June 13, 1969: Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs lose in return to fire-wracked ballpark

In the overnight hours of May 14-15, 1969, a fire ravaged MacArthur Stadium in Syracuse, New York, home of the Syracuse Chiefs of the Triple-A International League. A city fire marshal surveying the destruction declared: “[The Chiefs] will not play here any more this year.”1

The team’s management thought otherwise. The Chiefs, top minor-league affiliate of the New York Yankees, returned to their battered ballpark—hastily repaired—on June 13 for a doubleheader against the Tidewater Tides, a New York Mets affiliate. The Tides took some of the pleasure out of the Chiefs’ homecoming by sweeping both games, including a 7-6 win in the opener.

The return of baseball to Syracuse capped a month of hard work, as Chiefs officials came to terms with the scope of the damage. The fire, which appeared to have started in the concession area, destroyed the press box, the Chiefs’ offices, the main entrance and concession area, and a central section of the grandstand, including about 1,800 seats. Also gone were $3,500 in cash, tickets to future games, $10,000 in beer, 68 dozen baseballs, and 500 helmets and 1,500 bats that were meant for promotional giveaways.2

The Chiefs arranged to borrow a ballpark more than 90 miles away in Oneonta, New York, whose team in the short-season Class A New York-Penn League did not start play until June 21.3 They then struck a similar deal to play additional home games in the New York-Penn community of Auburn, New York, and shifted a scheduled home series against the Buffalo Bisons to the Bisons’ park—though the rival Red Wings refused to make similar accommodations.4

Meanwhile, wreckers cleared away the damaged area of the grandstand, and the Syracuse City Council set aside $55,000 for repairs to make the park safe.5 A seating pavilion in left field was undamaged, and parts of the grandstand remained usable. The team also installed 4,000 seats’ worth of portable bleachers down the right-field line.6

Near the end of their month on the road, manager Frank Verdi’s Chiefs found their stride. Coming back to Syracuse, they’d won three straight games and five of their last seven, including a 23-3 shellacking of the Richmond Braves on June 12.7

Still, the separate-admission day-night doubleheader booked for June 13 drew poorly. The afternoon game attracted just 539 fans, the night game 1,610. This might have reflected the Chiefs’ overall seventh-place standing and 22-26 record, seven games behind first-place Louisville.8 Manager Clyde McCullough’s Tides entered the doubleheader with a 27-28 record, fourth in the eight-team league, 5½ games back.

The Chiefs’ lineup for their first game back featured major offensive contributors in 34-year-old third baseman Steve Demeter, team hit leader for the full season with 136; first baseman Dave McDonald, tops in HRs (24) and RBIs (82); and left fielder Tom Shopay, team stolen-base leader with 25 for the season.

The start on the mound went to Gary Jones, a left-handed pitcher from California who’d turned 24 the previous day. Jones had posted double-digit win totals as a starter at Class A and Double A in 1967 and ’68, but split time between the rotation and bullpen for Syracuse in 1969. In 14 games, including six starts, he posted a 2-1 record and a 4.38 ERA. Jones’ older brother Steve pitched parts of three seasons in the majors between 1967 and 1969; Gary followed him to the bigs with brief stints with the Yankees in 1970 and 1971.9

The biggest bat in the Tides’ starting lineup belonged to 23-year-old right fielder and cleanup hitter Roy Foster, who led the team that season in hits (123), homers (24) and RBIs (92). First baseman Mike Jorgensen (.290/21/69 for the full season) and shortstop Bob Heise (.278, team-leading 20 stolen bases) were also major contributors.

Also notable was 26-year-old third baseman Bobby Pfeil, who at that point had never made the majors in an eight-season pro career. Pfeil, who hit .316 at Tidewater, got a callup less than two weeks later and stayed up for the rest of the season. He played 62 games for the eventual World Series-champion “Miracle Mets,” including 40 starts at third base and 10 more at second base.10

Twenty-three-year-old righty Danny Frisella received the start for Tidewater. Frisella was in only his fourth pro season but had made 33 appearances for the Mets in 1967 and ’68. Despite a sterling 11-2 record in Triple A in 1969, Frisella pitched only three games for the parent club that season; it took a forkball, learned in Venezuela during the winter of 1969-70, to firmly establish him as a big-league pitcher.11

