PHOTOS COURTESY © GARY JARVIS www.minorleague ballparks.com Dwyer Stadium I Batavia New York Home of the Batavia Clippers and Batavia Trojans NY-Penn League (Short Season Single-A) |
The Trojans would finish just under .500 in their first season under the Tigers umbrella.
Michael Murray (.341) was the standout hitter while Robert Welz hit 8
HRs and Stephen Cushmore bested Danny LeBright’s Short Season Wins record going
11-4 with a 2.27 ERA. By 1969, the Trojans were hot going 42-33 to take 2nd place.
Two future Detroit Tigers provided some excellent pitching. Bob Strampe became
the team’s 3rd 10 game winner (10-5, 2.97) and Bill Slayback was completely
unhittable going 3-1 in 4 games with a 0.35 ERA. At the plate, John Sharkey hit
11 HRs and batted .320 while James Wosman was a few At Bats short of taking
over the all time batting title in Batavia hitting .382 with 10 HRs in 170 At Bats.
Richard Walls hit .330 with 20 2Bs and 6 HRs. The 1969 team was real good.
The 1970 team, not as much but still quite respectable finishing in 3rd place
going 37-32 while featuring no standout players. They sunk to 30-40 in 1971, but
featured future Detroit Tiger Ron Cash (12 2B, 7 HR, .333). After 4 pretty good
seasons, the Tigers left Dwyer Stadium and were replaced by the New York Mets.
The Mets signed on for a 3 year PDC and while the Trojans were starting to jumble
quite a bit, they were at least no longer going dark. For 3 seasons under
the Mets umbrella, the Trojans were pretty awful, finishing near the bottom in
1971 and 1972, 10 and 11 games under .500 before rebounding a bit in 1973 to finish
only 3 games under. Randy Trapp hit 12 HRs and batted .308 in 1973 for the
biggest highlight of this era and the team featured future Major Leaguers Bob
Myrick (3-5, 4.50) and Ned Yost (.252). When the Mets pulled out in 1975, the
Trojans again went co-op. |