Did you know the Superdome was once home to a Minor League team?

On Sunday, one of the world’s most-watched sporting events will take place at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Believe it or not, decades before Super Bowl LIX came to town, the same building was home to a Minor League Baseball team for one season.

The 1977 Triple-A New Orleans Pelicans arrived with a Mardi Gras-style parade featuring horse-drawn carriages, jazz bands and legends like Daffy Dean, Stan Musial and Satchel Paige as well as current players in full uniform tossing baseball trinkets to fans while riding on decorated floats. Paige, who could be seen sitting in a rocking chair in the home bullpen during games, was the team’s vice president, assisting in coaching, community relations and sales.

By season’s end, the Pelicans had given Tony La Russa some managerial experience, welcomed a visiting TV star in a home run derby, hosted exhibitions with two Major League teams and added a little more fun to one of America’s wildest cities.

“Everybody looked forward to going there,” recalled Clint Hurdle, who started in right field for the visiting Omaha Royals in New Orleans’ home opener. “The [Pelicans] liked playing there because they said most of the time the city beats up the visiting players before they even got to the park, so they were a lot easier to play against.”

The story begins before the 1976 season, when the Superdome -- built for $134 million in 1975 -- hosted exhibition games between the Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins, drawing 25,000 total fans. One of the people who noticed the series’ success was A. Ray Smith, the owner of the Tulsa Oilers, a Triple-A team in Oklahoma with the second-lowest attendance in the American Association.

Smith worked out an agreement to relocate his club to New Orleans in 1977 and make the Superdome its home stadium. He kept the team’s affiliation with the St. Louis Cardinals and revived the name Pelicans, which was the name of New Orleans' Minor League teams from 1892 until professional baseball left in 1959.

Smith demanded that the Pelicans capture the flavor of New Orleans, beginning with that Opening Day parade. That flavor extended to the need for a dome, and indoor baseball was a hot topic in 1977. The Seattle Mariners opened the Kingdome that year and joined the Astros as the only Major League teams to play their home games under a roof.

“The heat and humidity in New Orleans in the summer can be brutal, so playing baseball indoors was an added benefit,” said Richard Cuicchi, a fan who attended a handful of those air-conditioned games.

The Superdome’s baseball alignment had normal outfield distances of 318 feet to both foul poles and 421 feet to the center-field fence. The ball carried well and batters found it easier to hit there because the lights were brighter than other Triple-A parks and the backdrop gave a clear view of pitches. People around the league referred to the Superdome’s turf as “Mardi Grass.” Its seams held the turf together well, providing a quality playing surface. Season tickets to all 68 games cost $200, single game tickets ranged from $1.50 to $3.50 and parking was only $1 per car. Opening night drew 18,000 people for the Pelicans’ 13-8 loss to Hurdle’s Royals team.

“It was actually very cool,” Hurdle said. “It was such a new novelty. It was like playing a different kind of baseball, arena baseball. One series there, Willie Wilson went something like 11-for-13 and never hit a ball out of the infield. My mom and dad drove up [from Florida] for one of the series there and we still talk about it, because that was the first and only time they’ve ever been inside to watch a baseball game.”

Another future Manager of the Year who played on opening night at the Superdome, La Russa, was a utility infielder for the Pelicans in his final season as a player.

“Tony hit the first home run in the dome on opening night for that team. Although he likes to say that he crushed it, it barely made it over the left field wall,” said Pete Barrouquere, who covered the team for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and remains in touch with La Russa.

La Russa served as the Pelicans’ acting manager for a few series when skipper Lance Nichols left temporarily with a medical issue. Reached via email recently, La Russa said “it was exciting” and described New Orleans and the Superdome as a “Major League city and venue.”

Jim Riggleman, who went on to manage 13 seasons in the Majors, started that year as an infielder with the Double-A Arkansas Travelers, who played at a ballpark that was built in 1932. When he got promoted to New Orleans in late-May, the Superdome’s NFL-quality facilities were a significant upgrade.

“The clubhouse, the locker room, the showers, the training rooms, everything was top notch. By the standards at that time, it was as good as it gets,” Riggleman recalled recently.

Hurdle returned to the Superdome when the American Association All-Star team took on the Texas Rangers on July 21, 1977. The game drew 5,200 fans, which wasn’t a bad crowd, but it appeared sparse when scattered throughout the Superdome’s baseball capacity of 63,000.

More big names showed up throughout the season. The Cardinals came to town for an exhibition game against the Pelicans, and "Happy Days" co-star Don Most participated in a pregame home run derby and signed autographs for fans. All the while, the Superdome continued hosting concerts, a circus and other performances. The Pelicans went on a 29-day road trip at one point to accommodate the Superdome’s entertainment schedule.

La Russa’s impression that New Orleans and the Superdome were Major League caliber echoed the idea A. Ray Smith had from the beginning. The Pelicans sent a statement to the media before the 1977 season saying they had “one objective clearly in mind: to bring Major League Baseball to the most exciting city in the country.”

The team distributed buttons and doubloons (tokens tossed from floats during Mardi Gras parades) with the slogan “Yes We Can - One Million Fans in 1977 - Major Leagues in 1978.” Cuicchi still has the doubloon he caught at the Opening Day parade.

The team fell 782,000 fans short of the million-fan mark, drawing 218,000, not including the pigeons that were spotted in the upper deck during games.

"Attendance was OK at the beginning, but it waned as the season progressed," Cuicchi remembered.

The on-field product didn’t help; New Orleans’ 57-79 record was the worst in the league. The Pelicans lost money, and Smith moved the franchise to Springfield, Ill. Although New Orleans had Minor League teams from 1993-2019, the Superdome was never again home to a full-season baseball tenant. It has occasionally hosted college baseball tournaments and pro exhibition games.

Riggleman thinks of the 1977 New Orleans Pelicans every time he watches a football game from the Superdome on television.

“I look at it and try to figure out where our clubhouse was and where home plate was. I don’t know that I’ve ever figured it out,” he said. “It does certainly bring back memories. It was a great place to play.”