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| T.K. Karabatsos |
| Official website of The Bisbee-Douglas Baseball Club |
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| BISBEE-DOUGLAS NINE BASEBALL CLUB The new baseball team, the Bisbee-Douglas Nine, honors the history of the 1958 Douglas professional team. It was a member of the Class C Arizona-Mexico League and was the only professional major or minor league team in history that had each starting player hit a home run in a league game at Chihuahua, Mexico. Time will tell if the new "Nine' will repeat the feat. |
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| BISBEE, ARIZONA |
| DOUGLAS, ARIZONA |
| CAN HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF IN DOUGLAS?
54 years ago next Summer. DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - For some people what happened here nearly 54 years ago has never been heard of. For others, the memory is like that of a fairy tale. In 1958, The Douglas Copper Kings accomplished what no other team in Major League or Minor League baseball ever has. All nine starters hit homeruns. Yes, you read that correctly. All nine starters for the Copper Kings sent the horsehide deep over the fence at a game in Chihuahua, Mexico. No team has ever gotten close to having all nine starters hit home runs. The Cincinnati Reds were able to hit eight homeruns in a game, but not by their starters, during the 1999 season but that was with pinch hitters. Douglas did it like no other. It was August 19th, 1958 and the Copper Kings were playing in Chihuahua during the Class C Arizona-Mexico League. The Copper Kings were not known as a power hitting team but baseball is not necessarily about power but about defense and pitching as well. Defense had little to do with this game as the Copper Kings routed Chihuahua by a score of 22-8. Not an unusual score for the day, seems most games like that would just appear as a line score except for the local paper. BUT, this one was special. So special in fact that upon their return to Douglas, they were dubbed the “Douglas Nine”, complete with a picture in the local media. The picture had all of the starters in it and the heading read, “The Case of the Murdered Horsehide”. Imagine that, accused and guilty of driving the ball. The article and picture quickly made those involved heroes of sorts, but no one knew how long that record would stand. As if playing in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization wasn’t enough to get you noticed back in the day, this team had to do something so special that baseball has never seen it repeated. Actually, the chances of it being repeated decrease every season as the modern day player has become so specialized that pitchers rarely make contact, except for a select few, and weak hitting infielders are common place so long as they are able to be slick fielders. While the names may be forgotten by some, the feat will never be forgotten by baseball. The “Douglas Nine” who accomplished the unthinkable were by position; (Pitcher) Bob Clear; (Catcher) Rich Binford; (1st Base) Dutch Van Burkleo; (2nd Base) Luis Torres; (SS) Don Pulford; (3rd Base) Darrel McCall; (Left Field) Ron Wilkins; (Center Field) Andy Prevedello; and (Right Field) Fred Filipelli. Of the 131 homeruns hit during that season, 9 of those were the most memorable. Will a new team be able to make lighting strike again? That will not be known until the new team comes to town. But, one thing is for sure, these Nine Men will be the newest team in Bisbee-Douglas, Arizona for the upcoming season. Are the “Nine” back? |
| IT'S OFFICIAL - TEAM OPERATIONS.
