Watertown Indians

New York-Penn League (1989-1998)

Tombstone

Born: December 1988 – New York-Penn League expansion franchise
Moved: 1999 (Staten Island Yankees)

First Game: June 17, 1989 (W 5-4 @ Auburn Astros)
Last Game: September 2, 1998 (W 1-0 @ Auburn Doubledays)

New York-Penn League Champions: 1995

Stadium

Duffy Fairgrounds (3,500)¹

Ownership & Affiliation

Owners:

1989-????: Michael Schell, et al.
1996-1999: Stan Getzler & Josh Getzler

Major League Affiliation: Cleveland Indians

Background

The Watertown Indians franchise represented a second chance at Minor League Baseball for the small (pop. 29,000) upstate New York community of Watertown during the winter of the 1988-89. Early that year the city lost its previous New York-Penn League franchise, the Watertown Pirates, when that club’s absentee owners moved the team to Welland, Ontario. A large group of local investors led by attorney Mike Schell successfully appealed to New York-Penn League officials for a new franchise when the league expanded from 12 to 14 clubs that winter.

In Competition

Watertown spent the next decade as a short season Class A farm team of the Cleveland Indians. Notable future Major Leaguers who came up through Watertown during the Tribe era included:

Two-time National League All-Star outfielder Brian Giles (Watertown ’90)
Three-time National League All-Star first baseman Sean Casey (Watertown ’95)

The 1995 Indians squad won the New York-Penn League title, defeating the Vermont Expos in a best-of-three championship series that September.

The End

During the winter of 1995-96 the Indians local owners sold the team to the father-son duo of Stan & Josh Getzler. Patriarch Stan was a recently retired Wall Street stockbroker. The Getzlers made little secret of their desire to relocate the franchise to greener pastures. After a failed flirtation with Lakewood Township on the Jersey Shore in 1997 and 1998, the Getzlers landed an invitation to move the Indians to Staten Island in 1999 to play in a brand-new $30 million taxpayer-funded ballpark. The cherry on top was that the franchise would become a New York Yankees farm club, which – it was reasonable to think back then- would be a license to print money.

It didn’t quite turn out that way. But regardless of the ill-fate of the Staten Island Yankees, the move did also mark the end of the professional baseball era in Watertown.

Duffy Fairgrounds still stands. Since 2019 the ballpark has hosted the Watertown Rapids amateur baseball team of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, a team co-owned by former Watertown Indians founder/owner Mike Schell.