Richmond Virginians

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For the former major league baseball team of American Association, see Richmond Virginians (1884).

For the Richmond-based barbershop chorus, see Richmond Virginians (chorus).

The Richmond Virginians was the name of a minor league baseball Class AAA International League franchise that played in Richmond, Virginia, from 1954 through 1964.

The minor-league Virginians were the transplanted version of the International League edition of the Baltimore Orioles, who were uprooted from their Maryland home when the St. Louis Browns of Major League Baseball transferred there for the 1954 season. (Ironically, the '54 transfer was the second time the Orioles had moved to the Virginia capital. The Orioles played there from 1915-17 when the Federal League, the outlaw "third major league," chased them temporarily from Baltimore.)

The Virginians were unaffiliated with a major league farm system during 1954 and 1955, and — despite being managed by a Hall of Famer, Luke Appling — they wallowed at the bottom of the IL standings. The team's fortunes improved after 1956, when it affiliated with the New York Yankees. The Virginians, the Yanks' sole AAA farm club after 1959, sent several key players (including Tom Tresh, Al Downing and Joe Pepitone) to the Bronx, but the club's attendance figures were usually in the bottom tier of the league.

After the 1964 season, the Virginians were transferred to Toledo, Ohio, to become the present-day edition of the Mud Hens. Richmond was without baseball in 1965, but gained its current franchise, the Richmond Braves, when the Atlanta Crackers transferred there the following season.