BEGIN September 25, 2011 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - The long anticipated start of the new baseball team that will call the Bisbee-Douglas area home, has started business operations. The two primary contributors of the team are Bob Lipp, administrator with 20-plus years of baseball experience with local ties, being the Cananea team owner and league president of the 2003 Arizona-Mexico League, as well as the '06 Bisbee Kings' team director. T.K. "Kim" Karabatsos, of San Jose, California has organized and conducted tryout camps for the professional Northern League and United League Baseball. He held the 5-year ballpark contact for Potter County Stadium in Amarillo and worked closely and supplied players for the Amarillo Dillas and coach Buddy Biancalana. Recently, Kim coached at the Palamino, high school and college level and last season he was a coach at Southwestern College under Thad Bosley who just signed to MLB’s Texas Rangers club as their hitting coach under Ron Washington’s tenure. |
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| A TALE OF TWO BALLPARKS
Bisbee’s Warren Ballpark may be the oldest ballpark in the country still used for baseball. It was opened more than a year before Rickwood Field in Birmingham, which the Friends of Rickwood preservation group and the National Park Service refer to as America’s oldest ballpark. Bisbee played El Paso on June 27, 1909 in the first contest at Warren, while Birmingham took on Montgomery to open Rickwood on August 18, 1910. The Arizona venue was built by the Warren Company, a subsidiary of the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company (absorbed by Phelps Dodge in 1931) which was created in 1907 to develop Warren as a company town. Not coincidentally, the ballpark was the last stop on the streetcar line, which was also owned by the Warren Company. The first tenants were mining company teams and other semi-pro and amateur organizations. The Bisbee Miners of the 1926-27 independent Copper League called Warren home, as did the Bisbee clubs in the various National Association leagues that played in the region from 1928 to 1955. Highlights of Bisbee’s nineteen seasons in Organized Baseball included two disputed championships in 1929 and 1930, and the start of a classic feud in 1947. In 1929, the Bisbee Bees squared off against the Miami Miners in the Arizona State League playoffs. Bisbee entered the series with a .667 winning percentage, the best in the minors that year. In the seventh and deciding game of the championship series, Bisbee was leading in the ninth inning at Miami when home team supporters stormed the field and the game was declared “no contest”. The following season the Bees won the second-half championship, but were again denied a chance to win the title on the field. Facing a seventh game in Bisbee in the final playoff series, Globe refused to take the field, and the Bees were awarded the victory by forfeit and with it the league title. Two New York Yankee farmhands began in 1947 what would become a feud that would last for years. The rivalry started when shortstop Billy Martin of the independent Phoenix Senators sought revenge after Bisbee Yanks catcher Clint Courtney spiked Martin’s manager and double-play partner, Senator second sacker Alton Biggs, Retaliatory spiking, a fistfight, and just plain brawling continued throughout the season, The feud spilled over into the majors and lasted into the 1950s, when Billy played for the Yankees and Clint for the St. Louis Browns and Washington Senators. Perhaps the two greatest seasons for individual Bisbee players occurred in 1930 and 1931. Tony Antista hit .430 and Johnny Keane batted .408 in those successive years, leading not only the Arizona State League but all of minor league baseball. Antista and Len Rodriguez, who matched his mark in 1954 while playing for Cananea, are tied for the league single season league record and also rank 19th all time in the minor leagues, with records having been kept for 120 years. The most important historical event to take place at the Warren Ballpark has nothing to do with baseball. In 1917, the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) called a strike of Bisbee copper miners, which was especially controversial due to the high demand for copper to be used in World War I. The work stoppage triggered a roundup of miners, their supporters, and even tradesmen who had done business with them. In the early morning on July 12, a posse led by the notorious Indian-killer sheriff Harry Wheeler marched nearly 2000 people (three of them women) to the company-owned ballpark and held them there under armed guard. The women were released in short order and almost any man who promised to return to work or was vouched for by a “respectable citizen” was allowed to return home. The remaining 1200 people were loaded onto cattle cars of the Phelps Dodge – owned El Paso and southwestern Railroad and taken away to be abandoned in the desert near the small New Mexico settlement of Hermanas. The Victims of what is known as the Bisbee Deportation were saved by the US Army, which President Woodrow Wilson had refused to allow to intervene in the strike, but they were not permitted to return to Bisbee. Copper King Stadium opened in 1948, completely rebuilt for the return of Organized Baseball to Douglas. But this park is also an historical relic, being where baseball had long been played in the border city. Known simply as the Douglas Diamond or Douglas Field, it played host to professional baseball as early as 1913, when the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox squared off as part of their around-the-world tour. Douglas was a member of the Rio Grande Association