July 17, 1972: Newark Co-Pilots feel their oats on Pony Night with 26-3 whipping of Batavia

On July 17, 1972, young Mark Murphy of Newark, New York, beat out 2,302 other fans to win the Pony Night promotion offered by the Newark Co-Pilots of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. Murphy opted not to keep the prize animal, instead selling it back to its original provider for an unspecified sum.1

The Co-Pilots, a Milwaukee Brewers farm team, were the night’s other big winners. They cashed in not on choice livestock, but on the visiting Batavia (New York) Trojans’ lack of pitching depth. Newark racked up a 13-run second inning with help from eight Batavia wild pitches.2 From there, the Co-Pilots galloped to a spectacularly sloppy 26-3 shellacking of Batavia, a New York Mets affiliate.

The 1972 New York-Penn League was shaping up as a circuit of haves and have-nots, and the July 17 game brought together teams from the have-not side of the ledger. Newark sat in sixth place in the eight-team league with a 7-14 record, 10 games back of first-place Niagara Falls (New York), a Pirates farm team off to a glittering 17-4 start. Batavia occupied seventh place with a 6-15 record, 11 games out.3

Both teams were at least ahead of the Williamsport (Pennsylvania) Red Sox, who were 3-17, 13½ games back, and struggling on and off the field. Hurricane Agnes, which hit the Northeast in late June, washed the Red Sox out of their home park, Bowman Field, until July 11. On June 29 thieves in Auburn, New York, stole the Red Sox’ equipment from the team’s parked bus.4 And on July 15, the Geneva (New York) Rangers5 humbled Williamsport 24-0, raising their team batting average 15 points over the course of the game.6 In many seasons, that would have been the biggest offensive outburst of the year – but in 1972 it was overshadowed just two days later.

Six players on manager Sandy Johnson’s 1972 Newark squad eventually made the big leagues, and three of them played in the big blowout.7 Bob Sheldon led off and played second base, Sam Mejias batted third and played center field, and Dick Davis entered later in the game to play left field. Mejias was one of the team’s biggest offensive weapons, leading the Co-Pilots in hits, RBIs, and batting average.

On the mound – and about to get a month’s worth of run support – was 19-year-old rookie Bill Davidson, a righty chosen one month earlier out of a California high school in the 14th round of the amateur draft. Davidson brought a 1-2 record into the game. For the full season, he went 5-5 with a 3.04 ERA in 14 games, including 10 starts. He led the Co-Pilots in wins and innings pitched, was second in strikeouts, and didn’t hit a batter all season.

Batavia manager Wilbur Huckle oversaw two future big leaguers, and one, shortstop Mark DeJohn, started on July 17.8 DeJohn hit only .205, but led the team in hits and was one of only two players to appear in all of Batavia’s 69 games. Other Trojan offensive leaders played part of the game, including right fielder Carlos Sagredo and first baseman Ernie DiStasi.9 Sagredo led the team in doubles and home runs, while DiStasi led in RBIs.

Starting on the mound for Batavia … well, that’s where things went wrong for the Trojans. Huckle’s intended starting pitcher hurt himself during warmups and could not play, and several other Batavia hurlers were injured and unavailable.10 The team’s pitching had been weak all season. A news story from a few days earlier lamented, “A lack of front-line pitching and virtually no help in the bullpen has consistently hurt the locals this season. … Help is needed and if it is delayed much longer the team can merely go through the motions for the remainder of the year.”11

Short on options, Huckle gave the ball to 18-year-old righty Julian Muniz, who was being converted to a pitcher after hitting .185 in 50 games as an outfielder the previous season.12 Muniz brought an 0-1 record into the game. For the full season, he went 1-4 with a 6.43 ERA in nine games, including seven starts.13 In 35 innings, Muniz surrendered 32 hits and 31 walks against 19 strikeouts. He also threw 10 wild pitches.

Davidson and Muniz traded zeroes for the first inning and a half. But after that, in the words of the Batavia newspaper, “it was sheer disaster.”14 The Co-Pilots sent 17 batters to the plate in the bottom of the second, and five of them scored more than once in the inning as Newark piled up a 13-0 lead. Offensive stars included first baseman Frank Slaton, who drilled a three-run home run, and second baseman Tim Hamilton, who cracked a two-run single and drew a bases-loaded walk.15

Most of the other runs were gift-wrapped by Batavia – and specifically by Muniz and his emergency replacement, utility infielder Hely Boscan, who relieved Muniz with one out in the second. Muniz and Boscan threw eight wild pitches in the second inning, handing the Co-Pilots six free runs. Another Newark run scored on one of Batavia’s five errors, though news accounts do not specify whether DeJohn, third baseman Joel Elderkin, left fielder Kirk Berger, or catcher John Trevisan (who made two errors) were responsible.16 By one account, Newark’s big inning included only five base hits.17

An Associated Press report suggested that “Batavia should have gone into hiding after the second inning.”18 However, that was not an option, and Newark continued to pour it on. The Co-Pilots notched a 14th run off Boscan in the third inning as catcher Sam Killingsworth singled home Slaton, who had drawn a walk. Boscan settled in to pitch a shutout fourth inning before Newark’s bats exploded once again.

The Co-Pilots batted around in the fifth and scored six runs on a two-run single by Sheldon, an RBI single by third baseman Roger Danson, and more Batavia errors. Boscan switched places with third baseman Elderkin for the sixth inning. Elderkin gave up three hits and three walks as Newark batted around again to score six more runs. Run-scoring plays included a three-run double by Hamilton, who closed the day with six RBIs; another two-run single by Sheldon; and a bases-loaded walk to Killingsworth. Elderkin also hit opposing pitcher Davidson with a pitch and threw two wild pitches, bringing Batavia’s total to 11.19 Batavia had scored a single run in the fifth, so at the end of six innings, Newark held a 26-1 lead.