Jones and Frisella kept the game scoreless through the first three innings, though not without scoring opportunities. The Chiefs turned three double plays in the first four frames to clear Tidewater runners off the basepaths.12 The Tides assembled three singles13 in the fourth to take a 2-0 lead, but the Chiefs tied the game in the bottom half on Shopay’s sixth homer of the season, a walk to right fielder Ossie Blanco, and a double by Demeter.14

Syracuse’s defense, which had helped Jones in the first four innings, failed him in the fifth. After a single, Chiefs second baseman Gordy Lund made an error that allowed a second runner to reach. A sacrifice advanced the runners a base, and center fielder Bernie Smith brought in both with a single, giving Tidewater a 4-2 lead. Lund made a second error in the inning, but it did not lead to a run.15 Jones was removed with one out in the fifth, replaced by righty Pete Magrini, five days past his 27th birthday and three years removed from his only major-league experience.16

Magrini kept the game at 4-2 in the sixth and seventh innings but was pulled for righty Thad Tillotson in the eighth after giving up a single, a walk, a wild pitch, and a two-run single by second baseman Jack Tracy.17

Tillotson served up a single to Jorgensen to put runners at the corners, but Heise struck out and Tracy was retired at the plate on an attempted double steal. Tillotson then got designated hitter Wilbur Huckle to hit a potential inning-ending grounder. Shortstop Frank Baker—who fielded it on the move—stumbled and threw wildly to first, allowing Jorgensen to score for a 7-2 Tides advantage.18 It was one of four Chiefs errors on the night and one of the team’s league-leading 176 defensive miscues that season.19 Baker committed 39 errors that season, most among IL shortstops.

That seventh run loomed large in the bottom of the eighth, when Lund snapped Frisella’s streak of 12 straight batters retired by laying down a one-out bunt single.20 After another out, Shopay walked, and Frank Tepedino singled to load the bases. Blanco singled in two runs, and Demeter doubled in two more, bringing the Chiefs within 7-6 with two out.21 Lefty reliever Ron Paul, summoned to face McDonald, walked him.

McCullough went back to the pen for 28-year-old righty Larry Bearnarth, who served that season as both pitcher and pitching coach.22 Bearnarth had pitched for Syracuse in 1962 before playing for the Mets from 1963 through ’66; he hadn’t been back to the majors since then.23 He was coming off appearances in three straight games against Buffalo; he surrendered the winning hit in the first two and nailed down the win in the third.24

Bearnarth got Chiefs catcher Danny Breeden to ground into an inning-ending force play, then worked a scoreless ninth—giving up a hit but striking out two—to close out the 7-6 Tides win in 2 hours and 46 minutes. Frisella earned the win, bringing his record to 2-0, while Jones dropped to 0-1 with the loss. In the nightcap, Pfeil homered and Bill Connors, who’d pitched for Syracuse University, worked a complete-game two-hitter for a 4-1 Tides win.25

The 1969 season turned out to be a year to remember for the Chiefs, and not just because of the fire. Exhibition games against major-league teams were often big money-makers for minor-league teams in that era, and the hasty repairs to MacArthur Stadium allowed the Chiefs to keep a date with the Yankees on July 10. In front of an overflow crowd of 6,061 fans, Syracuse claimed an 8-3 win.26

The Chiefs finished third in the IL with a record of 75-65 and one tie, 3½ games behind the first-place Tides. This qualified them for the IL’s four-team, Shaughnessy-style Governors’ Cup playoffs.27 Syracuse knocked off Louisville in the first round and the Columbus Jets in the finals, bringing the IL’s playoff championship home to their fire-scarred ballpark.28 (Only figuratively, that is. General manager Don Labbruzzo proposed moving the trophy to different sites around the city in the offseason, as there was nowhere at the stadium to display it.29)

MacArthur Stadium was fully repaired and continued to serve as an IL baseball venue for more than another quarter-century. The ballpark hosted its final game on September 2, 1996, a 5-4 Syracuse loss to the Pawtucket Red Sox.30 It was razed that fall.31

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

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 offers box scores for minor-league games, but the June 14, 1969, editions of the Syracuse Post-Standard and the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot printed box scores.

Image of 1969 Topps card #343 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Leroy Natanson and Peter B. Volmes, “Fire Rages at MacArthur Stadium,” Syracuse (New York) Post-Standard, May 15, 1969: 1; Associated Press, “MacArthur Stadium Total Loss by Fire,” Ithaca (New York) Journal, May 15, 1969: 25; “New Screen Will Protect Fans at Chiefs’ Games,” Syracuse Post-Standard, June 9, 1969: 17.

