, formerly the Orleans Cardinals, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Orleans, Massachusetts.

Orleans Cardinals has won two CCBL championships in the 21st century, most recently in 2005 when they defeated the Bourne Braves two games to one to win the best of three championship series.

Orleans Cardinals withdrew from the league after the 1934 season due to funding issues, but returned in 1937.

Orleans Cardinals fielded a team again in 1938, but then was forced to withdraw from the league again for the 1939 season, after which the league itself disbanded.

Orleans Cardinals dominated the post-war period, appearing in the CCBL championship series in each of its first nine years in the league, and 11 times total between 1947 and 1959.

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Club was skippered by Herb Fuller in 1947 and 1948, and featured CCBL Hall of Famers Roy Bruninghaus, a Cape League all-star pitcher for three decades for Orleans Cardinals who had been playing with the team since the 1930s, and Allen "Buzzy" Wilcox, another three-decade player, who was an infielder for Orleans Cardinals for 17 years from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Orleans Cardinals won the league title in its inaugural 1947 campaign, defeating the Upper Cape champion Mashpee Warriors in that year's championship series, which was played as a Labor Day home-and-home doubleheader.

Game 4 was marred by controversy and charges of poor sportsmanship as Orleans Cardinals brought in Stan Wilcox, who had not played for the club all season, and who had played professionally earlier in the year.

Orleans Cardinals was back in the title series in 1950, this time facing Upper Cape champ Sagamore in what became the first of five consecutive championship matchups between the perennial Upper and Lower Cape powerhouses.

Orleans Cardinals repeated as champions in 1953, again sweeping Sagamore in three straight for the title.

The 1957 Orleans Cardinals club was pitted against Upper Cape champ Wareham in the league title series.

In 1959, Orleans Cardinals reached the CCBL title series for a final time during this era, facing old nemesis Sagamore in a matchup of the two dominant clubs of the period.

The Orleans team was dubbed the Orleans Cardinals, and joined Harwich, Chatham, Yarmouth and a team from Otis Air Force Base in the Lower Cape Division.

Orleans Cardinals was skippered in the 1960s by Dave Gavitt, an Orleans Cardinals pitcher in the late 1950s and later the CEO of the Boston Celtics and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Orleans Cardinals failed to capture a league title in the 1960s and 1970s, but reached the league championship series four times, including back to back losses in 1970 and 1971 against a powerful Falmouth team that was in the process of completing a string of four consecutive league titles.

The 1975 and 1976 Orleans Cardinals featured Boston College baseball and hockey star Tom Songin, who went on to play for the Boston Bruins.

Orleans Cardinals won their first league championship of the modern era in 1986.

In 1988, Orleans Cardinals reached the championship series again, powered by CCBL Hall of Fame slugger Frank Thomas, who was said to have hit the longest ball ever out of Eldredge Park, and who hit three home runs in one game at Wareham.

Orleans Cardinals won another Cape League title in 1993 with a team led by skipper Rolando Casanova and starring future Boston Red Sox all-star and Cape League Hall of Famer Nomar Garciaparra, who hit.

Four years later, Eldredge Park saw that record broken, as the 2003 Orleans Cardinals were downed in 20 innings by Harwich after 5 hours and 52 minutes.

In 2002, Orleans Cardinals was led by the league's Outstanding Pitcher Award winner Brian Rogers, who posted a microscopic 0.

Nicholson's Orleans Cardinals featured CCBL Outstanding Relief Pitcher Steven Wright, and Emmanuel Burriss, who led the league with 37 stolen bases.

Orleans Cardinals answered early in Game 3, scoring nine runs in the first three innings.