Utica (NY) Blue Jays vs. Auburn (NY) Astros
July 30, 1983
Murnane Field
New York-Penn League Programs
6 pages

The Utica Blue Sox were the only independent ball club in America in the summer of 1983.  In the 1990′s a rash of wholly independent baseball leagues would spring up all over the United States.  But back in 1983, playing independent ball wasn’t a choice – it was a sentence.  Playing independent meant that no Major League organization was willing to entrust you with their prospects.  And it meant that there was no one to backstop your payroll and expenses, beyond your own stockholders.

Under normal conditions, the Blue Sox would have bumbled along in obscurity until the owners moved or went bankrupt.  But prior to the 1983 season, Boys of Summer and baseball romantic Roger Kahn bought a controlling interest in the Blue Sox around $25,000.  Kahn got into the Blue Sox adventure with the intention of writing a book.  In the meantime, his personal notoriety generated considerably national coverage for the 1983 Blue Sox. Even People Magazine got into the act – a magazine that typically showed as much interest in minor league baseball as it did in Utica, New York.

On the field, the Blue Sox were led by 31-year old manager Jim Gattis, himself a veteran of several independent ball clubs of the 1970′s.  Gattis’ team of unwanted players surprisingly won the New York-Penn League championship in 1983, adding a little extra drama to Kahn’s book-in-progress.  Nevertheless, none of the 29 players who saw action for the Blue Sox that summer ever made it to the Major Leagues.

Kahn’s book, Good Enough To Dream, came out in 1985 to generally positive reviews.  By then Kahn was out of the business – he owned the Blue Sox for only the one season.  He was a dabbler – unlike many of his fellow stockholders.  The ’83 Blue Sox had more than a dozen investors, including many of the men who went on to lead independent baseball movement of the 1990′s – Durham Bulls owner Miles Wolff, actor Bill Murray, New York Yankees minority partner Marv Goldklang and the investor/recruiter Evander Schley, who specialized in recruiting independent players and helped Gattis assemble the championship team.

The book reportedly aggravated some of those associated with the Blue Sox and required extensive legal wrangling to make it into print.  Blue Sox manager Jim Gattis told The Los Angeles Times in a 1994 retrospective that he “hated” the book for years, before later making peace with it.

Another member of the Blue Sox prominently featured in Good Enough To Dream was 29-year old player/coach Barry Moss, a 12-year minor league veteran and one of the oldest every day player in the New York-Penn League.  Moss went on to a long and respected career as an scout, manager and recruiter, particularly in independent leagues.  In the 2011 film adaptation of Moneyball, Moss has a brief speaking role alongside Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as an Oakland A’s scout identified simply as “Scout Barry”.

Downloads:

July 30th, 1983 Utica Blue Sox vs. Auburn Astros roster insert

July 30th, 1983 game notes

Tampa Bay Rowdies vs. Memphis Rogues
March 2, 1980
The Bayfront Center
North American Soccer League Programs
56 pages

The North American Soccer League (1968-1984) is best known as the league that brought Pele to the United States and for its flagship New York Cosmos franchise, the team for which Pele played from 1975 to 1977.  The NASL’s core business was outdoor soccer played on a spring-summer schedule, but the league also dabbled with the emerging sport of indoor soccer with several one-off exhibitions and short tournaments during the mid-1970′s.

In the winter of 1979-80 the NASL launched its own indoor league, partly due to pressure from the upstart Major Indoor Soccer League which debuted the previous year.  The NASL’s indoor league was something less than full-fledged – participation that first winter was optional and only 10 of the league’s 24 franchises took part.  Notably absent were the Cosmos, who generally looked down their noses at the indoor game and held out until the league’s third indoor season in the winter of 1981-82.

The absence of some of the league’s best teams and stars left an opening for comparatively anonymous clubs like the Memphis Rogues to shine in that first indoor season.  The Rogues had one of the league’s lowest payrolls and fared poorly on the field and at the Liberty Bowl box office for outdoor soccer, but all of that changed when the team shifted indoors for six home dates in the winter of 1979.

“We played at the Mid-South Coliseum.  We played indoor soccer there when no one knew anything about it and we had sold out every game,” recalled Rogues General Manager Rudi Schiffer in 2012.  “We won the Western Division championship and we had a heckuva team.  We did that with a lot of promotions and it was wild and exciting and everybody loved it.  We sold every ticket in the house.”