in 1915 as part the National Association’s initial foray into the Southwest. Semi-pro ball was the bill of fare for the next decade. The old diamond had its glory days in the 1920s, when the Douglas Blues of the independent Frontier and Copper Leagues featured “outlaws” who had been banned from organized ball. What was then known as Douglas Stadium debuted on May 2, 1948, as the Bisbee-Douglas Javelinas played an Arizona State League doubleheader against the Juarez Indios. Pitcher Russ Kusmertz hit a three-run homer in the initial contest. The ballpark had been scheduled to open the previous week, but it was not ready on time and the intended stadium opener was switched to Bisbee. Bisbee had operated as the area’s lone franchise in the Arizona State and Arizona-Texas League for the previous two decades, but diminishing attendance had dictated that the team split its season between Bisbee and Douglas. Club owner J.C. Agajanian of San Pedro, CA, better known for his involvement in auto racing, make the commitment to Douglas, and for the next eight years the usual three-game series were typically split between the two communities, with the first game in the town, the next in the other, and back to the last venue for the third game. The ballclub was renamed the Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings in 1949, and the Douglas park acquired its current name. After the 1955 season, Bisbee lost its share of the franchise. From 1956 to 1958, Copper King Stadium was the home of the Douglas Copper Kings. The team folded along with the Arizona-Mexico League in 1958, leaving Bisbee and Douglas without pro ball until the league was revived in 2003. But the two venerable ballparks remained in use for school sports. Warren Ballpark is currently owned by the Bisbee Unified School District, and Copper King Stadium is owned by the city of Douglas. With the revival of professional baseball this season, the Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings have begun restoration work which should assure that the two grand old parks remain in prime playing condition for many years to come. David Skinner - Bisbee, Arizona - 2003 |
| OUTLAWS IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST
Before Organized Baseball came to stay in 1928 with the founding of the Class D Arizona State League, outlaws ruled the playing fields of the southwest. These were not desperadoes with six-shooters, but men who for whatever reason were unable to secure contracts with teams in organized ball. What we now call independent leagues, such as the 2003 Arizona-Mexico League, and current Mexican Rookie League, were then known as outlaw leagues, because like today’s indies they were outside the National Association, and thus beyond the control of Major League baseball. The Douglas Blues of the 1925 Frontier League and 1926 Copper League lived up to the outlaw moniker by hiring players banned from Organized Baseball to play and manage, in the persons of the notorious Hal Chase and members of the Chicago “Black Sox”. Although acquitted in a court of law, seven members of the 1919 American League champion Chicago White Sox were banned for life--and beyond, as Shoeless Joe Jackson’s inexcusable exclusion from the Hall of Fame attests--for their varying roles in throwing that year’s World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Chase was never officially banned, but he was blackballed from ever playing again due to his suspected involvement in the incident, although he was playing for the New York Giants at the time. He was one of the greatest first basemen ever, but he was widely thought to be a dishonest player. After newly-appointed commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced the bans on the Black Sox players in August, 1920, Chase became a pariah. Hal Chase first appeared on the Arizona baseball scene in 1923 as player-manager of the Nogales Internationals, in spite of American League president Ban Johnson’s attempt to get the Mexican embassy in Washington to prevent him from playing for a team partly-owned by the ex-governor of Sonora. After stints in Williams and Jerome the following season, he landed a spot with the Douglas team for 1925 as a player, soon adding the position of manager to his duties. It was a controversial hire throughout the league. Locals who opposed Chase due to his outlaw status were initially quite vocal, and his borrowed car was vandalized when he parked it near the border for a visit to Agua Prieta. The flamboyant “Prince Hal” lived quietly, sometimes with his son Hal Jr., rooming at the home of Dr. Oscar and Dorothy Weeks at 1305 11th Street. Chase eventually hired three Black Sox to play for the Blues: Buck Weaver, Chick Gandil, and Lefty Williams. Gandil had played for Cananea in the Cactus League before his Major League tenure. He and Weaver, second baseman and shortstop respectively, along with Chase at first and Cowboy Ruiz from the disbanded Internationals at third, gave Douglas an infield to rival the best anywhere during the second half of the season. The Black Sox and Chase came to be admired locally for their great skill as players, but were remembered as rough characters who hung out at the Smokehouse and B&P pool halls on G Avenue. Douglas lost the second half championship in a controversial manner, and with it a chance to play in the Frontier League final playoff series, losing a one-game tiebreaker to the eventual champion Juarez Indians on October 1 while claiming to have won the second half outright. The biggest news in 1926 was made my one of the Black Sox who didn’t play in the league. Joe Jackson visited the southwest and negotiated with both El Paso and Ft. Bayard, but never signed. Weaver was