As of end of April 1995 New Orleans Dukes career record 1985-2089 .487 %

Seven years in the playoffs- 71-78-81-83-89-85

One World Series appearance- 1983 (Lost to Washington D.C.)

Record in 1983- 94-68 .580 %

Payroll in 1983- $ 15,405,200

The New Orleans Dukes have some history, but on the most part they are a very boring franchise. The Innagural Manager of the New Orleans Dukes was non other than Whitey Herzog, Whitey was the manager of New Orleans between the years of 1970-72 and with a record of 259-227 .533 %, he left after the 1972 season in which he so famously commented "The city of New Orleans is a beautiful place fun things to do and good fans, but this organization is run like shit and I will not waste my time with them."

Whitey knew something alot of managers came to find out, that New Orleans over the years was run like shit through there front office and ownership. The founding owner(s)of the Dukes were New Orleans own Truman Capote and Jerry Lee Lewis, Capote and Lewis founded the Dukes in 1969 for the innagural 1970 EWB season. The Dukes were named by Jerry Lee Lewis since he has majority ownership. He named the New Orleans franchise after his idol Duke Ellington, the famous piano player. He contiplated other names as the Fire and Flames, and Blues. Capote wanted to name the team the New Orleans Cold Blood, referring to his famous best seller In Cold Blood, but Lewis won out due to his majority ownership.

On a side note I personally think the New Orleans Cold Blood would have been the coolest name in EWB and I might add the number one selling merchandiseing item out there.

Capote and Lewis always clashed on the way to run a franchise and who to hire, also Lewis also didn't like the fact that Truman was homosexual and he always stated that " The only reason that queer is a partner of mine is that he's the only sum bitch that has any money that is from this city,"

"I tried Fats Domino, and Louis Armstrong who are from New Orleans, but they wanted nothin' to do with baseball, so I got stuck with a queer with money."

Jerry and Truman were not really big baseball fans and Truman only saw it as a money making opportunity and to give back to his birthplace city and he stated one time that "Jerry is a pedifile and a disgusting human being and one day I might write a biography on a man who fell in love with his 13 old cousin, oh that happened to Jerry what a travesty."

Like I was saying the 70's as a whole was not good to the Duke's except they made the playoffs in the 1971 season, but for the most part they finished either 4th or 5th in their division, but all that started to change when they drafted a young catcher out of Elk Grove, California in the 1976 EWB Draft, and as the commissioner Bart Giamatti said "With the first overall pick in the 1976 EWB Draft the New Orleans Dukes select catcher Vincent Carter." Things started to look up for the Dukes as most of the draft picks in the 70's and 80's hardly ever saw the majors.

They had a hired Bobby Joe Chevilier,a GM that was not qualified to be a GM, running the organization between 1970-75 and therefore ruined the forseeable future for the Dukes as his draft picks were awful and like I said hardly if any of them made it to the big leagues.

Jerry Lee Lewis only hired Whitey Herzog because, Tom Tiehen (Admirals Owner), suggested to him that Whitey was a good baseball mind. Other than that Jerry or Truman had no clue what to do and just hired Bobby Joe as he was a close friend of Jerry Lee's.

But in 1975 offseason they hired Tim Hill as GM, Tim is still the Dukes GM today, Tim was a coach for a small Community College in California who knew about this kid from Elk Grove, CA that had all the talent in the world, people compared him to Josh Gibson the great negro league catcher and since New Orleans had the first overall pick in the 1976 draft word got around about Tim and New Orleans just decided that he can find talent and he has got to better than Bobby Joe so we will give him our GM position. So in 1976 Tim Hill selected Vincent Carter and the rest is history.

One funny story on Vincent Carter is that Truman Capote came up with the nickname "Eager Beaver" In the middle if the 1983 season word got around that Vincent was a womenizer and had had alot of women over the years and word got back to Truman about this and he made the comment "My god he is eager as ever to get beaver, vagina makes me sick" so hence the nickname Vincent "Eager Beaver" Carter.

So when Tim Hill took over in 1976 he has had some memorable draft picks over the years, but the problem is he never got the financial backing to sign these kids so they never became a Duke, some notable first round draft picks

1976- Vincent Carter    8 years with N.O

1981- Greg Stevens     0 years with N.O

1982- Norman Hopkins  0 years with N.O

1984- Ernie Owen        1 1/2 years with N.O

New Orleans first ever draft pick in the 1970 Innagural EWB Draft was MR Whit "Stupendous" O' Lonegan.

They had some fairly decent years after the 1976 draft in 1978 they came in first and went to playoffs, in 1981 they came in first and went to the playoffs, and they had some 3rd place finishes in between there, but nothing prepared New Orleans for the run they made in the 1983 season.

There top hitters were the ORIGINAL bash brothers...

1B-3B Dave Page 1983 156 games at 1B, 2 at 3B

.289/43/132

C Vincent "Eager Beaver" Carter 1983 136 games at C

.349/45/124

They were the most feared duo in baseball hitting 3rd and 4th in the order. New Orleans got Dave Page from Minneapolis on 9-01-1980, Dave was drafted in 1978 in the 10th round by Minneapolis. Dave a AA mid to upper level prospect was dealt to New Orleans for 1B Alejandro Benvijes. Alejandro was a serviceable EWB player, but Tim Hill saw something in Dave like he saw in Vincent, not overall as good but could be a very good EWB hitter, and boy was he for New Orleans. Dave blossomed in New Orleans in 1982 and took off from there.

New Orleans pitching staff was pretty good, ALL five starters won 10 or more games, starting with their ace Christian Parker.

Parker- 17-10/3.68/115 K/88 BB/ 220. IP

Roberto Castro 15-9/3.94/66 K/35 BB/235. IP

Clinton Conner 15-11/3.70/76 K/83 BB/209.1 IP

Daniel Pena 12-6/4.18/160 K/84 BB/178.2 IP

Doug Peterson 10-7/5.16/53 K/38 BB/169.1 IP

CL- Christian Hall 3.27/28 SV/35K/12 BB/44 IP

Overall not your overpowering staff but they got the job done.

DID YOU KNOW that SP Joe MacGregor was a second year MR on that 83 team making 10 appearances out of the pen.

After the 83 season they made the playoffs in the 1984-85 seasons, but to no avail they could not get over the hump.

A sad note from the 1984 season, on August 25, 1984 Truman Capote died at his home.

Truman was 59 years old. The players overall liked Truman even though they barely knew him, all the players said was the checks never bounced. Jerry Lee still owns the team to date.