Anderson Senators

Western Carolinas League (1970-1971)

Background

Minor league baseball returned to Anderson, South Carolina after a 16-year absence during the summer of 1970. The city’s last brush with pro ball came via the Anderson Rebels, a St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles farm club that played in the old Class B Tri-State League from 1947 to 1954.

Baseball’s return was made possible by the construction of a new $250,000 ballpark, Memorial Stadium, financed by the American Legion in 1970.²Coats, Bill. “3 Stadiums Built, Lost By Legion”. The Independent (Anderson, SC). October 29, 1974 The Class A Western Carolinas League placed an expansion club in Anderson in late 1969 and the American League’s Washington Senators agreed to make the new team part of its five-club roster of minor league affiliates.

Team owner and general manager Ed Grasso, age 30, billed himself as “the youngest owner in professional sports” in the Anderson Senators’ first souvenir program. This may or may not have been true. Other claims made in the same biography were almost certainly concocted inside the young executive’s imagination. Grasso claimed to have hit .471 with Rock Hill of the Western Carolinas League during the 1962 season and to have later played for the Class AA Charlotte Hornets of the Southern League. But the WCL had no Rock Hill franchise in 1962 and the definitive Baseball Reference has no record of such a person ever playing professional baseball at all.

In Competition

The Anderson Senators posted losing seasons in both 1970 (61-69) and 1971 (55-66).

Four Sens eventually advanced to the Major Leagues:

• Catcher/infielder Dave Criscione (Sens ’70-’71)
• Pitcher Steve Foucault (Sens ’70-’71)
• Pitcher Rick Waits (Sens ’70)
• First baseman/outfielder Bob Jones (Sens ’71)

Of the group, Waits had the most consequential Major League career, winning 79 games over parts of 12 seasons, mostly with the Cleveland Indians.

Dave Criscione, who led the Western Carolinas League in home runs (25) in 1971, would play just seven Major League games with the Baltimore Orioles. But he made the most of it, belting a walk-off homer against the Milwaukee Brewers on July 25th, 1977.

Bob Jones made the biggest impact on the parent Washington Senators organizations, though the Sens had become the Texas Rangers by the time he debuted in the Majors in October 1974. Jones was originally drafted by Washington in 1967 and played three minor league seasons before leaving for a 14-month combat tour in Vietnam that caused him to miss all of 1970. After earning a bronze star for his service in southeast Asia, Jones reported to Anderson in 1971. He had a splendid season, in the WCL hitting .321 with 23 homers and 77 RBI. Jones played parts of seven seasons in two stints with the Rangers between 1974 and 1986.

After retiring as a player, Jones went on to manage 24 seasons and win 1,710 games in the Texas Rangers farm system between 1988 and 2013.

Though Rick Waits and Bob Jones never crossed paths in Anderson, they would become teammates on the Fort Myers Sun Sox of the Senior Professional Baseball Association for players 35 years and over during the winter of 1989-90.

Demise

Senators owner Ed Grasso ran out of money following the 1971 season and was forced to relinquish the debt-ridden club. The Senators’ 31-year old team bus driver, Bobby Kerr, purchased the team and helped keep the WCL entry going as a co-op club in 1972. The 1972 Anderson ball club drew players from eight different Major League organizations, but dubbed itself the Anderson Giants because the San Francisco Giants contributed the largest number of players.

The WCL remained in Anderson through the 1975 season. In 1980 the league changed its name to the South Atlantic League and returned to Memorial Stadium with the Anderson Braves (1980-1984).

Anderson Senators Shop

In Memoriam

Anderson Senators owner Ed Grasso passed away on March 28th, 2020 at the age of 79.

Links

Western Carolinas League Programs

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