Glens Falls White Sox

Eastern League (1980-1985)

Background

In the spring of 1979, a pair of Proctor & Gamble employees from New York City, Frank Schafer & Dick Stanley, responded to an advertisement in The Wall Street Journal, hawking the opportunity to buy a minor league baseball franchise. The seller was the Eastern League, a 6-team Class AA circuit with teams in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.

Schafer and Stanley, novice sports investors, bought in and set about finding New York state home for their club. The Chicago White Sox were willing to relocate their Class AA farm club from Knoxville in the Southern League and were keen on the capital region of New York, which offered direct flights to Chicago out of Albany. The duo soon settled on Schenectady and appeared to have a deal in place during the winter of 1979-80. The deal looked solid enough after ChiSox owner Bill Veeck announced the formation of the Schenectady White Sox in January 1980. But the deal soon fell apart in the face of neighborhood opposition and obstruction from Mayor Frank Duci’s administration.

Glens Falls swooped into the void in March of 1980 and poached the homeless franchise. Finally situated, the club scrambled to set up operations in the small Adirondacks city with just over a month to prepare before the 1980 Eastern League opener. One casualty of the late start was that suitable lights for night baseball were not installed at East Field until August 1980. The GlenSox would finish last in their division during the summer of 1980. Despite all of these disadvantages, the club drew a respectable 85,000 fans for 64 home dates which placed Glens Falls near the top of the Eastern League attendance rankings in 1980.

1981 Squad Slugs It Ways To Finals

The 1981 GlenSox squad was electrifying.  The team bashed 179 homers in 135 games en route to a league best 83-52 record. Ron Kittle won Eastern League MVP honors with a .326-40-103 line. Vincent Bienek (21), Luis Rois (22), Greg Walker (22) and Randy Johnson (32) each contributed over 20 home runs. Jim Mahoney was named Eastern League Manager-of-the-Year.

Five Glensox pitchers won 10 or more games in 1981, paced by journeyman Larry Edwards (15-7, 4.16). Weirdly, aside from those 15 wins, Edwards never won another game above Class A ball in his 6-year career in the minors.

Glens Falls ran into the Bristol Red Sox in the 1981 Eastern League Championship Series. After winning Game 1 before 1,157 fans at East Field on September 4, 1981, the GlenSox dropped three of the next four to lose the best-of-five series.

Off Field Turnover

The GlenSox never quite found their stride off the field. Ownership cycled through three General Managers during the first four seasons of play. The team ended up losing a protracted court case brought by the team’s original GM, Jack Tracz.

Prior to the 1984 season, owners Frank Schafer and Dick Stanley leased the GlenSox to Don Cepiel and Mike Jones, a pair of Albany-area Burger King franchisees who had previous baseball management experience with the Eastern League’s Albany A’s. Though Schafer and Stanley remained the Eastern League’s owners of record in Glens Falls, Cepiel and Jones took responsibility for operating the GlenSox and absorbing the club’s losses or profits for its final two seasons as a White Sox farm club.

ChiSox to Tigers

The White Sox left Glens Falls after the 1985 season to go back where they came from – back to the Southern League. Birmingham, Alabama replaced Glens Falls as Chicago’s Class AA farm club. The Detroit Tigers replaced Chicago as Glens Falls’ parent club and the Eastern League remained in the Adirondacks for three more summers. The franchise moved to London, Ontario in 1989.

Trivia

Future National League Cy Young Award winner (1990) Doug Drabek pitched for the GlenSox in 1984, posting a 12-5 record with a 2.24 ERA.

Glens Falls White Sox Shop

Links

“Minor League Players in Glens Falls Dream of Winning Big League Cheers“, Edward Gargan, The New York Times, August 14, 1984

Eastern League Media Guides

Eastern League Programs

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