2 Natanson and Volmes, “Fire Rages at MacArthur Stadium”; Associated Press, “MacArthur Stadium Total Loss by Fire”; “New Screen Will Protect Fans at Chiefs’ Games”; Bill Reddy, “Homeless Chiefs Face Days of Uncertainty,” Syracuse Post-Standard, May 16, 1969: 21. According to an online inflation calculator provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, $3,500 in May 1969 had the same purchasing power as $31,751 in March 2026.

3 Bill Reddy, “Chiefs to Play Three ‘Home’ Games in Oneonta,” Syracuse Post-Standard, May 17, 1969: 11. Oneonta was also a New York Yankees affiliate.

4 “Chiefs’ Demeter Stars to Beat Wings, 11-3,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, May 31, 1969: 1D; Bill Reddy, “Auburn Likely Chiefs ‘Home,’” Syracuse Post-Standard, May 27, 1969: 29. As explained in a later endnote, the Buffalo team moved most of its home games to Niagara Falls following riots in Buffalo in July 1967. Syracuse and Buffalo played games in both Buffalo and Niagara Falls in May 1969. Associated Press, “388 in Buffalo See Bisons Beat Chiefs,” Rochester (New York) Times-Union, May 24, 1969: 5A; Cy Kritzer, “Bisons Lose 2, Drop to Cellar Despite Garnett’s Double Spree,” Buffalo (New York) Evening News, May 20, 1969: 37.

5 Maurice Lee, “Wreckers to Start at Park Tomorrow,” Syracuse Post-Standard, May 21, 1969: 22; “$55,000 Allotted for Stadium Repair,” Syracuse Post-Standard, May 27, 1969: 8. A photo of the grandstand with a chunk missing can be seen on page 14 of the June 14, 1969, Syracuse Post-Standard.

6 Associated Press, “Way-Out Fans Cheer Chiefs from Afar,” Staten Island (New York) Advance, June 24, 1969: 26. On June 21, a concrete slab fell from the stadium’s upper deck at the end of a marching band performance. Although city officials decided the incident was unrelated to the fire, they closed off another 2,000 grandstand seats. That left only about 940 usable seats in the infield.

7 George McClelland, “2-Hitter by Connors Gives Tides Sweep,” Norfolk (Virginia) Virginian-Pilot, June 14, 1969: B3.

8 International League standings as printed in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 13, 1969: 1D.

9 Steve Jones was the property of the Kansas City Royals in 1969 after pitching for the Chicago White Sox in 1967 and the Washington Senators in 1968. Steve Jones pitched 20 games for the first-year 1969 Royals, going 2-3 with a 4.23 ERA. He was on the Royals’ roster as of June 13, but was sent down to Triple-A six days later and did not return to the bigs until September. “O’Riley and Cisco Will Join Royals,” Kansas City Times, June 20, 1969: 18.

10 Pfeil did not appear in the 1969 postseason.

11 Frisella, like other baseball players, also had to serve military reserve duty in the late 1960s that cut into his playing time. He reportedly learned the forkball from Diego Seguí, who used it as a signature pitch. Greg Spira, “Danny Frisella,” SABR Biography Project, accessed April 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Danny-Frisella/.

12 Bill Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat,” Syracuse Post-Standard, June 14, 1969: 14.

13 Extrapolated from box scores in the Syracuse Post-Standard and Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, which do not credit the Tides with any extra-base hits.

14 Game stories from the Post-Standard and Virginian-Pilot do not specify who collected the three hits in the Tides’ fourth-inning rally. Seven members of Tidewater’s starting lineup collected at least one hit; those credited with RBIs were second baseman Jack Tracy (three), center fielder Bernie Smith (two), and Foster (one). In the Chiefs’ half of the fourth, the walk to Blanco is extrapolated from box scores and game stories. Tepedino is credited with four at-bats and one run scored, and the Syracuse game story specifies that he scored his run in an eighth-inning rally. Blanco is credited with three at-bats and two runs scored, making it seem much more likely that he drew the walk and scored in the fourth.

15 Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat.” Again, game stories from the two cities’ papers do not name the players whose hits and sacrifices contributed to the Chiefs’ rally. Since Smith capped the rally with a single, we can assume the rally involved the players immediately preceding him in the lineup—Heise, who went 2-for-4 with a run scored; designated hitter Wilbur Huckle, who went 1-for-4 with a run scored; and catcher Lloyd Flodin, 0-for-3.