The Rogues advanced all the way to the NASL Indoor championship series in late February 1980.  There they met the Tampa Bay Rowdies, a club whose popularity and success in the outdoor game carried over indoors.  The Rowdies were runners up in Soccer Bowl 1979, the championship of the NASL’s outdoor season. At the gate, they average 27,650 fans for outdoor soccer that summer, second only to the Cosmos. 

The Rowdies played indoor soccer at the tiny 5,500-seat Bayfront Center in St. Peterburgr.  The Rowdies were nearly unbeatable at home, going 5-1 and playing to standing room only crowds all winter  (5,905 announced average).

The Rogues and the Rowdies met in a two-game championship series which began in Memphis on February 29, 1980.  9,081 fans packed the Mid-South Coliseum to see the Rogues take Game One by a score of 5-4.  This rare game program was published for the deciding match at Bayfront Center two days later on March 2nd.  If the Rogues won the game, the series was over.  If the Rowdies won Game Two, the title would be decided by sudden-death “mini-game” immediately following the match.  Another sell-out crowd of 5,545 was on hand.

The Rowdies dominated Game Two, winning the match 10-4.  After a short intermission, the mini-game began.  The Rogues dominated the run of play, outshooting the Rowdies 28-9 in the extra period.  But it was the Rowdies who came out on top, when English midfielder Peter Anderson buried a shot behind Rogues goalkeeper John Houska to hand Tampa the first NASL indoor title.

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Bayfront Arena was demolished in 2004.  Today the former site on the St. Petersburg waterfront hosts the Salvador Dali museum.

The Rogues moved to Calgary in 1980 and the franchise went bankrupt in 1981.  The Rowdies survived the demise of the NASL in 1984 and played in various leagues until the early 1990′s.  They played their final game of indoor soccer at Bayfront Arena in 1987 as a member of the American Indoor Soccer Association.

Downloads:

Check out our 2012 interview with former Memphis Rogues GM Rudi Schiffer about his adventures in the NASL.

Portland Mavericks vs. Eugene Emeralds
June 15, 1977
Civic Stadium
Northwest League Programs
14 pages

The Portland Mavericks.  This renegade ball club existed for only five summers, but managed to leave an indelible stamp (their contemporary detractors might have said “stain”) on the landscape of minor league baseball.  The Mavs came to town in 1973 after the Beavers, Portland’s long-time entry in the Pacific Coast League, moved to Spokane, Washington.

It didn’t seem like a promising trade-off for Portland baseball fans at first.  The Beavers played triple-A baseball, just one step removed from the Major Leagues.  Or at least one call up away from their woeful parent club, the Cleveland Indians, who seemed a dozen steps removed from Major League Baseball during the 1970′s.  Unlike all of their rivals in the single-A Northwest League, the Mavs had no Major League affiliation.  They were one of the first and only viable independent clubs, signing their own players wherever they could find them.  The Mavs roster consisted of the unwanted, unwashed and washed-up, many of whom traveled from all over North America to attend owner Bing Russell’s open tryouts each June.

Russell was a long-time character actor in Westerns, best known for portraying Deputy Clem Foster on Bonanza.  His motto for the Mavs was simply “Fun” and Mavs games at Portland’s multi-purpose Civic Stadium had a circus-like atmosphere.  Russell was ahead of his time in emphasizing fun & entertainment as the primary product of minor league baseball.  It was the people’s team and Portland fans flocked to Civic Stadium in record numbers.  During the Mavs first season in 1973, the club set the all-time Class A short-season attendance mark and broke it again for each of the next two years.

A sampling of Mavericks moments:

• First year Mavs manager Hank Robinson was banned from the Northwest League for assaulting an umpire.
• 1975 Mavs player/manager Frank Peters once rotated all nine players in his Mavs lineup to a new position each inning.
• Peters juggled his responsibilities playing for and managing the Mavs with running several nefarious nightclubs in Portland, including “Satan’s Disco”.  He became a marijuana grower in Portland in the late 1980′s and spent time in prison for sex offenses.
• Russell appointed pro baseball’s first female General Manager in Lanny Moss in 1975 and first Asian-American GM with Jon Yoshiwara in 1977. (oddly, the 22-year old Yoshiwara was also a Mavs’ utility infielder that summer)
• The club (twice) signed dead-armed ex-Yankee Jim Bouton, who was more or less blackballed by organized baseball for his taboo-shattering 1970 memoir Ball Four.  Bouton ultimately made it back to the Majors after his second stint with the Mavs.
• Bouton and Mavericks pitching coach Rob Nelson came up with the concept for Big League Chew shredded chewing gum during a lazy night in the Mavs bullpen.
• Bing Russell’s son Kurt played for the Mavs in 1973.  The future star of Escape From New York and Miracle hit .229 in 23 games for the Mavs that summer.
• Mavs batboy Todd Field grew up to become the Academy Award-nominated writer/director of the films Little Children and In The  Bedroom

