Category: Northeast League

Sullivan County Mountain Lions

July 8, 2018

The Sullivan County Mountain Lions independent baseball team was a One-Year Wonder that played in the tiny hamlet of Mountain Dale (pop. 869) in New York’s Hudson Valley region during the summer of 1995. The Lions’ Baxter Stadium was named after Ruth Baxter, whose claim to fame was purchasing the very first pair of Mountain Lions season tickets. “She essentially got naming rights and season tickets for $125,” former Cougars President Mike McGuire recalled in 2015.

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2002 Berkshire Black Bears baseball program from the Northern League

Berkshire Black Bears

January 4, 2018

The Berkshire Black Bears were an effort to establish independent professional baseball at historic Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Black Bears arrived in Pittsfield in 2002, close on the heels of the departing Pittsfield Astros of the Major League-affiliated New York-Penn League. Former Boston Red Sox slugger George “Boomer” Scott, who starred for the Pittsfield Red Sox clubs of the 1960’s, managed the Black Bears. The franchise left town after two seasons, moving to New Haven, Connecticut in 2004.

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Adirondack Lumberjacks Northern League Baseball

Adirondack Lumberjacks

January 1, 2018

The Adirondack Lumberjacks were an independent baseball team based out of Glens Falls, New York from 1995 until 2002. Glens Falls hosted Class AA minor league farm clubs of the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers from 1980 until 1988, plus a Class A St. Louis Cardinals farm team in 1993. But by the mid-1990’s the city’s East Field no longer met modern standards for affiliated Minor League Baseball. Glens Falls was a classic example of a community left behind by the minor league stadium boom of the 1990’s. Like many such communities, it turned to independent ball to fill the void.

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1996 Newburgh Nighthawks baseball program from the Northeast League

Newburgh Nighthawks

June 2, 2014

The Newburgh Nighthawks were a low-budget independent pro baseball team that played in the Hudson Valley region of New York for two summers during the mid-1990’s. The Nighthawks were overshadowed in the area by the Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York-Penn League, who played at the brand new $8 million Dutchess Stadium in nearby Fishkill, which opened just a year before the Nighthawks formed in 1995. By contrast, the Nighthawks played at Delano-Hitch Stadium, a small no-frills ballpark that was 70 years old.

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1996 Bangor Blue Ox Baseball Pocket Schedule from the Northeast League

Bangor Blue Ox

March 5, 2014

The Bangor Blue Ox were a short-lived professional baseball team that played for two seasons in the independent Northeast League in 1996 and 1997.  At the time, the small city of Bangor, Maine had not hosted pro baseball since prior to World War I. The team’s unique nickname derived from the legend of Paul Bunyan and his companion Babe, the Blue Ox.  Bangor is one of several communities that claims to be the birthplace of the folkloric hero and the city boasts a 31-foot tall, 3,700-pount statue of Bunyan. The franchise went dark in 1998 and was sold and relocated to Quebec City the following year.

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