August 1, 1985: Pro wrestling promotion muscles in on minor-league game in Newark

When muscular, truculent gentlemen with names like Brutus Beefcake and Bret “Hit Man” Hart are waiting to use your baseball field, you step aside and let them use your baseball field.

Or so it went on August 1, 1985, when a “Balls and Falls” promotion at a minor-league ballpark turned into an unexpected conflict between “balls” – a baseball game – and “falls” – a seven-match professional wrestling bill scheduled after the game. Two teams in the short-season Class A New York-Penn League were forced to suspend a tie game after 11 innings so the grapplers could provide their portion of the evening’s entertainment.

Despite the interruption, news stories indicate that the capacity crowd – and many of the ballplayers – enjoyed the show. And the home crowd got to see a win, eventually. When the game was resumed the following night, the host Newark (New York) Orioles pulled out a 2-1 victory over the Little Falls (New York) Mets in 13 innings, not with a piledriver but with a well-executed squeeze bunt.

The 1985 New York-Penn League was arranged into three divisions of four teams each, and the August 1 game matched a pair of third-place teams. With a 19-24 record, Little Falls was nine games back in the East Division, while Newark, at 23-21, was 4½ games back in the Central.1 The Mets and Orioles had met in the 1984 postseason playoffs; Little Falls won, two games to one.2 The teams were affiliated with the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles, as their names would suggest.

Four players from manager Art Mazmanian’s 1985 Orioles eventually reached the majors, and three of them appeared in the Balls and Falls game. Pete Stanicek started at second base and Rico Rossy at third base. Another future major leaguer, catcher Jeff Tackett, entered the game later.3

Only two of manager Dan Radison’s 1985 Mets reached the majors, and one of them played on August 1.4 Relief pitcher Jeff Richardson went on to the briefest possible big-league career: In 1990, he appeared in a single game for the California Angels, facing only two batters.5 The rest of the players on August 1 were career minor leaguers, though two of them – Little Falls right fielder Scott Jaster and third baseman Craig Repoz – were the sons of former big-leaguers.6

While the young players of the New York-Penn labored in obscurity, the showmen of pro wrestling were enjoying the peak of a boom cycle in the mid-1980s. Hulk Hogan, one of wrestling’s biggest draws, had landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated – at the time the nation’s leading sports magazine – on April 29, 1985.7 It was timely, then, for a minor-league team to ride the wave with a wrestling promotion. “We’re excited about bringing together perhaps the two most followed spectator events in America – baseball and wrestling,” Newark general manager Nick Sciarratta said.8

“The Hulkster” wasn’t in Newark that night. But the team arranged for appearances by other established wrestlers from the World Wrestling Federation, including Tito Santana, George Wells, the Magnificent Muraco, Swede Hanson, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, and Rick “Quickdraw” McGraw.9 Tickets were priced at $8.50 each, or $9.50 for a limited number of ringside seats.10

The Balls and Falls promotion proved popular, drawing 1,424 fans to Newark’s Colburn Park, the largest crowd in the Orioles’ three seasons in Newark. For comparison, the regularly scheduled game the following night – featuring 25-cent Genesee beer for the first three innings – drew 869.11

Orioles starter Wayne Wilson, a 19-year-old righty from Redondo Beach, California, had won five straight decisions coming into the game. Little Falls dinged him for a run in the first inning on a pair of walks and a bloop RBI single by Jaster. Mazmanian later criticized left fielder Frank Bellino for failing to catch Jaster’s hit, which the manager felt should have been an easy out. Mazmanian had further cause for frustration in the bottom of the first, when Newark’s Sherwin Cijntje12 and Stanicek both reached base and were picked off by Little Falls starting pitcher Chris Rauth.13

Rauth, a 21-year-old righty from the Buffalo area, kept Newark off the scoreboard until the seventh inning. First baseman Bob14 Santo, playing his only pro season, doubled off the fence in right-center field. Utilityman Benny Bautista ran for him. Rossy followed with his only hit in five at-bats to drive in Bautista and tie the game, 1-1.15

Wilson and Rauth each pitched 10 innings that night. Wilson was dominant, surrendering just five hits and four walks while striking out six. Rauth gave up nine hits, including an eighth-inning triple by designated hitter Scott Khoury and a 10th-inning double by Stanicek, but no runs outside the seventh inning. He walked only one and struck out two.16

Little Falls’ Kelvin Page and Newark’s Paul Thorpe took over on the mound in the 11th inning, pitching a shutout inning apiece. At that point, umpires Jeff Thibodeau and Mitch Mele suspended play, 10 minutes past an agreed-on curfew, to allow the wrestling to start. Despite having a tight game interrupted, neither manager expressed anger. “We knew what the rules were going in,” Mazmanian said. “We are in the entertainment business,” Radison added.17

The players then switched sides and joined the fans, becoming “a vocal part of the crowd” as the wrestling bill was successfully completed. Wrestlers swapped high-fives with Orioles players, while Santana tossed his T-shirt to Little Falls outfielder Johnny Monell.18

Conveniently, the Mets and Orioles were slated to play again the following night, so the two teams resumed the tied game before their regularly scheduled matchup. Newark’s Mazmanian tapped relief pitcher Randy King, a righty in his third and last professional season. King shut out Little Falls for two innings, allowing a pair of singles and a walk.