16 Magrini pitched in three games for the Boston Red Sox in April and May 1966. The 1969 season was the last of his six professional seasons.

17 Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat.” Box scores in the Syracuse and Norfolk newspapers specify that Magrini faced three batters in the eighth without recording an out, and that he threw a wild pitch. However, neither box score lists Magrini as walking a batter.

18 Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat.”

19 The league average was about 145 errors per team in 1969. The league-best Louisville Colonels, a Boston Red Sox affiliate, committed only 109.

20 Lund’s hit coming with one out is extrapolated from Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat,” and McClelland, “2-Hitter by Connors Gives Tides Sweep.” Reddy mentions that two were out and one runner (Lund) was on base when the Chiefs launched their eighth-inning rally. McClelland mentions a second out by pinch-hitter José Vidal; Reddy mentions that catcher Danny Breeden made the inning’s third out.

21 Reddy, “Chiefs Come Home to Double Defeat.” McClelland, in the Norfolk paper, reported that the Chiefs collected four straight hits in the inning, but Reddy reported that the two-out rally incorporated a walk, single, single, double, and walk before the Tides got the third out.

22 David E. Skelton, “Larry Bearnarth,” SABR Biography Project, accessed April 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Larry-Bearnarth/.

23 Bearnarth’s record of 11-4 and a 3.82 ERA in 42 games didn’t earn him a callup to the 1969 Mets, although he did briefly reach the majors one last time with the 1971 Milwaukee Brewers. Bearnarth’s 1969 season might have been most notable for his near-fatal beaning of the Rochester Red Wings’ Lorenzo “Chico” Fernandez that August. See Kurt Blumenau, “August 3, 1969: Fan Favorite Chico Fernandez Survives Near-Fatal Beaning in Minors,” SABR Games Project, accessed April 2026, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-3-1969-fan-favorite-chico-fernandez-survives-near-fatal-beaning-in-minors/.

24 McClelland, “2-Hitter by Connors Gives Tides Sweep.” The story refers to the games as occurring in Niagara Falls. The IL’s Buffalo team effectively moved to Niagara Falls following riots in the city in July 1967, though the team did not change its name to reflect its new location. More information on the Buffalo-Niagara Falls situation is available in Kurt Blumenau, “June 9, 1969: Williams’s Inspiration, Epstein’s Power Help Senators Win Exhibition in Buffalo,” SABR Games Project, accessed April 2026, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-9-1969-williamss-inspiration-epsteins-power-help-senators-win-exhibition-in-buffalo/.

25 McClelland, “2-Hitter by Connors Gives Tides Sweep.” Following an undistinguished big-league career—an 0-2 record and 7.53 ERA in 26 games across three seasons—Connors went on to spend 16 seasons as a major-league pitching coach. He coached for the 1980 American League-champion Kansas City Royals and the 1984 National League East Division-champion Chicago Cubs.

26 Bill Reddy, “Chiefs Wallop Yanks, 8-3,” Syracuse Post-Standard, July 11, 1969: 17. For more information about the history of major-minor exhibitions, see Kurt Blumenau, “Back To The Farm: Major-Minor In-Season Exhibitions,” When Minor League Baseball Almost Went Bust: 1946-1963 (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research), 2024: 14.

27 By coincidence, Frank “Shag” Shaughnessy, former IL president and creator of the Shaughnessy-style playoff, died in Montreal in the early hours of May 15, 1969, at around the same time firefighters in Syracuse were struggling with the MacArthur Stadium blaze. Shaughnessy, briefly a major-league outfielder, had managed the IL’s Syracuse Stars from 1921 through 1925, prior to the ballpark’s construction. Canadian Press, “‘Shag’ Shaughnessy, Sports Great, Dies,” Ottawa Journal, May 15, 1969: 1.

28 “Governors’ Cup,” Baseball-Reference BR Bullpen, accessed May 2025, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Governors%27_Cup. The Columbus Jets were a Pittsburgh Pirates farm team.

29 “Governors’ Cup Will ‘Tour’ Syracuse This Winter,” Syracuse Post-Standard, September 16, 1969: 12.

30 Matt Michael, “A Grand Finale,” Syracuse Post-Standard, September 3, 1996: C1.

31 Hart Seely, “Salvage Crew to Sell Big Mac’s Scoreboard,” Syracuse (New York) Herald American, November 17, 1996: D3.