Unlike virtually all other defunct ball clubs, the Mavs never folded or moved.  They were paid to go away.  In late 1977, the Pacific Coast League decided to expand back into Portland.  All of organized baseball operated under the auspices of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues.  In order for the PCL to get back into Portland, National Association President Bobby Bragan had to hammer out a settlement between the PCL and Bing Russell for rights to the Portland market.  The going compensation rate to abandon a city to a higher level league was about $25,000.  Russell demanded $206,000 and after a long winter of wrangling in various airport hotel rooms, he got every penny of it.

During the last season of Mavericks baseball in 1977, the low-level independent club drew 125,300 to see 33 games at Civic Stadium. When the Beavers, triple-A baseball and the Cleveland Indians returned in 1978, only 96,395 turned out for 69 games.

##

Bing Russell passed away in April 2003 at age 76.  His blueprint for running a ball club influenced both the resurgence of independent baseball leagues in the mid-1990′s and the general re-branding and revival of minor league baseball as “affordable family entertainment” in the 1980′s.

Big League Chew – Mavs’ pitcher Rob Nelson’s substitute for chewing tobacco – has gone on to sell more than a half a billion pouches worldwide since its introduction in 1980.  If you missed the link earlier, check out this amazing blog on the history of Big League Chew at CollectingCandy.com

St. Louis Athletica vs. Philadelphia Independence
May 8, 2010
Anheuser-Busch Soccer Park
Women’s Professional Soccer Programs
8 pages

I wrote a retrospective on Heather Mitts and the Boston Breakers of Women’s Professional Soccer last week.  The comments section quickly shifted over to a discussion of Mitts’ USWNT teammate Hope Solo, so I figured I’d give a headlining spot this week to Solo and her former WPS club, St. Louis Athletica.

First of all, thanks to Maire Ryan, former member of the club’s Laclede’s Army supporters group, for contributing this rare scorecard from the final days of the Athletica franchise.  Unfortunately, this May 8th, 2010 2-1 victory against the Philadelphia Independence at Anheuser-Busch Soccer Park in Fenton, Missouri turned out to be the penultimate match in Athletica’s short, chaotic history.

The team played one more match at home on May 16th, before presumed club owner Jeff Cooper informed WPS officials that he could no longer make payroll and operate his team.  The news was startling and the reason was an even bigger stunner:  Cooper claimed he no longer owned the team.  It seems the St. Louis mesothelioma litigator quietly sold controlling interest in Athletica to Sanjay and Keemal Vaid, a pair of British commodities traders and Subway sandwich shop owners, in December 2009.  Cooper never informed the league of the change in ownership and continued to serve as his team’s front man and spokesman as he had since founding the club in 2007.  The story gets much stranger and is still shrouded in mystery two years later, but it would serve little purpose to delve further here, when you can just read the terrific forensic autopsy of Athletica, Cooper and the Vaid Brothers conducted by the blogger Fake Sigi back in 2010.

Athletica shut down on May 27th and all of its players were rendered free agents.  Most of the top players signed with WPS’ remaining seven franchises.  Lindsay Tarpley headed to Boston and her U.S. Women’s National Team teammate Shannon Boxx went to FC Gold Pride, where she helped that Bay Area-based club win the 2010 WPS Cup.  Most of Athletica’s other stars signed with the last place Atlanta Beat, including Solo, St. Louis native Lori Chalupny, English National Team striker Eniola Aluko and stalwart defender Tina Ellertson.  WPS fans jokingly referred to the upgraded Beat side as “Atlantica” for the rest of the 2010 season.  For many of Athletica’s rookies and role players, there was nothing to laugh about.  Unable to generate interest and hook on with other clubs, their professional soccer careers simply came to abrupt end.

Athletica was the second WPS franchise to go down, after the Los Angeles Sol folded during the league’s first offseason in January of 2010.  But the midseason collapse of a member club was far more damaging for the fledgling league’s credibility and confidence.  I asked Chicago Red Stars managing partner Arnim Whisler to reflect on the impact on his club, which was aggressively courting new investors at the time Athletica folded:

“You know, I think the departure of the Los Angeles Sol was survivable because we all knew AEG (Sol owner Anschutz Entertainment Group) was in it for one year only.   We sincerely thought we had other investors that would quickly step into that franchise and market, though we needed a bit more time,” recalled Whisler.

