 Utica's first baseball team took the field in 1878.The city fielded a team in the New York State League from 1899–1917, then was without professional baseball until 1939, except for one year, 1924, when the Utica Utes, a member of an earlier edition of the New York–Pennsylvania League, moved to Oneonta, New York, in midseason.The first Blue Sox team can be traced to the Utica Braves of the Class C Canadian–American League, formed when the former Auburn Bouleys were moved to Utica by Amby McConnell and Father Harold Martin.