The Hartford Chiefs was the final name of the Americanminor league baseball franchise representing Hartford, Connecticut, that played in the Eastern League between 1938 and 1952. The Hartford team, which played at Bulkeley Stadium, was known as the Bees from 1939–43 and in 1945; it was called the Laurels in 1938 and 1944 ; and then renamed the "Chiefs" for the final seven years of its existence, 1946–52. It was affiliated for all 15 of its seasons with the Boston Braves, and the Bees/Chiefs nickname switch for the Hartford club is probably a result of the parent team's temporary and unsuccessful renaming as the Boston Bees from 1936–40. The 1944 Laurels were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time.
The 1938 Laurels made the Eastern League playoffs and Hartford qualified for the postseason nine times in its 15-year history, but the franchise never captured the league's playoff title. While the 1942 team included a future Baseball Hall of Famepitcher, Warren Spahn, the Boston Bees/Braves of the era did not have an extensive player development system. Class A was prior to a higher-level circuit, close to today's Double-A ranking, and the Hartford franchise was the Braves' most advanced minor league affiliate through 1945. In, however, the Braves began to build out their farm system, adding Triple-A and Double-A affiliates and expanding their presence in Classes B, C and D. They also worked with a second Class A farm club, the Denver Bears of the Western League, from 1949–51. But after winning the 1948 National League pennant, the big-league Braves experienced a dramatic fall-off in attendance, and played their last season in Boston in. The Hartford Chiefs did not survive them; the franchise was transferred to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as an unaffiliated team for 1953. Meanwhile, the MLB Braves moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during spring training of. They had two Class A affiliates that season: the Lincoln Chiefs of the Western League—inheritors of the Hartford team's nickname—and the Jacksonville Braves of the Sally League, whose star player in 1953 would be 19-year-old Henry Aaron.
In 2015, after more than six decades without a team in organized baseball, Hartford officials led by then-mayor Pedro Segarra proposed building a new baseball stadium in the city's North End to attract the nearby New Britain Rock Cats of the modern Double-A Eastern League. The renamed Hartford Yard Goats debuted in 2016 but played the entire season on the road — with some games moved to Norwich, to the southeast — because of construction delays. Despite continued problems in completing the stadium, the team began play in Hartford's new ballpark in 2017.
