American Professional Slo-Pitch League (1979)
Tombstone
Born: 1979 – APSPL expansion franchise.
Folded: Postseason 1979
First Game:
Last Game
APSPL Championships: None
Stadium
Marketing
Team Colors: Red & White
Ownership
Owner: Johnnie Walker
Background
The Fort Wayne Scouts softball team was a One-Year Wonder in the American Professional Slo-Pitch League (1977-1980). The club took its name from the Scout off-road vehicle, an early SUV that was manufactured by Fort Wayne’s International Harvest Company. In the late 1970’s more than 1,400 local factory workers built 200 Scouts a day on the production lines at International Harvester’s New Haven Avenue plant.
Jungle Jim Rivera
The Scouts were organized by a guy named Johnnie Walker, who had previously worked in the APSPL as the PR Director for the league’s Philadelphia Athletics franchise. Walker hired former Major League outfielder “Jungle” Jim Rivera to manage the team. Rivera was a popular figure on the Chicago White Sox in the 1950’s but also a controversial one. Rivera received a life sentence in prison in the 1940’s for attempted rape during a stint in the army. He was paroled after five years, thanks partly to the efforts of a minor league baseball promoter who saw him play on his prison team.
Rivera’s Scouts team was truly, historically awful. The club went 8-56 – a .172 winning percentage. It was the worst record in the brief history of the APSPL.
Demise … and Huggie Bears
After the 1979 season the APSPL split in two. Ted Stepien, owner of the Cleveland franchise (and also the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA), split off and formed his own rival league known as the North American Softball League. The Fort Wayne Scouts fell by the wayside sometime that winter. Whether or not this was related to the fortunes of International Harvester is unclear, but the truck giant built its final Scout vehicle in 1980.
Fort Wayne got a new men’s pro softball entry in Stepien’s league in 1980. With International Harvester out of the picture, the team got a new major sponsor: a local lollipop company that named the club after one of its popular sucker lines: the Fort Wayne Huggie Bears.
I’m not kidding.
The Huggie Bears and the rest of the NASL folded after the 1980, bringing the pro softball era to an end in Fort Wayne.
Downloads
1979 American Professional Slo-Pitch League Franchise Sales Brochure
1979 American Professional Slo-Pitch League Franchise Sales Brochure
Links
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One Response
Wasn’t there a former New York Yankee involved in this at one time as well.I was thinking it was either Joe Pepitone or a different guy whose name escapes me at the moment?