Richardson took over for the Mets and shut out Newark in the 12th inning, but ran into trouble from there. Stanicek led off the 13th with a walk, stole second, and moved to third on a groundball out. Richardson intentionally walked the next two hitters, Bellino and center fielder Norm Roberts, to set up a variety of double-play options.19

Mazmanian called on outfielder Ricky Malizia to pinch-hit for replacement first baseman John Forbes. Malizia hit just .200 across 33 games and 50 at-bats in 1985, his only pro season. Two unimpressive swings against Richardson left him in a 1-and-2 hole.

A foul bunt would have meant a third strike – but with Stanicek running from third, Malizia dropped a perfect bunt toward the left side of the infield. He beat it out as Stanicek scored the game-winning run.

Radison lamented a strategic error by the Mets: “With a 1-and-2 count we call for a show pitch – a pitch we’re trying to make him chase. If we pitch the ball where we’re supposed to he would have had a real tough time bunting the ball. But we threw the ball down the middle.”20

King earned the win, evening his record at 1-1, while Richardson took the loss to fall to 4-3. On the wrestling side of the ledger, the winners were Tito Santana, Pedro Morales, Leaping Lanny Poffo, Hart, Neidhart, Susan Starr, and Muraco.21 Newark also won the regularly scheduled August 2 game, 4-3.

The unusual postponement earned modest national attention, as newspapers as far away as Kansas City and Wichita ran a wire-service item noting that pro wrestling had “muscled in” on minor-league baseball.22 Newark general manager Sciarratta said the team doubled its usual attendance, and the event went so well that the WWF offered the Orioles a second bill in September, potentially including Hulk Hogan. The team had to turn it down because it didn’t have time to fully prepare.23

Unfortunately for Newark, a village of about 10,000 residents, pro wrestling promotions didn’t provide enough of a financial boost to help keep the team around. The Orioles moved out of Newark after the 1987 season.24 Colburn Park has since hosted independent and college-age summer teams, but no minor-league affiliates.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the August 3, 1985, edition of the Finger Lakes Times (Geneva, New York) published a box score.

The author thanks FultonHistory.com and NYSHistoricNewspapers.com for making many of the cited newspapers accessible online.

Image of 1985 Topps WWF Pro Wrestling Stars card #10 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 League standings as printed in the Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, August 1, 1985: 2D. Both teams remained in third place in their divisions at season’s end. Newark finished 41-36, 5½ games back, while Little Falls finished 34-41, 19½ games back.

2 “Scores & Standings,” Binghamton (New York) Evening Press, September 7, 1984: 2D.

3 The fourth future big-leaguer to play for Newark that season was pitcher Jeff Ballard.

4 Pitcher Brian Givens was the other member of the 1985 Little Falls team to reach the majors. Radison never reached the majors as a player, but served as a coach with four major-league teams over 11 seasons between 1993 and 2013.

5 On September 19, 1990, Richardson entered a game against the Detroit Tigers with two outs in the ninth inning, the bases loaded, and Detroit ahead 9-5. He surrendered a bases-clearing triple to Travis Fryman, then got Mike Heath to ground back to the mound. The Tigers won 12-5.

6 Scott Jaster was the son of former pitcher Larry Jaster, while Craig Repoz was the son of former outfielder Roger Repoz.

7 As of June 2024, the “Mat Mania!” April 29, 1985, Sports Illustrated cover could be seen at sicovers.com.

8 Joe Robbins, “A Doubleheader in Newark with Bats and Mats,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 28, 1985: 5E.

9 Three months to the day after his appearance in Newark, McGraw died of a heart attack in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 30. “Wrestler Dies,” Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, November 3, 1985: 2B; Associated Press, “Rick McGraw, 30; Professional Wrestler,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call, November 6, 1985: B18.

10 “O’s Promo Features Pro Wrestling,” Finger Lakes Times (Geneva, New York), July 2, 1985: 17. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator, those ticket prices would have equaled $24.76 and $27.68 in May 2024.

11 Box scores in the Finger Lakes Times, August 3, 1985: 22; Matt Dorney, “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet,” Finger Lakes Times, August 2, 1985: 16.

12 Cijntje, an outfielder, was a native of Curaçao whose career peaked at Triple-A from 1987 through 1989. He fell one level short of being the first native of Curaçao to play in the majors, an honor that went instead to New York Yankee Hensley Meulens in 1989.

13 “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.” The same key moments of game action described in this story were also included in Jim Miranda, “Newark Tops Little Falls, 2-1, the Day After,” Newark (New York) Courier-Gazette, August 8, 1985: 9.

14 Baseball Reference lists him as Rob Santo, but the contemporary news stories refer to him as Bob.

15 “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.”

16 “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.”

17 “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.”

18 Jim Miranda, “1500 Fans Watch Pro Wrestlers,” Newark Courier-Gazette, August 8, 1985: 9; “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.”

19 Matt Dorney, “O’s ‘Squeeze’ By Little Falls Twice, 2-1 and 4-3,” Finger Lakes Times, August 3, 1985: 19.

20 “O’s ‘Squeeze’ By Little Falls Twice, 2-1 and 4-3.”

21 “O’s-Mets Aren’t Finished Yet.” Lanny Poffo’s brother, Randy Poffo, played four seasons of low minor-league baseball between 1971 and 1974 before achieving professional wrestling fame under the name Randy “Macho Man” Savage.

22 Associated Press, “Baseball Scene,” Kansas City Times, August 2, 1985: D2. The item included the sentence, “Newark officials said the wrestling was part of a team promotion” – as if readers might think a seven-match wrestling card featuring nationally known performers had simply burst out unplanned.

23 “1500 Fans Watch Pro Wrestlers.”

24 Little Falls’ story was almost exactly the same as Newark’s, except that Little Falls kept its Mets affiliate one year longer, through the 1988 season.