Bradenton Explorers

Senior Professional Baseball Association (1989-1990)

Background

The Bradenton Explorers were a One-Year Wonder in the Senior Professional Baseball Association, a Florida-based effort to launch a pro circuit for players 35 years of age and over.

The SPBA was tremendously successful in attracting big name former Major League players for its first season during the winter of 1989-90. Although Major League free agency was 13 years old by 1989 and salaries had escalated dramatically, baseball players of the era, even perennial All-Stars, did not retire with the kind of generational wealth that they do today. The SPBA’s salary range of $5,000 to $15,000 per month for a November-February season was quite appealing to many of the hundreds of retired players who responded to a recruitment mailer sent out by league founder Jim Morley in early 1989.

Roster

Bradenton, Florida has been the spring training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates since 1969. The Explorers’ roster made several nods to the local interest in the Pirates:

• 43-year slugger Al Oliver was a perennial All-Star for Pittsburgh during the mid-1970’s .
• 39-year old pitcher Bruce Kison starred for Pittsburgh’s 1971 and 1979 World Series championship teams
• 37-year old center field Omar Moreno hit leadoff for the Bucs’ 1979 championship team and led the National League in stolen bases in 1978 and 1979
• 37-year old third baseman Jim Morrison was a utility man for Pittsburgh throughout the 1980’s and only one year removed from his final Major League season in 1988.

The oldest player the Explorers signed was 45-year old former Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen, but it’s not clear that Sanguillen ever saw playing time for the team after appearing on the pre-season roster.

62-year old ex-New York Yankee Clete Boyer managed the Explorers.

The SPBA’s inaugural season opened on November 1, 1989. Two weeks into the season, the Explorers traded former Kansas City Royals slugger Willie Aikens to the St. Lucie Legends for Graig Nettles, a 22-year Major League veteran and 6-time All-Star.  The trade was unusual in that Nettles not only played for St. Lucie, but he was also the club’s manager. With Bradenton, the 44-year old Nettles settled back into a playing-only role and hit .330 with 4 home runs.

The Explorers finished 2nd in the SPBA’s Northern Division with a 38-34. They lost a single game playoff to the eventual league champion St. Petersburg Pelicans in February 1990.

Jim Morrison led the SPBA with 17 home runs during the 1989-90 season.

Comeback of Danny Boone

The choice of the term “Senior”, in retrospect, may have been an unfortunate branding decision by the SPBA’s founders. It conjured images of Old-Timers exhibitions and beer-bellied graybeards wheezing into first base, waving off the opportunity to try for extra bases. While the league’s oldest player, Ed Rakow, was 54, the SPBA’s minimum age of eligibility was just 35 years old (32 for catchers).

Many SPBA players hoped to earn another shot at the Major Leagues. 3 players from the league’s debut season actually made it back.  And none was more unlikely than Bradenton pitcher Danny Boone.

Boone was the league minimum 35 years old when the Senior League started in November 1989. It was appropriate that he wound up playing for the Explorers, as he reportedly was direct descendant of the pioneer & frontiersman Daniel Boone (Washington Post 3/28/1990). The southpaw was drafted by Major League teams five times in the 1970’s, finally turning pro out of Cal-State Fullerton in 1976. He eventually made it to the Majors in 1981, making 57 appearances for the San Diego Padres and Houston Astros in 1981 and 1982. After two more seasons in the minors, he was out of professional baseball by the end of the 1984 season.

After five years doing construction, Boone showed up in the SPBA with a new pitch honed in California’s over-the-hill leagues – the knuckleball. Boone posted one of the top ERA’s in the Senior League in 1989-90. Baltimore Orioles scout Birdie Tebbets signed Boone to a minor league deal. During the summer of 1990, Boone returned to the Majors after an eight-year absence making four appearances and one start for the Orioles.

Move To Daytona Beach & Demise

Explorers owner Norm Sirota was the last team owner to sign on for the SPBA’s debut eight-team season.

“I’m impulsive,” Sirota told The Tampa Tribune (9/9/1989), acknowledging he had never met any of the league’s other seven owners before commiting $1.4 million to launch the Explorers. “This was one of my casual impulses.”

The commodities trader soon expressed disillusionment with his new investment. McKechnie Field had no lights so the Explorers played every home game as a matinee. Less than one month into the SPBA’s inaugural season, Sirota shared his complaints with the press:

“I did the math for the first time today. Confidentially, the math stinks. We’re just trying to lose as little money as possible.” (Wilmington, Deleware News-Journal 11/30/1989).

Following the 1989-90 season, Sirota moved the Explorers to Daytona Beach for the SPBA’s second season in the winter of 1990-91.  The league lost half of its Florida teams, dropping from eight to four clubs in the Sunshine State.  The league added expansion teams in Sun City, Arizona and San Bernardino, California to create a six-team schedule. But ultimately the damage was too great and the SPBA folded the day after Christmas 1990, just over one month into its second season of player.

In Memoriam

Outfielder Al Cowens died of a heart attack on March 11, 2002.  Cowens, the runner-up for the 1977 American League MVP award as a 25-year old outfielder for the Kansas City Royals, was 50. Los Angeles Times obituary.

Manager Clete Boyer died after suffering a stroke on June 4, 2007. Boyer was 70 years old. New York Times obituary.

Explorers owner Norm Sirota died on September 10, 2012 at age 93.

Pitcher Bruce Kison passed on June 2, 2018 following a lengthy bout with cancer. New York Times obituary.

Downloads

November 1989 Bradenton Explorers Roster

Senior Professional Baseball Association Standard Player Contract

Links

Senior Professional Baseball Association Programs

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