20 Facts About Orleans Firebirds

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

Orleans Firebirds 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 Firebirds 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.

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 Firebirds who had been playing with the team since the 1930s, and Allen "Buzzy" Wilcox, another three-decade player, who was an infielder for Orleans Firebirds for 17 years from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Orleans Firebirds 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.

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

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

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

In 1959, Orleans Firebirds 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 Firebirds team was dubbed the Orleans Firebirds Cardinals, and joined Harwich, Chatham, Yarmouth and a team from Otis Air Force Base in the Lower Cape Division.

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

Orleans Firebirds 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.

In 1988, Orleans Firebirds 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 Firebirds 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.

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

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

The Orleans Firebirds boasted the league's Outstanding Pitcher Award winners in back-to-back seasons with Kolton Mahoney in 2014, and Mitchell Jordan, who tied a CCBL modern era single season record with a 0.

The 2018 Orleans Firebirds featured league Outstanding Pro Prospect JJ Bleday, a CCBL all-star outfielder who hit.

Orleans Firebirds were one of the first teams in the Cape Cod Baseball League to have student broadcast interns.