The Bears may have lost the finals to Birmingham, but they didn't lose their fight.
They came back strong in 1959 and brought back one of their former stars in
Gordy Coleman who had perhaps the best over all season of any player in Mobile
Bears history dating back to Hartwell's opening in 1927. Coleman who had flirted
with the HR title earlier, was a monster at age 24 and hit 30 2B, 110 RBI's,
batted a fantastic .353 on the season to lead the Southern Association. He would
also slam his way into the record books with an all new Bears mark of 30 HR!
Coleman was backed by Don Saner's 20 2B, 14 HR, .322 season (2nd place in the Southern
Association behind Coleman) and John Waters' 21 2B, 13 HR, .301. While
having the 1 and 2 hitters in the league was exciting, even more impressive was
the fact that future Twins' Bill Dailey (11-5, 2.41), future Indians' Wynn Hawkins
(14-9, 2.55) and Wally Seward (9-4, 2.88) were 1-2-3 in the league in ERA.
This impressive bunch marched into the post-season with 89 wins under their belts.
Unfortunately they had to face last year's pennant winning Birmingham Barons
in the finals again. The Barons had beat the Bears 4 games to 1 the year before,
but the Bears wanted revenge. The Bears would give the Barons a taste of their
own medicine knocking Birmingham out in the finals by a score of 4 games to
1 to take home their 7th Championship trophy to Hartwell Field. The amazing accomplishments
of Gordy Coleman did not go un-noticed by the league as the Gordy
won the Southern Association MVP for a truly outstanding season. The Bears would
draw 64k during this electrifying season which was again 5th in attendance.
The Memphis Chicks and Shreveport drew less than 50k. This brought a decade upon
Mobile Alabama. It would be a turbulent one for certain… for America and for
the Bears. It was the 5th and final year of their PDC with Cleveland and while
future Indians' Jack Kubiszyn hit .336 with 30 2B for 2nd in the league and Bob
Allen put up a 16-11, 2.83, the Bears' 79-72 record was only good enough for
5th place putting the team out of the post-season. An exciting new prospect lay
ahead for the team in 1961 however. The Bears were being taken over by a Major
League team which didn't even exist… at least not yet. |