“When St. Louis went down mid-season — with absolutely NO warning – it shook the foundations of what we had all built.  It was technically survivable because we had independently owned franchises but it completely changed the willingness of investors to finalize investments that were long discussed — and not just in Chicago.  It rippled through the league and shut down some discussions that other franchises were having with investors and gave pause to some of the expansion candidates and potential sponsors to wait one more year to see how it all shook out.”

“It just really put a lot of stress on the rest of league too,” says Whisler.  “After the Sol folded, and then Athletica, we had to all step up on a pro-rata basis to fill the funding gaps of lost contributors — from 1/9th, to 1/8th to 1/7th.  And then within a matter of months more clubs followed and it was 1/6th, 1/5th etc.

“Ultimately we all have to admit that the model wasn’t sustainable as constructed in the beginning — what many don’t know is how aggressively we were moving to a new cost structure and each year taking further steps to stabilize — but with no new investors and a continued loss of teams it became increasingly difficult.  There were many issues — some governance, some financial, some legal that added pressure but keeping that franchise intact would have reduced the strain on all.”

After Athletica’s collapse, Whisler’s Red Stars never did secure the additional investors needed to stay in WPS.  They withdrew from the league seven months later in December 2010.  But rather than fold as other WPS franchises did, the Red Stars dropped down to the semi-pro Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) where they continue to play in 2012 alongside two more recent WPS refugees, the Boston Breakers and the Western New York Flash.  Those two clubs entered the WPSL after WPS folded on January 30, 2012.

“I want to emphasize though that there is still a deep and resilient reserve of owners and supporters for Elite womens soccer in the US,” said Whisler.  “Chicago Red Stars retooled and are happy in the WPSL.  Boston and Western New York and numerous others are part of this discussion and will show that once we redesign a bit, the commitment remains to get this sport set up in a sustainable way.”

Montreal Quebecois vs. Toronto Tomahawks
May 15, 1974
The Montreal Forum
National Lacrosse League Programs
30 pages

I dug up this rare box lacrosse program last week from a dealer in Quebec City.  This is the program for the debut game of the National Lacrosse League (1974-1975) between the Montreal Quebecois and the Toronto Tomahawks at the Montreal Forum on May 15, 1974.

The NLL was the first major effort to establish a fully professional league for the sports of box (indoor) lacrosse.  The league’s six founding franchises played in major NHL arenas in Toronto, Montreal, Philadelphia and Landover, Maryland, along with American Hockey League arenas in Rochester and Syracuse, New York.

An article inside the program describes the sport to the uninitiated as “Hockey + Football + Basketball”, but the sport it most resembled was clearly ice hockey.  Several NHL and minor league players moonlighted in the NHL during the summers of 1974 and 1975.  Quebecois co-owner and General Manager John “Fergie” Ferguson (pictured at left in the leather jacket) was a former left winger and enforcer for the dynastic Montreal Canadiens teams of the 1960′s.  Ferguson played on five Stanley Cup champion teams with the Canadiens between 1965 and his retirement in 1971.

In terms of popularity, the six team circuit ended up with haves and have-nots during the summer of 1974.  The Philadelphia Wings (8,737) , the Quebecois (6,934), and the Maryland Arrows (6,689) all drew well for 20 home dates.  But the Rochester Griffins (2,764), Syracuse Stingers (2,582) and the Tomahawks (2,102 in the cavernous Maple Leaf Gardens) fared poorly and all relocated to new markets for the 1975 season.

Ferguson stepped down from his posts with the Quebecois midway through the 1975 season to become Head Coach and General Manager of the NHL’s New York Rangers.  The National Lacrosse League folded in March 1976 after further franchise turmoil and when it became clear that the Montreal Forum would not be available to the popular Quebecois franchise due to the 1976 Olympic Games that summer.

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Future United States National Soccer Team Head Coach Bruce Arena played for the Quebecois during the 1975 season.

John Ferguson passed away after a battle with cancer in July 2007 at the age of 68.

Downloads:

1974 Montreal Quebecois Final Regular Season Statistics

2000 Sacramento Monarchs Media Guide
Women’s National Basketball Association Media Guides
130 pages

It’s one of the hoary old standards of any group ticket sales department: buy a block of 20 or more tickets and we’ll put your name in lights!  In other words, we’ll put the name of your camp/church/school/business/bachelor party up on the Jumbotron for all to see.  It’s a value-add that thrills fans and requires no expense and very little work from the ball club.  Pretty much a win-win all the way around.

