Sanford Spinners Baseball Club

The Sanford Spinners remain the only professional sports team to have played in Sanford. They played in the Tobacco State League which was a class D league (similar to A ball) which lasted from 1946 through 1950.

Throughout the five-season run, there were fifteen cities that participated in the league; all were from North Carolina. Five of the teams did not miss a season, fielding a team for each year of the league's existance. Those five were Clinton, Dunn-Erwin, Sanford, Smithfield-Selma and Wilmington.

The Sanford Spinners, one of the teams that fielded a team for each year of the league's existance, won the 1946, '47 & '48 league championships, as well as the playoff titles in 1947-48. Zeb Harrington was the team's manager during this run.

The Spinners played at Temple Park which was located at the corner of McIver and Seventh streets. There are softball fields currently at that location. The park was named after Will Temple, a local baseball star who played in the New York Giants organization. Construction was started on Temple Park in the 1930s and the grandstand stood until it was torn down in the 1960s.

Howard Auman, a local resident who still resides in Sanford, pitched for the Spinners in 1946 with a record of 22 wins, and 8 losses.