Building a league of their own
Niagara District Baseball Association celebrating 25 years
History of senior men’s baseball in Niagara shows it was no walk in the park in the early days.
On the field, the Niagara District Baseball Association 25th season was perhaps the most electrifying in recent memory.
Now, the league is past the quarter-century mark. Current and former players can look back at a league that was built on humble beginnings and a love for the game of baseball.
The NDBA senior men’s division currently consists of eight teams: Fort Erie Cannons, Merritton Alliance, Niagara Falls Expos, Niagara Falls Falcons, Rose City Thorns, St. Catharines Cobras, Thorold Fantoms and the Welland Chiefs.
But, the inaugural season had a much different lineup than the one we know today.
The league began with a 1993. After a 10-year hiatus from OBA baseball in the region, Steve Hiller created a four-team A-division men’s league based in Welland. Hiller had the initial idea to bring senior men’s baseball back to the area after the last team disbanded in 1983.
At the time, Welland Stadium (now a staple piece of architecture in the northern-Welland community) was a fairly-new building, eager to host meaningful games for the boys of summer.
John Mazzei and Dave Sprackett were on the original roster for the Welland A’s (now Chiefs) in their first season of action.
Sprackett was a staple in the maintenance of the league and played 14 seasons with the Chiefs. Later, he took on a role much bigger than he first imagined. He would become head coach of the Chiefs and stay on the team until stepping aside in 2013.
Mazzei is still on the Chiefs roster today, and can attest to the humble beginnings the league had.
“When you start a business, the first three-to-five years you’re either going to survive or you’re going to close the doors. That’s where, I think, the league was those first couple of years for sure,” Mazzei said.
The league was tentative in its first year, with teams playing a handful of games against familiar oppoenents. Problems with paying umpires and supplying baseballs were all to common problems.
“It was all the normal hiccups when you’re starting something because nobody necessarily knew each other,” Sprackett said. “The league was certainly competitive, but it was also recreational. It certainly didn’t have the same intensity that it developed later.”
In the second season of operation, the league branched out and added the likes of the Thorold Fantoms and junior teams from Merritton and Niagara Falls. A year later, the juniors dropped out forcing the teams to reach out to teams across the border in Buffalo, NY.
“Buffalo had their own full league. We had some games against some of the teams in that league, mainly against a team called Erie Buffalo,” Sprackett said.
Sprackett had made an important connection with the Erie Buffalo coach Ralph Proulx through baseball connections. During the 1994 regular season, Proulx’s team and several others from the Buffalo district league would make the trip just to play in the beautiful fields of Welland Stadium.
“Without the connection that was made with Proulx, there wouldn’t have been enough teams to have a schedule and we ended up playing a lot of ball that year,” Mazzei said. “If that contact was not made, I don’t know if there would be a league today.”
By the 1997 season, only the Chiefs and Fantoms had competitive rosters in the Niagara region. The longevity of the two franchises depended on the sustained friendship with Proulx and the Buffalo district teams.
The American league would adopt the two Niagara clubs into a division known as Buffalo Muny league.
The Chiefs and Fantoms played an interlocking season, with all the teams coming over to play their games in Welland. They also had exhibition games against teams from the Greater Toronto Area to help fill their schedule.
“But, we couldn’t play in their playoffs,” Sprackett said. “The Chiefs formed their own playoff series against the Thorold Fantoms. For the Chiefs and the Fantoms, that was their season.”
“We played our interlocking schedule with the Buffalo Muny league. Then, when it came to playoffs time they shut down and had their own league playoffs. So, we started the Niagara Series and did that for six seasons.”
“When it all shook down, there was only two Niagara teams… we would play between 40 and 50 games a year. It was a really full schedule,” Mazzei added.
In 2002, players branched off from the Fantoms’ system and a team from Niagara Falls entered the loop under the Falcons’ logo. The Falcons (now Expos) would push to play more games after two short seasons with the Buffalo district not willing to travel to their park.
The Cannons, Cobras and Alliance entered the league in 200405 seasons, ushering in the first official Niagara District championship in 2005. The Alliance and Fantoms dominated the league for several years, even with the Thorns forming in 2006 from defect Chiefs’ players.
By 2012, the league bolstered nine teams, region wide.
The teams and players were in the limelight, with coverage from wall to wall and engaging rivalries already in place.
Over the years, many teams have come and gone. The Thorold Mariners and Welland Pirates are examples of teams that could not be sustained under the pressures of the league.
“I think if we talk about longevity, I think you can’t be around this long if you’re not doing it right. It would have collapsed as we’ve seen many other times,” Mazzei said.
“I think we’ve had a lot of ups and we’ve had some downs. When these new teams branched off, in those couple cases, it was a good thing for the league. To create eight or nine teams, which the league needed.”
In 2018, the league will enter an entirely new era of establishment. Twenty-five years of baseball for the likes of the Chiefs, Fantoms, Sprackett and Mazzei seemed unreachable at one point. Next season should take a big swing towards their goal of bringing up attendance, with the playoffs giving us hope for the next half century of Niagara baseball.