This game marked the only pitching appearance of Elderkin’s four-season pro career, all spent in the low minors. He left baseball with a 54.00 career ERA. Boscan pitched in two games in 1972, ending the year with a 16.20 ERA. He subsequently converted to pitching full-time, putting in two more seasons as a hurler in the low minors. His four wins for Batavia in 1973 tied him for third-most on the team, and he picked up two saves as well. Boscan, nothing if not flexible, also replaced catcher Trevisan late in the game, giving him the highly unusual box-score line of “3B-P-C.”

The game leaned slightly in Batavia’s direction in the final innings. Davidson surrendered single runs in the seventh and eighth innings to bring the score to 26-3. News accounts do not explain how Batavia scored, but box scores credit RBIs to Elderkin, second baseman James Kidder, and first baseman Rick Vossekuil.20 Vossekuil, a 19-year-old lefty playing his only professional season, worked the final two innings in his only pitching appearance. Remarkably, he allowed just one hit and no runs, threw no wild pitches, and struck out two. For the full game, Batavia’s pitchers whiffed eight Newark batters and walked 12.

Davidson worked eight innings for Newark, giving up nine singles and three runs, all earned. He walked four, struck out 13, and threw three wild pitches of his own.21 Righty Mike Duncan pitched the ninth for Newark. He made the 23-run lead stand up, giving up a hit but no runs and closing out the game in 3 hours and 2 minutes. Duncan earned two saves for the Co-Pilots in 1972; suffice it to say that this game was not one of them. Starting pitcher Muniz took the loss for Batavia.

Newark’s run-scoring outburst, while noteworthy, was not record-setting for the New York-Penn League. On July 29, 1943, the Olean Oilers pasted the Wellsville Yankees 30-4. That game featured a turn on the mound by 17-year-old Wellsville outfielder Bob Addis, later a major leaguer for parts of four seasons.22

Both Newark and Batavia finished well out of contention, with Newark closing just one game ahead of the unfortunate Williamsport Red Sox. One other noteworthy event marked the Trojans’ season. On August 26, 1972, pitcher Tim Juran threw a no-hitter against Niagara Falls, winning 1-0, as if to salvage a bit of pride and even out the season statistics of Batavia’s battered pitching staff.23

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

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

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the July 18, 1972, editions of the Geneva (New York) Times and Buffalo (New York) Courier-Express published box scores.

The author thanks FultonHistory.com for making many of the cited newspapers available online.

Image of 1976 Topps card #626 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Charles Hayes, “Co-Pilots Outdo Rangers, Bomb Batavia, 26-3,” Geneva (New York) Times, July 18, 1972: 24.

2 Hayes.

3 New York-Penn League standings as printed in the Binghamton (New York) Press and Sun-Bulletin, July 17, 1972: 4B.

4 Jud Magrin, “Yank Yarns,” Oneonta (New York) Star, June 30, 1972: 16.

5 Baseball-Reference listed this team as the Geneva Senators as of November 2023. This was the name the team used in previous seasons while affiliated with the Washington Senators. However, the team switched its name to the Rangers in 1972 to match its parent club’s new name following the Senators’ move to Texas. Stories from 1972 in the Geneva Daily Times call the team the Rangers.

6 Norm Jollow, “Rangers Win Tight Tilt Sunday After 24-0 Romp,” Geneva Times, July 17, 1972: 15.

7 The future big leaguers who did not play were Greg Erardi, Roger Miller, and Dan Thomas. Not all of them may have been on the Newark roster on July 17.

8 The other was first baseman Brock Pemberton.

9 DiStasi was usually the team’s catcher; according to Baseball-Reference, this was the only game of 1972 in which he appeared at first base.

10 Hayes. The story does not identify the intended starter.

11 Bob Beswick, “Late Jamestown Rally Dumps Trojans, 9-4, Locals Had Early Lead,” Batavia Daily News, July 14, 1972: 8.

12 Muniz split the 1971 season between Marion of the Rookie-level Appalachian League and Pompano Beach of the Class A Florida State League.

13 He also earned a single save that season.

14 “Newark Buries Trojans Under 26-Run Assault, Club in Falls Tonight,” Batavia Daily News, July 18, 1972: 10.

15 Hayes.

16 Hayes.

17 “Newark Clobbers Batavia, 26 to 3,” Buffalo (New York) Courier-Express, July 18, 1972: 19.

18 Associated Press, “Newark Ravages Batavia,” Niagara Falls (New York) Gazette, July 18, 1972, page number unavailable.

19 Hayes.

20 This is based on the box score published in the Buffalo Courier-Express. The box score in the Geneva Times credits four Batavia players with RBIs, which is impossible, since they scored only three runs.

21 Incidentally, Newark far and away led the league with 87 wild pitches in 1972. Batavia was second-worst with 65, and omitting the seven wild pitches thrown by nonpitchers in the July 17 game does not improve their position. The league average was about 52 wild pitches per team; the Oneonta Yankees threw only 26.

22 Jollow identified this game as the league scoring record as of 1972. The score of the 1943 game and Addis’s pitching appearance are confirmed by “Oilers Hit Everything Against Wellsville to Win by 30 to 4 Score,” Olean (New York) Times-Herald, July 29, 1943: 10. The New York-Penn League was known by its original name, the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York (PONY) League, in 1943.

23 Bob Beswick, “Tim Juran In No-Hit, No-Run Game,” Batavia Daily News, August 28, 1972: 8.