In Utica: the Dogpatch of Baseball

By Gregory Jaynes

These past few years a couple of sportswriters on Florida papers kept bumping into each other on the sportswriters' circuit, and when their workdays were done, they tended to talk baseball, a shared passion. In time these discussions moved beyond the esoterica that baseball nuts adore. Instead they became romantic, roseate, starry-eyed dialogues on the notion of owning their own team. Then last November, the romance died. They bought a ball club.

The deal was sealed on the telephone. Greg Larson, who is based in Jacksonville, learned that the Utica Blue Sox team , in the Class A New York- Penn League, was for sale for $70,000. The seller required a swift decision. Larson called his colleague, Bob Fowler, in Orlando. Fowler said, "Hell yes, we'll buy it." Today Fowler recollects, "In ten minutes, overcome by the adventure, we had done it."

Having agreed to pay $5,000 down, cough up $45,000 by Nov. 15 and come through with a $20,000 final payment on March 1, the two set to finding partners who would purchase $5,000 pieces of the action. Larson sold his lifelong collection of baseball cards, which numbered nearly 300,000, keeping only those of the great Eddie Mathews because "he was my man." Soon after the agreement was reached, they went to Utica where, in a wind-driven icy rain, their spirits sank.

"Oh, Bob," Larson moaned, "what have we done?"

"I don't know," Fowler said, chewing on a lip. "It looks like the Dogpatch of baseball."

Larson would go home and write that "you could have mowed the grass with a push mower. Part of the left-field fence had blown down. The dugouts looked more like bus-stop shelters. The bleachers were rickety. And the wind had bent the light poles at rakish angles."

"It was crummy," Fowler recalled. "It was falling down. It was a farce. The sign said 289 ft. on the rightfield fence. We paced it off. It was 260 ft. A little pop-up would go over for a home run. No wonder major league teams didn't want to put players in here to test their abilities. Anybody could get 40 home runs in this park."

For the past two seasons, the Blue Sox had been an independent club. This meant it had to contract for, supply and pay much of its own talent. Independents cannot go after a player until the last major-league farm system has had its pick, meaning the Blue Sox would be free to go after anybody no one else wanted. In 1983 Roger Kahn, who wrote The Boys of Summer, ran the Blue Sox through a pennant and right into a lyrical new book, Good Enough to Dream, released this summer. The title was a characterization of his team. But now Kahn was gone, his players scattered to dusty lots all over America, and Fowler was on his way to the bank for second and third mortgages.

These men needed a pocketful of miracles; they got a couple of lucky breaks. Already on the boards was a proposal by local and state authorities to renovate the ball park. Encouraged by that, Fowler and Larson went to the winter baseball meetings in Houston looking for a major-league affiliate, a parent, but got no takers. Desperate for somebody in baseball to take them seriously, Fowler searched his mind and hit upon a natural.

Ken Brett, a pitcher who had played all over the block in a twelve-year major-league career, had made a popular beer commercial in which he has trouble figuring out where he is. The message is obvious: he is in the minor leagues. A bewildered Brett ends the commercial asking plaintively, "Utica?" He was out of baseball when Fowler found him in California and presented his savvy marketing idea. Brett signed to manage the Blue Sox.

The news, according to Larson, set a fire under the poky coalition that had proposed renovating the park. The Brett signing also impressed the major leagues. In the end, Fowler and Larson got twelve players from Montreal, seven from Philadelphia, four from Houston, two from Detroit and one from San Diego. Play began in June, a 78-game season that would lose the two owners roughly $50,000.

Weak hitting hurt. The club average hovered slightly above .200. The other night, a cool, clear night at the made-over park in the old mill town, the Oneonta Yankees led the Blue Sox, 3-0. "Runners on base," said Larson. "Why are there always runners on base. There's no way we can come back from 3-0." Then the part owner noticed his scoreboard, which said 3-0 at the end of the second inning. "That isn't right, is it? Isn't this the top of the third? Didn't they get two in the second and one in the top of this inning? I'll be right back." Just then a bat cracked and a foul ball left the park. Larson just shook his head. The lost ball had cost $2.55. The now useless split bat had cost $10.20, including shipping.

But the team was good defensively and possessed good pitching, and with that it won nearly as many games as it lost. Some nights they more than filled the park, which seats about 3,000. They offered reduced ticket prices to "senior citizens and kids and the handicapped and the military and girls with blue eyes and Catholics," said Larson. "It's tough not to qualify for our reductions."

"We thought we were going to be coat-and-tie owners," Fowler was saying. "I thought I'd sit in a box like Ted Turner and clap and hop over the fence and congratulate the players. a) There's no owner's box. b) You're too busy to even see the damn game. You're always chasing out a dog, stocking the concession stand, cleaning up, something."

Is there a bright side? "Yes. Next year, with a major-league affiliation, we won't lose $50,000."

And the worst of it? Their families. The two men exhausted their vacations and their compensatory time away from their jobs to be with the team. Larson forgot to call his wife on their anniversary. Fowler was ordered by his family to cease talking about the team during dinner.

Fowler stayed on to pick up the club's sad leavings. "Look at those pants," he said, pointing to uniforms so soiled the dirt would not come out in the wash. "You can tell you're in the minor leagues." The uniforms and the signs from the outfield fences would go into storage at a cost of $68 a month. The local high school football team would take over the outfield for the fall. Larson left early, saying on his way to a flight that would put him back with his wife, "Well, I'm off to work on the irreparable."