When Did the Louisville Colonels Become the Colonels?

This article was originally published in the Winter 2026 issue of the SABR Nineteenth Century Committee newsletter.

During the early days of professional baseball, baseball clubs represented their cities and only had to have their hometown displayed on their jerseys; they didn’t necessarily need nicknames or mascots. An early baseball contest might feature the “Bostons” taking on the “Washingtons.” Some teams, or the team’s owners, eventually devised their own mascots. Others took on nicknames bestowed upon them by their hometown “cranks.”

We can thank newspaper writers for many of the team names we now know by heart. Baseball journalists could get bored using the same titles day in and day out and wanted to make their game accounts a little more interesting. The names could come from any of several possible sources: team uniform colors, aspects or reputations of the team or its players, or maybe a writer just found a name that seemed to fit. “Colonels” seemed like a perfect fit as a name for the Louisville major league baseball team; it was a common title of respect in Kentucky, and it rolled off the tongue rather well. As one might expect, the Louisville Colonels received their name from a newspaper writer. What might not be expected, however, is that the name probably didn’t come from a Louisville-based writer, and it was hardly meant to honor the team.

The first major league team in Louisville was known as the Grays, and they were one of the original teams in the National League in 1876. That team was also involved in the first major controversy of the National League in 1877 when four of its players were declared guilty of conspiring to lose games on purpose for gambling purposes. The team disbanded before the 1878 season. The next Louisville team was called the Eclipse. They went by that name when they joined the American Association (AA) in 1882. Eclipse was a popular sports name in Louisville; it likely derived from a legendary 18th-century British racehorse. The name was also attached to the grounds where the baseball team played, Eclipse Park.

The major league team dropped the Eclipse title just before the start of the 1884 season, and a local team of Louisville reserve players picked up the name.1 For as long as the Louisville team was in the American Association, their official business name would be the Eclipse Base Ball Association, but they would no longer play as the Eclipse. The Louisville major league team decided to go by simply the “Louisvilles.” A typical box score in the mid-1880s might show the Louisvilles playing teams like the Browns (of St. Louis) or the Athletics (of Philadelphia).

Baseball beat writers in Louisville did not get very creative with their home team’s name, sticking with just the Louisvilles. But they did have some fun with names for other teams. Following trends used in other cities, Louisville writers sometimes referred to opposing teams with “colorful” descriptions. Baseball fans in 1880s Louisville might open their paper and read about how the Louisvilles did against the Beefers visiting from Baltimore (they were always “beefing” with umpires). The Boston Beaneaters might be coming to town the following week. And fans knew that when the team was playing the Babies, they were going up against Cleveland (the team was playing its initial season, but the label also likely alluded to allegations that President Grover Cleveland had a child out of wedlock; the name worked on multiple levels). Cincinnati was known as the hometown of the Reds in the 1880s. But for much of the 1800s, the city also had the fortune, or maybe misfortune, of being known as the pork-production capital of America, and possibly the entire world. Writers in the cities of the other major league teams were well aware of this.

Following a Reds victory over the Louisvilles on August 14, 1887, headlines in the next day’s Courier-Journal (the top newspaper in Louisville) declared “A Porcine [Pig-related] Victory” for the rivals,2 and noted that the “pig-stickers” must have been happy with Louisville leadoff batter Reddy Mack striking out three times. It wasn’t just the Courier-Journal that joined in the journalistic antics. The Louisville Commercial wrote about Louisville’s loss to the “shoats”3 [baby goats]. The Louisville Post kept things simple and called Louisville’s opponents “the ‘Pigs’”.4

It wasn’t necessarily the Louisville baseball writers who came up with the idea to use pork-related themes for the Cincinnati team. Writers from rival cities using pork terms when talking about Cincinnati was nothing new. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for writers in Cincinnati to refer to their own team, and even citizens of the city, as “Porkopolitans.” So why, after that August 14 game, did Cincinnati writers feel Louisville writers had taken things too far?

Only about 100 miles separate Louisville and Cincinnati, and the two cities’ ball clubs had an intense rivalry that went back several years. In the early days of baseball, team beat writers were typically fans of their home team, and they made no attempt to hide it. Baseball writers for the Cincinnati Enquirer got especially heated on April 30, 1887, when the train bringing the Reds to Louisville for that day’s game was delayed by a railroad accident. The Reds asked Louisville to let them make up the game at a later date, but the Louisvilles kept a forfeit victory. Headed into a mid-August series between the two teams, the Cincinnati delegation was still fuming over the free win. Before their August 14 game, writers for the Enquirer stated that “If the Louisvilles do win to-day’s game it will not be a railroad accident victory”.5 The Louisville Post griped back how “… the railroad-accident victory … is still ‘sticking in their craw.’”6 Louisville writers were likely also displeased over recent rumors that Cincinnati was among the cities supporting the idea of dropping Louisville from the AA for 1888.7

