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Stockton Ports
Founded in 1941
Stockton, California
StocktonPorts.png
Team Logo
Stockton Ports cap.PNG
Cap Insignia
Class-level
  • High Class-A
Minor league affiliations
Major league affiliations
Name
  • Stockton Ports (1946-2000, 2005-present)
  • Mudville Nine (2001-2004)
  • Stockton Flyers (1941-1942)
Ballpark
Minor league titles
League titles 11 (1946, 1947, 1963, 1965, 1969, 1980, 1986, 1990, 1992, 2002, 2008)
Division titles
Owner(s)/Operated by: Tom Volpe / 7th Inning Stretch, LLC
Manager: Steve Scarsone
General Manager: Pat Filippone

The Stockton Ports are a baseball team in Stockton, California, USA. The Ports play in the Northern Division of the Class A Advanced California League and are a Minor League affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Their home field is Banner Island Ballpark which seats over 5,000 people and opened in 2005.

Contents

History

Baseball first came to Stockton in the 1860s. By the 1880s Stockton began to field a team in an earlier incarnation of the California League. In 1888 the Stockton team won the California League pennant with a record of 41-12. That same team also gained a bit of notoriety as a possible inspiration of Casey at the Bat, a famous baseball poem by Ernest Thayer. Thayer was a journalist for the San Francisco Examiner at the time and the games were hosted in a ballpark on Banner Island, a place once known as Mudville.

The Stockton Flyers were established as a charter member of the California League in 1941. The league suspended operations in June, 1942 due to World War II. The Flyers were rechristened as the Stockton Ports to recognize Stockton's status as an inland port city when the league resumed operations in 1946. That season, the Ports went on to win their first California League pennant.

In 1947, the Ports won the California League pennant again without a major league affiliation (they had a limited working agreement with the PCL Oakland Oaks). After going 24-18 playing through June 4, they went on a 26-game winning streak and took first place, never to relinquish again in that season. The win streak is one of the longest in professional baseball and is still a California League record. The Ports finished that season with a record of 95-45 and sixteen games ahead of the two teams tied for second place. Years later, baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright rated the 1947 Ports as one of the one hundred best Minor League teams of all time, ranked at No. 98.

Owned by Stockton local Carl W. Thompson, Sr. 1971-1973, the Ports would disband after the 1972 season, coming back as an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in 1978. In an homage to the team in the Ernest Thayer poem the Ports were renamed as the Mudville Nine in 2000 and 2001,[1] the returned to the Ports name in 2002.

The Ports won their 11th California League Championship in 2008. With 11 league titles, the Ports have the most among the league's active franchises, with the defunct Reno franchise having won eleven. Stockton won its 11th championship with a 9-3 win over the Lancaster JetHawks on Sept. 14, 2008.

In 2005 the Ports became an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics and began play at the Banner Island Ballpark. The 2009 Season will mark the team's 5th anniversary at Banner Island Ballpark and is set to begin on April 16, 2009.

Major League Affiliations

Notable Ports Alumni

Roster

Stockton Ports roster
Players Coaches/Other
Pitchers
  • 34 Kristian Bell †
  • 21 Andrew Carignan †
  • 50 Leonardo Espinal
  • 37 Pedro Figueroa
  • 17 Justin Friend
  • 15 Derrick Gordon
  • 11 Scott Hodsdon
  • 28 Ben Hornbeck
  • 13 Chad Kerfoot †
  • 34 Jason Ray
  • 39 Jamie Richmond
  • 44 Tyson Ross
  • 46 Lance Sewell
  • 29 Mickey Storey
  • 10 Nick Walters
Catchers
  • 31 Yusuf Carter
  • 16 Matt Smith

Infielders

  • 23 Steven Kleen
  •  2 Larry Cobb
  • 14 Frank Martinez
  •  5 Michael Richard
  •  9 Christian Vitters
  •  3 Jemile Weeks

Outfielders

  • 20 Todd Johnson
  • 12 Shane Keough
  • 24 Jermaine Mitchell
  •  7 Grant Desme
Manager
  • -- Steve Scarsone

Coaches

  • 65 Timothy Garland (hitting)
  • 27 Don Schulze (pitching)

† Disabled list
* On Oakland Athletics 40-man roster
∞ Reserve list
§ Suspended list
‡ Restricted list
# Rehab assignment
Roster updated January 9, 2010
Transactions

Broadcasts

KWSX-AM 1280 (Stockton)

References

External links








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