Organized professional baseball has a long history in New Orleans, beginning with the New Orleans Pelicans (not to be confused with the NBA team by the same name). The team remained the most storied of local franchises, playing off and on from 1887 to 1977, when they moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began playing as the Redbirds.

New Orleans would remain without a professional baseball team until 1993, when the Denver Zephyrs relocated due to the arrival of the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball team. Team owner John Dikeou, a Denver real estate tycoon, oversaw the transition of the Minor League team to New Orleans.

Taken from the name of a storied passenger train that once ran between Denver and Chicago, the term “Zephyr” denoted a gentle westerly breeze, after Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind. The name fit New Orleans, which not only experienced its share of hurricane winds but also claimed the Zephyr Roller Coaster of Pontchartrain Beach amusement park, which entertained thrill-seekers from 1939 to 1983.

The New Orleans Zephyrs played in the American Association—a Triple-A league, one step below Major League Baseball—as an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. Their home stadium during their first four seasons was Privateer Park, commonly known as Maestri Field, on the University of New Orleans campus. In 1995 Dikeou sold the team to a group of local investors. Two years later the Zephyrs moved to a new stadium in the suburbs: Zephyr Field on Airline Drive in Metairie. That same year, after the dissolution of the American Association, the team joined the Pacific Coast League.

The following year, 1998, marked a standout season for the Zephyrs, who won the division and league titles, followed by a Triple-A World Series championship. They repeated that feat in 2001, though the playoffs were canceled following the events of September 11.

The Zephyrs’ Major League affiliations changed frequently. Following the Milwaukee Brewers era (1993–1996), the team was affiliated with the Houston Astros (1997–2004), Washington Nationals (2005–2006), New York Mets (2007–2008), and, beginning in 2009, the Miami Marlins.

In 2005 the team rebranded, retiring the old logo: a baseball with stitching that formed the letter Z, which dated back to the Denver days. In its place came Boudreaux, a bucktoothed nutria adopted to appeal to kids. Five years later the team executives retired Boudreaux in favor of a simple fleur-de-lis.

In 2015 Lou Schwechheimer, a veteran Minor League Baseball owner and executive, purchased a majority stake in the Zephyrs. Two years later the franchise rebranded again, settling on a new team name, chosen in a naming contest: the Baby Cakes. The name met with much confusion and derision from locals, many of whom expressed bafflement over what a “Baby Cake” was. The unveiling of the quirky new mascot—a surly toddler draped in the purple, green, and gold of Carnival, wearing a king cake around his midsection and a crown atop his bald head—cleared the confusion: the mascot was a play on the miniature plastic babies found in king cakes. In addition, the home stadium was renamed the Shrine on Airline (the field has more recently been renamed the Gold Mine on Airline). Despite, or perhaps due to these changes, the team’s attendance plummeted.

In 2020 Schwechheimer moved the team to Wichita, Kansas, and renamed it the Wichita Wind Surge, leaving New Orleans again without a professional baseball team.