Except not so much for the Sacramento Monarchs of the WNBA back in the summer of 2000.  The club stumbled into a national PR dust up over the issue of welcoming lesbian groups on the ARCO Arena videoboard.  In doing so, the Monarchs ultimately brought the topic of WNBA fan demographics and marketing tactics into the national conversation.

So here’s what happened.  A group of lesbian Monarchs fans, which included some season ticket holders, purchased a block of 40 tickets to a game during the summer of 2000.  When their ticket sales rep asked for a name for the videoboard, the group leader said the name was the “Davis Dykes.”

Now I’m going to interrupt the story right here and insert an unsolicited opinion, while acknowledging I don’t have all of the facts.  But it seems to me that this group of fans – which, again, included season ticket holders who presumably loved the Monarchs – put their club in a really difficult position here.  I can’t think of any scenario where I would have allowed a derogatory term for someone’s racial heritage, sexual orientation or religious beliefs on the scoreboard at any of the teams that I worked for, regardless of whether that term had been co-opted, re-framed or embraced by the group it used to be directed against.

But back to the story and the Monarchs first misstep (in my opinion).  Saying no to the “Davis Dykes” group name was an easy call.  Most teams would have done it, I believe.  But then the front office let themselves get drawn into a negotiation over alternative names, which later was leaked to the press.  And in doing so, the Monarchs and the WNBA appeared to reveal a sense of unease – or at least uncertainty – about how to reconcile their sizable GLBT fan base with the modern-day cliche of positioning sub-Major League sporting events as “affordable family entertainment”.

After rejecting the “Davis Dykes” name, the Monarchs front office also surprisingly (to me, anyway) rejected the name “Davis Lesbians”.  Ultimately, the two sides agreed on the name “Davis Rainbow Womyn”.  When the press got hold of the situation, it provided a couple of unhappy PR outcomes.  First, fairly or unfairly, it created the perception that the Monarchs were uncomfortable in acknowledging the obvious presence of lesbians in their fan base.  Second, the rather silly progression of the haggling from “dykes” to “rainbow womyn” provided an irresistible rhetorical truncheon with which knuckle-dragging WNBA antagonists could pummel the four-year old league on the internet and in the broader popular culture.  A ready-made punchline to assert the view that the WNBA was both figuratively and literally too gay – i.e. a slow/boring/lame/unathletic game attended by too many homos.

But there was a happy ending of sorts…

During the ensuing off season, Monarchs owner Joe Maloof took a personal interest in the issue.  In July 2001, the Monarchs hosted a Gay Pride Night, with cooperation and promotion from some of the women from the Davis Dykes group.   The game drew 9,365 fans to ARCO Arena, a surge of more than 15% over the team’s average that season.

In the year following the Monarchs/Dykes dust up, lesbian marketing among WNBA clubs drew substantial press coverage from the likes of USA Today, Time Magazine, Business Week and ESPN, with a focus on what the strategy meant for the league’s stagnant crowd building efforts.   But James Bowman of the Swish Appeal blog makes an argument here that the WNBA’s outreach to a lesbian audience is more of a pendulum swing, rather than a consistent strategy.

The WNBA is still grappling with much broader issue of crowd building, but the Monarchs no longer are.  The Maloofs folded the team in November 2009 after thirteen seasons of play.

Buffalo Norsemen vs. Erie (PA) Blades
March 12, 1976
Tonowanda Sports Center
North American Hockey League Programs
12 pages

The Buffalo Norsemen were a one-year wonder in the obscure North American Hockey League of the 1970′s.  This program is from a March 12, 1976 match up against the Erie Blades as the NAHL entered the final week of its regular season.

The Norsemen entered the NAHL playoffs two weeks later despite a losing record for the season.  They faced the Johnstown (PA) Jets in the quarterfinal round.  During an early game in the series in Buffalo, a black player on the Jets roster was subjected to racist taunts and signs by the Norsemen fans.  When the series moved to Johnstown, Jets players retaliated by instigating a full-fledged brawl during the pre-game skate around.  The melee sent Norsemen players Greg Neeld and Charlie Labelle off to the hospital.  After the fight subsided, the Norsemen retreated to their locker room at the Cambria County War Memorial and refused to come back on the ice.  NAHL officials handed the Jets a victory by forfeit…which also gave them the series victory and eliminated the Norsemen from the playoffs!   The incident inspired a pre-game brawl scene in the classic hockey movie Slap Shot, released the following year and based largely on the Johnstown Jets.

