Minor League Memory

August 1968... not long after "MacArthur Park" is a hit on the radio, I'm at MacArthur Stadium in Syracuse for the hits and outs, balls and strikes. Then the home of the New York Yankees' top farm club, this Sunday afternoon offered as close to interleague play as you could find -- their opponents were the Jacksonville Suns, in their final year with the Mets organization.
While I can't recall very many players on the Syracuse roster (the one I am certain of was former Yankee reliever Hal Reniff), Jacksonville was brimming with young talent that would help the Mets become surprise champions a year later. Tug McGraw, Gary Gentry, Jim McAndrew and Duffy Dyer were all on the Jacksonville roster. So was Amos Otis (eventually traded to Kansas City) and Danny Frisella, who'd enjoy a productive 1970 and '71 in New York. Just one step away from the majors, but a big step.
Syracuse's national prominence stems from the University of the same name -- whose alma mater sparkles with a broadcasting "Who's Who" starting with Dick Clark and Marty Glickman, and continuing through Marv Albert, Bob Costas, Len Berman, Dick Stockton, Ian Eagle, Bob Shannon and Mike Tirico.
If you've got Syracuse roots, from the school, your career, or some other connection, feel free to share it and a memory or two of this long-gone ballpark.

Update: Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, here's the entire Chiefs roster from 1968 -- with several players such as John Ellis, Bill Burbach, Alan Closer, John Cumberland and Ron Klimkowski, who later appeared for the Yankees.

Comments

VP81955 said…
As a born and raised Syracuse "townie," my first baseball games were at MacArthur in the sixties, when the Chiefs were a Detroit affiliate and we got to see the likes of Willie Horton, Jim Northrup and Mr. "Good Field No Hit," Ray Oyler. Then it became a Yankees affiliate in 1967, where players on the way up included Stan Bahnsen, Thurman Munson and Bobby Cox.

Nice ballpark (though much of it was damaged in a fire in May 1969), and the ads on the outfield walls for Strathmore Paint, Hotel Syracuse and First Trust (both RIP) and Romano Ford bring back fond memories of the Salt City.
March 2, 2008 at 10:34 AM
Mike McCann said…
As a Syracuse native, perhaps you know the story of why Hal Reniff, a former Yankee -- whom I recognized from my 1968 visit -- came back year after year to pitch for the Chiefs, long after any chance of being called back to the Bronx had vanished.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=reniff001har

I'd love to know his connection to the area that kept him in a Syracuse uniform for so many years.
March 8, 2021 at 4:09 PM
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