This is a version of the history of minor league baseball in Trenton, first published in The Times in March, 1995, now edited to compare the two most successful periods, that of the Trenton Giants in the 1940s and the current.
TRENTON -- Baseball giants walked the earth at old Dunn Field at the end of the 1940s. It was the best time in more than a century of the minor league sport in Trenton:
- 1947: The Giants, who had finished seventh the year before in the Interstate League and were in last place at the end of May, suddenly surged to the top, winning at an .839 pace, and won the city's first professional baseball pennant since 1884; their rally foreshadowed the spectacular finish the parent New York Giants would make in winning the National League pennant in 1951;
- 1948: With several players returned from the 1947 roster, the Giants struggled all season against their usual rivals, Wilmington, before finally losing the pennant by only a percentage point (.594 to .593) - and then beating Sunbury and York to win the Governor's Cup post-season playoffs for the first time;
- 1949: The Giants won the Governor's Cup playoffs again, in the most difficult way, finishing fourth, 14 games out, in the regular season, but beating Wilmington, 4 games to 2, and Harrisburg, 4 games to 3 for the Cup;
- 1950: There was no pennant or cup this year, but the Giants' cup runneth over when New York assigned a 19-year-old player here who would play out a career second to no one in the game - outfielder Willie Mays, who in 83 games here indicated clearly the greatness ahead for him.
For those years, and for years before when Trenton was represented in five different minor leagues, the team was not just a professional operation, but part of the community in ways that wouldn't be possible in the big cities of the major leagues. Players roomed with local people, and could be seen around town. The amusements at the ballpark worked in the local culture. The broadcasts of the games on a local radio station, WBUD, were so popular that it was said you could follow the progress of a game by walking around town and listening to the radios playing in every block.
These were the days when players would pass time riding in their bus from town to town by singing "Oklahoma" as loud as they could.
And then poof! It was all gone, like a perfect game in the seventh. Because the New York office claimed that declining attendance had cost the organization a $25,000 loss in 1950, the Giants moved the franchise to another minor league town.
The losses occurred because crowds for the Trenton games had dropped each year from a high of 99,115 in 1947 to 48,354 in 1950. They dropped partly because people didn't like deplorable old Dunn Field and the city wouldn't replace it, but also because the country was changing rapidly after World War II; people were pursuing new amusements, and the boom in minor league baseball that started at the end of the war suddenly ended.
Trenton would be without a professional baseball team for the next 40 years, a condition that had never happened since the city had become prominent in the early development of baseball in the 19th Century. Sports historians now generally accept that the modern game of baseball was first played in Hoboken in 1845, but probably few people are aware of Trenton's role in the development of the game.
Right after the Civil War, a number of excellent amateur teams flourished in Trenton. There were also industrial leagues, with players working at the city's many industries. There were independent, barnstorming teams, including some of the rare black teams of the era. There were even leagues for disabled veterans of the Civil War.
When players began to make their living at the sport, Trenton was represented in the earliest, informal days of the professional minor leagues, whose teams in the beginning were seen as representatives of the towns they played from, not primarily as a medium for developing major league players, which became the concept in the 1960s.
The first successful extended period of minor league baseball in Trenton was played out on tired, old Dunn Field which was Trenton's home back from 1936 until the glory days of the 40s. It had been Trenton Cathedral High School's athletic field, and some say it was never properly adapted to baseball. It was big - 350 feet down the foul lines, 385 to center - but dark, despite lighting.
Dunn had a teetery old wooden grandstand that seated 3,500, but wasn't often full, until the 1947 team, which won the pennant and often had fans lining the fences in the outfield. Somehow 7,126 were shoe-horned in there for the last game that year. The park was located on Brunswick Circle at U. S. Route 1, but was torn down in 1950, and the space now is occupied by offices of the state lottery.
The New York Giants bought the team in 1946, and after one more sad seventh-place finish, created Trenton's four best ballclubs. They came to Trenton through the efforts of Bill McKechnie, a Hall of Fame manager who became principal stockholder and league director of the Trenton club in February 1945. By August he announced the Giants would buy the franchise.
In 1947 the Giant connection paid off. With the great pitcher, Carl Hubbell, now the Giants' farm director, and McKechnie as Trenton team officials, New York sent several fine players here. Andy Tomasic, Roger Bowman and Paul LaPalme became Trenton's ace pitchers, and Hal Bamberger the leading hitter, with a .333 batting average. A fast but not powerful hitter, Bamberger led the minors in triples with 24 in 1947. Tomasic had a career year, leading the league in victories (18), strikeouts (a whopping 278), and earned-run average (2.48).