“Naturally we took the team off the ice,” Norsemen General Manager Willie Marshall told the press at the time.  “We had two players who couldn’t play.  They beat up a couple of our stars…Hockey is secondary in this league.  I hate to say I’m a part of this league.  The people running the league have lost all touch with reality.  We’re here to develop young hockey players, not goons.”

The Norsemen never played another game.  The club folded following the season.  The Jets went on to win the league championship.

1993 Albany-Colonie Yankees Yearbook
Eastern League Programs
64 pages

I plucked this one from the files when I read of the recent arrest of former Yankees phenom Brien Taylor for cocaine trafficking.   Taylor might have been one of the great power-pitching left-handers of the 1990′s alongside the Seattle Mariners’ Randy Johnson.  Certainly that’s what the New York Yankees expected when they made the 19-year old fireballer out of North Carolina’s East Cataret High School the #1 overall pick in the 1991 amateur draft. Taylor’s ticket was his fastball, which clocked as high as 99 mph in high school.  During his senior year, he struck out 213 batters in only 88 innings.

Taylor’s family held out through the summer of 1991, rebuffing lowball offers from the Yankees and threatening to enroll Brien in junior college instead.  Jeff Passan wrote a great retrospective on the Taylor negotiations for Yahoo! Sports in 2006.  With assistance from agent Scott Borras, Taylor’s mom Bettie, who worked in a seafood processing plant, ultimately faced down the Yankees negotiators and secured a record $1.55 million signing bonus for Taylor.  At the time, it was the largest bonus paid to a draftee in the history of professional baseball.

Taylor pro debut came in 1992 with the Ft. Lauderdale Yankees of the Florida State League.  By all accounts, he lived up to the hype, striking out 187 batters in 161 innings and posting a miserly 2.57 ERA.  Taylor headed to Albany-Colonie in the double-A Eastern League out of spring training in 1993.  Every thing was on schedule for Taylor to be a fixture in the Yankees rotation by 1995 at age 23.

The summer of 1993 in Albany turned out to be Taylor’s peak.  He won 13 games and continued to strike out bushels of opponents (he also led the league in walks issued).  Baseball America named him the game’s best prospect that year.  Back home in Beaufort, North Carolina in December 1993, Taylor and his cousin drove to the home of a man who assaulted his brother Brenden in an earlier dispute.  In the altercation that ensued, Taylor was knocked over and suffered a catastrophic tear to the labrum and capsule of his pitching arm.

After surgery, Taylor sat out the 1994 season.  He lost his control and 8 mph off his fastball.  The Yankees let Taylor go and he puttered around the low minors as late as 2000, but never again rose above A-ball after the fight.  He became the second #1 overall pick in the amateur draft to never play in the Major Leagues, following Steve Chilcotte, the New York Mets #1 pick in 1966.

Boston Breakers vs. Sky Blue FC
July 25, 2009
Harvard Stadium
Women’s Professional Soccer Programs
12 pages

It was Heather Mitts Bobble Head Doll Night when the Boston Breakers took on Sky Blue FC of New Jersey at Harvard Stadium on July 25th, 2009.  The glamorous U.S. National Team defender was more or less the face of the Breakers during the inaugural season of Women’s Professional Soccer that summer and she generated a considerable amount of free publicity for the club in the New England media.

Heather was unusual, in that we knew we probably wouldn’t have her for long.  When the league began to ramp up in 2008, an “allocation” process was held to distribute the two dozen or so members of the U.S. National Team to the league’s seven franchises.   Unlike international players and graduating collegians – who would both enter a traditional draft – the U.S. National Teamers were allocated to their WPS clubs through a matching mechanism.  Each franchise named three USWNT players it wanted, ranked in order of priority, to the league office.  Each player submitted three cities, ranked in order of desirability.  The league office then made its best efforts to match team and player desires.