hired as Douglas player-manager for the 1926 season in the re-named Copper League, with Chase retained as a player only, but he soon relinquished his managerial duties. Chase was allegedly involved with a gambler from Lordsburg in an unsuccessful attempt to fix a game in favor of opposing Juarez. Gandil had played for Fort Bayard in the 1925 post-season, and remained there as first baseman in 1926, joined by outfielder Jimmy O’Connell, who was banned from Organized Baseball for trying to throw a game while with the New York Giants two years earlier. Black Sox pitcher Lefty Williams began the season with Douglas, but was ineffective and soon signed with Ft. Bayard. He took Gandil’s spot on the roster when the latter was released after being chased off the field by bat-wielding teammate O’Connell. The normally good-natured O’Connell snapped after Gandil, an ex-boxer, continued to ride him about his play. Gandil then signed with the Chino team as a player-manager for the remainder of the season, while O’Connell became the dominant hitter in the league, batting .558 with 12 home runs, and led by him and Williams, Ft. Bayard won the league title. Gandil led Chino to a strong second place showing in the second half, while Douglas limped in at third in each half. Chase remained in Douglas in 1927, unable to play due to a knee injury suffered the previous season except for a brief stint with El Paso, and held a job as a salesman with a Douglas car dealership at least through 1928. O’Connell stayed in Ft. Bayard as a player after the league disbanded, remaining there until the mid-1930s, and achieved a great reputation in the Silver City area as an organizer of youth baseball teams. With the demise of independent league baseball in the area following the 1927 season, true “outlaw” ball disappeared from the southwest. |
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BISBEE-DOUGLAS NINE BASEBALL CLUB P.O. BOX 1011 BISBEE, ARIZONA 85603 TELE: (520) 841-6245 EMAIL: ninebaseball@yahoo.com |
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| TEAM WORKOUTS HAVE STARTED! October 29, 2011 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - The first team workout took place at Copper King Stadium in Douglas, October 22nd and yesterdays workout was at Estadio Encinas in Agua Prieta. 12 players attended the two workouts. The Club's primary goal is to provide the facility, equipment and instruction for all local players to be a part of, regardless of what 2012 team the player signs to play for. Players from Bisbee, Douglas, Agua Prieta, Cananea, Sierra Vista and Tombstone are encouraged to take part in the weekly camps scheduled for several of the areas ballparks. The Club's goal is to have 20-30 players participate the academy style workout camps within the next few weeks. The next workout/camp is scheduled to be held at Copper King Stadium in Douglas, Saturday November 5th, 9AM. Bisbee-Douglas Nine team caps and workout tops will be issued to all players that will participate in our workouts. Please contact one of the team representatives and come out and play ball! |
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| Albert Ambriz Team Captain (520) 456-4384 |
| Kim Karabatsos Director (408) 655-2552 |
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| Omar Moran (520) 227-9315 |
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| TRANSACTIONS |
September 29 , 2011 Bisbee-Douglas Nine Baseball Club officially begins operations. October 1, 2011 Names Doug Bender Scout/Midwest USA October 5, 2011 Club joins the National Baseball Congress October 4, 2011 Names Albert Ambriz Team Captain October 15, 2011 Names Jaclyn Chapman Dance Team Captain October 25, 2011 Names Geovanna Morales Public Relations/Mexico. October 29, 2011 Names Francisco Villegas Scout/West Sonora/Baja California October 29, 2011 Names Rene Morales Scout/Northern Sonora January 8, 2012 Names Richard Smith, Business Development January 12, 2012 Names Gabriel Rivera, Business Development |
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| NEXT WORKOUT SCHEDULED November 19, 2011 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - Players mark your calender for December 3rd, 9AM - Douglas. The next workout will be the last one of 2011. Many players have called from all over expressing interest. We want to see you at this workout! |
| Coach Karabatsos with Omar Moran and Albert Ambriz discuss future team plans at Warren Ballpark - November 19, 2011 |
| TEAM TO ATTEND LEAGUE MEETING December 24, 2011 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - The newly formed semi-pro baseball club, Bisbee-Douglas Nine, will attend the Tucson based Sun Belt League meeting January 28, 2012. The meeting will be held in Tucson with 6 teams from Tucson attending as well as possible new teams from Safford-Thatcher and Bisbee. The Bisbee team, to be knows as the Copper Miners will replace the folded Bisbee Copper Kings. The Bisbee-Douglas Nine will begin day-to-day operations with in several weeks and will be operating from a newly opened Douglas office. |
| SANTA FE FUEGO TRYOUTS ANNOUNCED January 8, 2012 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - The Santa Fe Fuego, a new team in the two-year old professional Pecos League, informed us via our Facebook page of a tryout camp to be held January 22nd in Mesa. Please follow these links... |
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| TEAM SIGNS LEASE FOR TEAM OFFICES January 7,, 2012 DOUGLAS, ARIZONA - The Bisbee-Douglas Nine Baseball Club have signed a rental agreement that will establish team offices in Douglas. The new team office will be in full operation by the end of the week and more information will be released soon! |