Norwich Navigators

Eastern League (1995-2005)

Tombstone

Born: June 1994 – The Albany-Colonie Yankees announce they will relocate to Norwich, CT
Re-Branded: October 17, 2005 (Connecticut Defenders)

First Game: April 6, 1995 (W 7-3 @ Bowie Baysox)
Last Game: September 5, 2005 (W 5-0 vs. New Hampshire Fisher Cats)

Eastern League Champions: 2002

Stadium

Dodd Stadium (6,695)¹
Opened: 1995

Ownership & Affiliation

Owners:

????-2005: Barry Gordon, Hank Smith et al.
2005: Lou DiBella, et al.

Major League Affiliations:

1995-2002: New York Yankees
2003-2005: San Francisco Giants

Attendance

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Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007. Pages 659 – 719.

Background

Minor league baseball returned to Norwich, Connecticut in 1995, thanks in part to the restrictive territorial rules of Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor League governing body, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. Four of the six owners of Class AA Eastern League’s Albany-Colonie Yankees (1985-1994) lived on Long Island in the early 1990’s. The Yankees played in an outdated ballpark in the Albany suburbs and the partners wanted to move the team to new digs on Long Island. But the New York Mets exercised their territorial privilege to block the move. The partners were forced to look elsewhere.

Norwich, Connecticut patched together financing for a brand new $9.8 million ballpark to lure the ball club from Albany. Senator Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium would be ready for the 1995 season. The move to Norwich became official in June of 1994. The relocated team was to be known as the Norwich Navigators. Best of all, the Yankees affiliation came along with the club, which was a terrific bonus for the many Yankees fans in Eastern Connecticut.

During the Yankees eight-year run in Norwich, rising prospects such as Mike Lowell and Alfonso Soriano came up through Norwich. Superstars such as Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry made cameo rehab appearances.

During the Yankees final season as Norwich’s parent club in 2002, the Navigators won their first and only Eastern League championship.

Yankees Depart

The Yankees pulled out in 2003, switching their Class AA farm club to the Eastern League’s Trenton Thunder franchise. The San Francisco Giants became the Navigators parent club in 2003. Attendance peaked in the Navs’ inaugural season of 1995 at 281,473 per game. The novelty of the Navs and the new ballpark slowly eroded over the next seven seasons and nose-dived when the Giants replaced the Yankees in 2003. Attendance plummeted 30% in 2003. By 2004, Norwich had the worst attendance in the Eastern League.

Re-Branding & Aftermath

On the eve of the 2005 season, after nearly a year of discussions, boxing promoter and former HBO Sports executive Lou DiBella purchased the Navigators from original partners Hank Smith and Barry Gordon for an estimated $9 million. DiBella frequently expressed his unhappiness with the Navigators identity and the team’s often-mocked alligator-with-a-spyglass logo. Shortly after the 1995 season ended, DiBella re-branded the club as the Connecticut Defenders. The Defenders lasted four seasons (2006-2009), but DiBella couldn’t resuscitate Norwich’s flagging attendance which continued to rank at the bottom of the Eastern League.

The former Navigators/Defenders franchise was packed off to Virginia prior to the 2010 season, where it is now known as the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Dodd Stadium still has minor league baseball though – the Connecticut Tigers of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League moved in 2010 and began their fourth season of play this June.