Tombstone
Born: 1980
Re-Branded: November 20, 1980 (West Haven A’s)
First Game: April 12, 1980 (W 7-5 vs. Buffalo Bisons)
Last Game: August 30, 1980 (L 13-10 @ Reading Phillies)
Eastern League Champions: None
Stadium
Quigley Stadium
Opened: 1947
Ownership & Affiliation
Owner: David Goldstein
Major League Affiliation: Oakland Athletics
Attendance
Background
At the end of the 1979 season, the New York Yankees moved their Class AA minor league affiliate from West Haven, Connecticut to Nashville in the Southern League. The departing West Haven Yankees had made their home in Quigley Stadium for eight summers beginning in 1972 and dominated the Eastern League throughout the decade.
West Haven lost the Yankees, but it didn’t lose baseball. New owner David R. Goldstein secured rights to West Haven and signed an affiliation with the Oakland Athletics, who agreed to transfer their Eastern League affiliation from Waterbury, Connecticut. It must have seemed a dubious exchange for Western Connecticut baseball fans, living just over an hour outside the Bronx. Their four-time Eastern League champion Yankees were gone, replaced by an Oakland farm system mired in the decrepitude of the dying days of the Charlie O. Finley regime. The Waterbury A’s finished the 1979 Eastern League season in dead last place, thirty-four-and-a-half games back of the West Haven Yankees.
Goldstein’s club adopted the nickname “West Haven Whitecaps” for the 1980 season. Although it would later become a best practice in the minor league industry for Major League affiliates to develop their own local branding in this fashion, it was unusual at the time. The Whitecaps wore the A’s green-and-gold uniforms with their own logo embroidered awkwardly on the right breast (visible in photo below).
One and Done
Ed Nottle managed the 1980 Whitecaps, as he had the 1979 Waterbury A’s. The name change didn’t help. The Whitecaps finished 47-92, by far the worst record in the Eastern League. In fact, it was the second worst record in all of minor league baseball in the summer of 1980, surpassed only by Rocky Mount (NC) Pines (24-114) of the single-A Carolina League.
In November 1980, owner David Goldstein announced that his team would drop the Whitecaps identity. The club adopted the more conventional “A’s” moniker for the 1981 season.
The West Haven A’s played two more seasons at Quigley Stadium. The club won the Eastern League title in 1982. In late 1982, Goldstein sold the club. The new owners moved the team to a suburb of Albany, New York for the 1983 season.
West Haven Whitecaps Shop
Links
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