After the departure of the Philadelphia Athletics spring training, Minor League Baseball's newly formed Southeastern League placed a team in Montgomery which became known as the Montgomery Lions. The Lions played in Cramton Bowl from 1926 to 1930. There was no team from 1931 to 1936 due to problems within the Southeastern League and the ongoing negative economic effects of the Great Depression. The team returned for the 1937 season as the Montgomery Bombers and garnered their first major league baseball affiliation with the Cleveland Indians. The Indians pulled out for the 1938 season and were replaced by the Philadelphia Phillies. After one season the Phillies dropped their affiliation; the team became a co-op franchise and were renamed the Montgomery Rebels. In 1943, the Rebels would disband due to the manpower shortage caused by World War II. On July 11 of that year, the Chattanooga Lookouts moved their home games to Cramton Bowl to play out the rest of the season. The Lookouts managed to move back to Chattanooga and reverse the trend of declining attendance sometime later in the 1940s. The Rebels returned in 1946 through 1949 before moving to the newly constructed Paterson Field located just across the street.