The Louisville papers may have been taking out their frustration on the Reds when they used the repeated pork epithets. On August 16, the Louisville Commercial, with a touch of civic pride, snuck in a crack about the day’s upcoming match between “The Kentucky Colonels and the Cincinnati Shoats.”8 The response from Cincinnati writers was swift. The August 17, 1887, Cincinnati Enquirer called out in the baseball recap that “The cultured and refined tastes of Louisville journalists has led them, in alluding to the Cincinnati Base-Ball Club, to designate them as ‘The Pigs.’ ”9

It would be difficult to prove that no one anywhere called the Louisville baseball team “Colonels” before August 16, 1887. What is evident from poring over the various newspapers, however, is that the name was certainly not commonly used. The Cincinnatis and Louisvilles played each other in August, as well as in April and June that summer, and the Cincinnati papers never referred to the Louisville players as “Colonels” during those series. In the August 17 Cincinnati Enquirer article, the title appeared over 40 times in reference to all of the Louisville players, several Cincinnati players, both of the teams’ managers, and even the umpire.

In Kentucky, the military rank of Colonel dates to colonial times. Following the Civil War, a Kentucky Colonel became an honorary title to recognize those who made significant contributions to the state (a designation that is still in place today). In time, it also became an unofficial title for a respectable gentleman of the commonwealth. But make no doubt, when the Cincinnati writers wrote about the Colonels of Louisville, it was clearly in a mocking tone to combat the name-calling that befell their players. The write-up also described how “… the aggregation from Louisville walked in as if the field was covered with velvet carpet.”10 The Louisville Commercial retorted back how “The Cincinnati Enquirer takes up the ‘Colonel’ part of the Louisville base-ball club, and fills its columns with a dull attempt at humor …”11 Name-calling and mild insults between Louisville and Cincinnati writers continued for the rest of the August series, and the spat carried into September and October. Funny enough, staffs of the primary newspapers for the two cities faced each other in a baseball game on September 6, when the Courier-Journal defeated the Enquirer, 18-8.12

Despite the mocking overtone that the Enquirer intended when they wrote about the “Titled Gentlemen” from Louisville, the name caught on with other newspapers. Following the Cincinnati-Louisville series in August, the Cincinnati correspondent for The Sporting Life also used the designation in sarcasm. But in doing so, he brought the “Louisville Colonels” to a national audience.13 Newspapers in Cleveland picked up the Colonel name and began using it in September.14 And before the start of the 1888 season, the name could be found in Wilkes-Barre15 and Kansas City.16

The hometown Courier-Journal started recognizing the team sporadically as the Colonels in April 1888. As the season progressed, the name became more commonly used. The name was never official, but by the 1890s the Louisville baseball team was, for all intents and purposes, the Colonels.

The Louisville Colonels were dropped from the National League when the league contracted after the 1899 season. When Louisville rejoined the professional baseball ranks as a minor-league team in 1901, it resumed using the Colonel moniker. The name was used by off-and-on Louisville teams from 1901 to 1972. The last Colonels baseball team left Louisville after 1972, but the name was carried on by the Kentucky Colonels of the fondly remembered American Basketball Association (ABA) until 1976.

The current Louisville Bats of the International League have been the AAA affiliate for the Cincinnati Reds since 2000. The Colonels are no more, and now Louisville sends its top players to Cincinnati. It sounds like the Porkopolitans got the last laugh.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com and Newspapers.com.

American Association Constitutions (1882-1891), SABR 19th Century League and Team Resources collection.

Archives for the Louisville Post and Louisville Commercial accessed at the Louisville Public Library newspaper collection.

“Rethinking Porkpolis at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House,” https://www.ohiohumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/MA16-027_-Rethinking-Porkopolis-Summary.pdf, accessed September 14, 2025.

Kentucky Colonels organization history, https://www.kycolonels.org/history/, accessed September 12, 2025.

Von Borries, Philip. The Louisville Baseball Almanac (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2010).

Notes

1 “Sporting News,” Courier-Journal, March 30, 1884: 4.

2 “A Porcine Victory,” Courier-Journal, August 15, 1887: 2.

3 “Succumbed To the Shoats,” Louisville Commercial, August 15, 1884: 3.

4 “Very Bum Batting,” Louisville Post, August 15, 1885: 2.

5 “Base-Ball Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 14, 1887: 10.

6 “Very Bum Batting.”

7 “Louisville And the League,” Courier-Journal, August 15, 1887: 2.

8 “Dust From the Diamond,” Louisville Commercial, August 16, 1887: 3.

9 “A Colonel’s Battle,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 17, 1887: 2.

10 A Colonel’s Battle.

11 ”Ball Notes,” Louisville Commercial, August 18, 1887: 3.

12 “The Enquirers Knocked Out,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 7, 1887: 2.

13 “From Cincinnati,” Sporting Life, August 31, 1887: 3.

14 “Base Ball Notes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 29, 1887: 5.

15 “The Season on the Diamond,” Sunday Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania), January 29, 1888: 14.

16 “Clay County Matinees,” Kansas City Journal, March 19, 1888: 2.