There was something of an art to this – it wasn’t as simple as naming the highest rated players on your team’s board.  For example, one might reasonably assume that all seven clubs would rank Abby Wambach, the great scoring star of the American team, at or near the top of their list.  But teams had an idea of where certain players wanted to play.  In Boston, we knew Wambach wasn’t interested in coming here and therefore left her off our list of three entirely, rather than waste a request.  Meanwhile, USWNT legend Kristine Lilly lived in suburban Boston and let it be known she wouldn’t play anywhere else.  Breakers President Joe Cummings and I debated how to handle Kristine’s situation.  I felt that we should leave her off the Breakers “want list” entirely…knowing we would get her regardless.  Then we could elevate another priority player on our board to a higher ranking and that might be enough to edge out a rival club.   But it was Joe’s call, not mine.  He went back with Kristine a long ways and felt it was more respectful to include her on our list of three.  It was the classy decision, as one can always expect from Joe Cummings.  We agreed to rank her third, however, since getting her was a foregone conclusion.  For similar reasons, we also listed Angela Hucles on our list at #2.  Angela also lived in Boston and we knew she would designate the Breakers as her first choice.

That left the decision of what to do with our #1 request.  I felt that the Breakers needed star power to launch the team…meaning a player who could create buzz that transcended the sport, not simply a top performer.  I felt there were three players on the USWNT who had that quality – Wambach (who we weren’t going to get), the brilliant but controversial goalkeeper Hope Solo, and Heather Mitts.  As a promoter, my first instinct was Solo, but there was little support for her elsewhere in the organization.  That left Heather and she was in a different category than Wambach or Solo, who were arguably in their peak years.   Heather was 30 years old and still a starter for the USWNT in 2008.  But some observers questioned that status and asserted that her best seasons probably were behind her.  For this reason, I saw a real opportunity for the Breakers if we anointed her with our #1 selection.  I believed that many other teams wanted Mitts but that few would rank her #1 on their list.  Breakers Head Coach Tony DiCicco called Heather and she seemed receptive to coming to Boston.  I didn’t think we needed to be #1 on her list, but I felt that if she just ranked us in her top three and we put her #1, we’d get her.  And that is exactly what happened.

I was thrilled that we landed Heather Mitts.  But from a competitive standpoint, there were a couple of challenges.  First, at the time of the USWNT allocation, we were already looking to sign Kelly Smith and Alex Scott from the English club Arsenal Ladies (both ended up being perennial WPS All-Stars for Boston).  Heather and Alex played the same position, so someone would have to play out of position in 2009.  Second, it was common knowledge that a Philadelphia expansion franchise was expected for the second season of WPS in 2010. Heather lived in Philadelphia and was engaged to then-Philadelphia Eagles quarterback A.J. Feeley.  Most USWNT players signed three-year deals after allocation, but with Heather we agreed on a one-year deal.  The USWNT allocation process was intended to help clubs build competitive foundations that would last several seasons.  But it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Heather would be one-and-done in Boston and then head back to Philly in 2010 as a free agent. 

I should be clear that our coaching staff rated Heather very highly as a player.  We wouldn’t have pursued her if they didn’t.  And in my view as a promoter and salesperson, her tremendous PR value outweighed whatever marginal uptick in competitive ability might have come with the realistic alternatives, such as a Shannon Boxx or a Cat Whitehill.  Also, Heather’s off-the-field value to Boston would be largely immune to uncontrollable factors, such as an injury or an off-year.

Heather proved very popular with the Boston fan base and the local media.  She appeared on the cover of the Improper Bostonian‘s fitness issue and on numerous top-rated radio programs and TV morning shows.  Alone among our players, the newspaper gossip and celebrity columns took an interest in Heather’s personal life which exposed the team to an entirely new audience.  The criticism here – and it’s justifiable and I recognize that it disappoints many fans – is that much of this interest was based on Heather’s looks.  Many outlets chose to run accompanying photos from Heather’s years-old Maxim Magazine photo shoot, rather than pictures of her actually playing soccer.  This is undeniable.  On the other hand, there were many strikingly beautiful – and yet totally anonymous – players in WPS.  Heather’s status as an Olympic gold medalist, articulate broadcaster, willing promoter, and fiancee of an NFL player all factored into her high profile as well.

Anyway, wherever the initial media interest came from – soccer or sex appeal – it usually opened the door for opportunities for Heather and her teammates to promote the Boston Breakers and WPS.  Usually.  There was one appearance that was more or less a disaster.  In June 2009, Mitts was booked onto The Dennis & Callahan Show on WEEI, which was the top sports talk radio station in New England at the time.  The show is historically anti-soccer, let alone women’s soccer, and the hosts posted a poll during the week leading up to the interview as to whether they should conduct it, or delegate it to their sidekicks.  When Heather arrived, the hosts walked out of the studio to take a coffee break rather than do the interview.  The interview was conducted instead by Jon Meterparel, who is friendly to soccer and has called MLS games for the station in the past.  However, shortly into the segment ex-Red Sox hurler Curt Schilling, a frequent caller to the show, dialed in randomly and expounded on his views of the world for the next 10 minutes, gobbling up most of the segment while Heather sat quietly in the studio.  The segment and its week-long build-up ultimately generated far more airtime for the usual anti-soccer and anti-female bashing than it did for the Breakers.

