Catskill Cougars

North Atlantic League (1996)
Northeast League (1997-1998)
Northern League (2000)

Tombstone

Born: 1996
Folded: Postseason 2000

First Game: June 1996 (Details?)
Last Game: September 1, 2000 (W 8-0 @ Elmira Pioneers)

North Atlantic League Champions: 1996
Northeast League Championships: None
Northern League Championships: None

Stadium

Baxter Stadium

Ownership & Affiliation

Owners:

1996-1998: Bill Resnick
2000: Van Schley, Bill Murray, et al.

Major League Affiliation: Independent

Attendance

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Sources:

Baseball America’s 1997 Almanac (1996 figures)
2003 Northeast League Media Guide (1997-2000 figures)

Background

The Catskill Cougars were an on-again, off-again minor league baseball team that floated through several independent (non-Major League affiliated) pro baseball leagues during the late 1990’s. The Cougars played at Baxter Stadium in the tiny hamlet of Mountain Dale, New York (pop. 869). They opened for business in 1996, following on the heels of the short-lived Sullivan Mountain Lions (1995), who left town a few months earlier after just one summer of play.

Baxter Stadium was named after Ruth Baxter, whose claim to fame was purchasing the first pair of season tickets to the Sullivan Mountain Lions after the ballpark opened in 1995.

“She essentially got naming rights and season tickets for $125,” former Cougars President Mike McGuire recalled to The Middletown Times Herald-Record in 2015.¹

On The Field

The Cougars won the championship of the ramshackle North Atlantic League during their debut season of 1996. Catskill finished 2nd place in the regular season with a 43-35 record, then swept the first-place Massachusetts Mad Dogs in a best-of-three championship series to claim the crown.

The North Atlantic League went out of business following the 1996 season. The Cougars jumped to the Northeast League in 1997, the independent circuit that the Sullivan Mountain Lions belonged to in 1995. The level of play was better in the Northeast League. The Cougars featured three players with Major League playing experience in 1997 and former New York Mets star Wally Backman briefly managed the club that summer.

The End

After back-to-back losing seasons in 1997 and 1998, local owner Bill Resnick shuttered the team and Baxter Stadium sat unused during the summer of 1999.

Prior to the 2000 season, veteran minor league owner Van Schley of Malibu, California purchased the Cougars franchise for $360,000 (Middletown Times Herald-Record, 10/17/2000). Schley operated teams, typically independent clubs, from Utah to Massachusetts between the 1970’s and 2010’s, often with the actor Bill Murray as one of his ownership partners.

Sullivan County ultimately proved to small to support professional baseball. The rejuvenated Cougars sold only 60 season tickets in 2000 and averaged 791 fans per game (Sullivan County Democrat, 9/5/2000). The Cougars closed down for good shortly after the 2000 season ended.

Baxter Stadium was demolished in the mid-2000’s barely a decade after it opened.