Glens Falls Redbirds

New York-Penn League (1993)

Tombstone

Born: 1992 – The Hamilton Redbirds relocate to Glens Falls, NY
Moved: 1993 (New Jersey Cardinals)

First Game: June 17, 1993 (L 7-2 vs. Pittsfield Mets)
Last Game: September 5, 1993 (W 5-4 @ Pittsfield Mets)

NY-Penn League Championships: None

Stadium

East Field
Opened: 1980

Ownership & Affiliation

Owners: Barry Gordon, Marc Klee, Hank Smith & Rob Hilliard, et al.

Major League Affiliation: St. Louis Cardinals

Attendance

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Print Download

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

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Rob Hilliard, a minority partner in the Redbirds ownership group, was in charge of developing the group’s Skylands Stadium project in Augusta, New Jersey. In 2015 Hilliard self-published a 790-page (!) memoir chronicling the ball club’s move from Hamilton to Glens Falls to New Jersey.

The Circus Is In Town: A Baseball Odyssey
by Robert A. Hilliard
Order Today at Amazon

Background

The Adirondack city of Glens Falls, New York hosted Class AA minor league baseball from 1980 until 1988. But by the spring of 1993, the city’s East Field had gone unused for pro baseball for four summers. Meanwhile a group of Wall Street investors headed by Barry Gordon and Marc Klee purchased the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class A farm club in Hamilton, Ontario in 1991 with the intention of relocating it to a new 4,200 seat ballpark in rural New Jersey.

After a final lame duck season in Hamilton in the summer of 1992, Gordon and Klee moved their New York-Penn League franchise to Glens Falls for a placeholder season in 1993. The move was intended to be temporary from the outset, with Gordon & Klee’s Skylands Stadium project not set to open in Augusta, New Jersey until the spring of 1994. Glens Falls officials, for their part, hoped that a good showing during the summer of 1993 would encourage another NY-Penn League club to move to East Field permanently after Gordon & Klee’s Redbirds club departed.

The 1993 Season

Three players from the 1993 Glens Falls Redbirds eventually made the Major Leagues. St. Louis’ 1993 1st round draft pick Alan Benes enjoyed the longest career, though arm problems derailed his early promise. Fellow pitcher Rich Croushore spent parts of three seasons in the Bigs from 1998 to 2000. Second baseman Jeff Berblinger was a September call-up for St. Louis in 1997.

The team finished 37-40 and out of playoff contention.

The End

Incredibly, Glens Falls led the 14-team New York-Penn League in attendance in 1993 (78,925 fans). This despite fielding a losing team and making it clear from the outset that they had no intention of staying in town beyond one year. The team officially announced its departure for New Jersey at the end of September 1993. The team began play as the New Jersey Cardinals in June 1994.

The former Glens Falls Redbirds/New Jersey Cardinals still plays in the New York-Penn League today. The club is now based in Pennsylvania and known as the State College Spikes.

Despite Glens Falls support of the Redbirds in 1993, the city was never able to attract another Major League-affiliated minor league baseball franchise. The Adirondack Lumberjacks of the independent Northeast League moved into East Field in 1995 and stayed into the early 2000’s.