Heather and her fiancee’s celebrity status also attracted unwanted attention.  Feeley had a stalker back in Philadelphia who later turned out to be a neighbor in their condo complex.  The woman was very troubled and occasionally emailed the info@bostonbreakers.com account insisting that she was engaged to A.J. Feeley and demanding that we turn Heather over to the authorities.  At one point we posted pictures to the Breakers Facebook page showing Heather and A.J. together at Fenway Park.  The woman emailed the next day complaining that she had been at the ballgame with A.J. and that someone photoshopped her out of the pictures and replaced her with Heather.   The woman was ultimately arrested about a month into the WPS season.

But we ended the year on a happy note.  Unofficially, July 25th was “Heather Mitts Night” at Harvard Stadium.  She was on the cover of the game program and we gave away Heather Mitts Bobble Heads to the first 1,000 fans through the gates.  Harvard Stadium is a century-old concrete bowl with few modern amenities or attractions inside the gates, so most Breakers fans would stay outside tailgating until moments before kickoff.  On this night, nearly 800 fans lined up an hourly early to make sure they got a bobble head.

As for the doll, Heather did not care for it much.  As usual with these things, we went through multiple design revisions with the vendor, but this time we never quite got it right.  They had particular trouble correcting the caterpillar-like eyebrows.  One Breakers player suggested the doll actually looked much more like Kelly Smith (who, I should clarify, does not have caterpillar-like eyebrows either) and this comment greatly annoyed our All-Star British striker.

On the field, this match turned out to be a very dull 0-0 draw.  Two weeks later, the Breakers were eliminated from playoff contention on the final day of the regular season.  Heather Mitts departed her Kendall Square apartment shortly thereafter and, as expected, signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Independence in September 2009.  The Breakers, meanwhile, finished second in WPS ticket revenue in 2009, thanks in no small part to Heather’s role in promoting the club.

Knoxville Smokies vs. Birmingham Barons
July 15, 1994
Bill Meyer Stadium
Southern League Programs
76 Pages

This July 15th, 1994 minor league baseball game in the double-A Southern League is notable mainly (well, only)  as a meeting between two stars of other sports.  The Birmingham Barons brought to town a weak-hitting rookie outfielder named Michael Jordan.  Jordan, the NBA’s greatest superstar, was playing hooky from the Chicago Bulls during his first retirement from basketball.  Things weren’t going particularly well…Jordan came into this game hitting .194 with an appalling 78 strikeouts in 304 at-bats.  He may have been a terrible baseball player, but Jordan attracted record crowds wherever the Barons travelled in the summer of 1994.  Some Southern League clubs roped off the warning track of their outfields to accomodate overflow crowds who spilled out into the field of play.

Across the diamond, the Knoxville Smokies started a 21-year old Toronto Blue Jays prospect named Chris Weinke at first base.  Things were going a little better for Weinke than for Jordan that summer.  He led the weak-hitting Smokies in homers with 7 and was second in RBIs with 53.  Weinke’s best day were yet to come…and not in baseball.

After six years in the Blue Jays system, Weinke quit baseball in 1997.  He spent most of 1995 and 1996 at triple-A Syracuse, just one step away from the majors, but he stopped hitting at that level.  In the fall of 1997, Weinke enrolled at Florida State University, finally accepting the football scholarship he walked away from seven years earlier to play pro baseball.  As a junior in 1999, Weinke led the Seminoles to the school’s first ever undefeated season and a college football national championship.  As a senior in 2000, he won the Heisman Trophy - at age 28.  The Carolina Panthers of the NFL selected Weinke late in the 1st round of the 2001 NFL draft.  Weinke started most of 2001 for a terrible 1-15 Panthers team and then settled into the rest of a seven-year NFL career spent mostly as a back-up to Panthers starter Jake Delhomme.

As for Jordan, he finished the year hitting .202 for the Barons and then spent the autumn in the Arizona Fall League for Major League prospects, where he fared marginally better.  But on March 10, 1995 he abandoned his quixotic baseball adventure and a few days later announced his return to the NBA after nearly two years absence with a two-word press release: “I’m Back”.