Next year's playoff champions were led by powerful Maurice (Mo) Cunningham, who set a team record with 25 home runs in 1948 and led the league with 101 RBIs in 1949. The Giants finished fourth again in 1950, but despite the presence of Willie Mays, just signed with the Giants from the Negro Leagues, crowds dropped for the second straight year.
When Willie Mays came to Trenton as a 19-year-old, he already was a finished player, after his years with the Birmingham Black Barons. He hit .353 in 81 games here, and former teammates still remember his great catches in the outfield - in particular, a barehanded snag of a fly ball that seemed to be soaring over the fence. It is still a matter of debate whether he learned his belt-high basket catch in Trenton.
Mays made his debut here June 24, and went hitless. Next day he beat out two infield hits, and on June 24 he hit his first home run in organized ball - a grand slam, as Trenton beat Sunbury, 21-8. His teammates called him Junior, and some said they shielded him from racism he encountered on road trips. At home, he was quite popular, and a new black clientele began to show up to watch him.
When the season ended, Willie went barnstorming with Luke Easter's team, as he would with his own teams through 1962 - where, again, black crowds would show up in the little southern towns on his tours. He was the last and greatest of the barnstormers. When he hit three triples in a barnstorming game at Houston in October 1950, the Sporting News misspelled his name "Mayes." They didn't know him yet.
"Say Hey" Willie Mays is the dominant figure in Trenton baseball. He was in the majors the year after he played here in 1950, with only a brief, blazing stop at Triple-A Minneapolis. He played with the New York and San Francisco Giants and New York Mets, from 1951 through 1973, 22 seasons.
Mays left Trenton early in September, 1950, and the franchise followed soon after. Minor leagues and teams were folding everywhere at that time. This was generally attributed to the growing popularity of television, which was stealing crowds from baseball all over the country, and to the continuing decline of Dunn Field.
Within days after the season ended, the Giants sold the franchise to George Smith, who had operated concessions at Dunn Field for a decade. Smith wanted to keep the team here, but even though two referenda to build a new stadium had been passed by county voters, it never happened, and George Smith took his franchise to Salisbury, Md.
From 1951 until 1994, Trenton was out of professional baseball. For some years it was not a public issue, because interest in the minor leagues had plummeted in the 1960s and early 1970s. Most of the teams that survived those years did so not because of local fan support but only because they had their bills paid by major league teams through the Player Development Contract.
But in the late 1970s, minor league baseball again began to be attractive to people, and there were frequent rumors that someone was going to bring a team back to Trenton. In 1994 someone did: Jim Maloney, Joe Caruso, Joe Finley and Sam Plumeri were credited with moving the team here from London, Ontario.
After a contest to pick a name, the team was called the Thunder. Mercer County built a new field, Waterfront Park, on the banks of the Delaware, with a seating capacity of 7,000, twice that of old Dunn Field. But there weren't enough seats for everyone who wanted to go, for the team was born popular, despite three disadvantages: (a) the stadium wasn't finished when the season started, (b) the parent Detroit Tigers gave poor player support, and (c) the Thunder had the worst won-lost record in the league.
Even so, Trenton had the best attendance in the league that first year, an average of 5,500 per game. The manager was Tom Runnells and the most memorable player from that first year was Tony Clark, the big left-handed power-hitter who now hits his homers for the Detroit Tigers in the American League.
Starting in 1995, the Thunder were affiliated with the Boston Red Sox. Attendance continued to be among the best in the minor leagues, and a steady stream of Red Sox futures has kept the Thunder in regular contention for the Eastern League pennants. Just like the 1940s Giants ... Thunder .... big crowds ... booming baseball.
The Thunder have not equalled the Giants' pennant and two playoff victories, but tied for the Southern Division championship in 1995 and won the division by 12 games in 1996, both years under manager Ken Macha. The Thunder started 1997 well, but went downhill in the second half of the season, finishing fourth under DeMarlo Hale, who is also managing this year's team.
The stars of the 1995 team were shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who went on to become American League Rookie of the Year with Boston in 1997, and pitcher Jeff Suppan. The 1996 Thunder team had a number of stars, notably pitcher Carl Pavano, who led the league with a 16-5 record and 2.63 ERA, and sluggers Adam Hyzdu and Tyrone Woods, each of whom hit 25 home runs, setting the team record. Hyzdu also hit .337 and Woods .312, and Walt McKeel .302. Many critics said the Red Sox caused this team to lose in the first round of the playoffs by promoting too many of its stars to higher leagues before the season ended.
But win or lose, the team can count on 7,000 or more fans almost every night. Suburban faithful flock to watch the ripening of minor masters like Garciaparra, Pavano, Hyzdu, and three-year-beloved Lou Merloni. And even if the Thunder is not having a good night, there are few finer seats of entertainment in the area or in local history than those catching the balmy summer breeze off the Delaware at Waterfront Park.