Salt Lake Trappers' championship still celebrated

SALT LAKE CITY — Twenty years ago this month, the Salt Lake Trappers won the last of its four Pioneer League championships.

A year later, it was announced that Triple A baseball — after a 10-year absence — would return to the city for the 1994 season, so 1992 was the final year for the rookie-league Trappers, who eventually lost in the league championship.

As a boy I watched Dick Stuart hit home runs into the left-field darkness. I even saw Willie Mays hit a 450-foot home run to dead center.

For me, the nostagia started around 1985 when Jack Donovan walked into my law firm and, even before the team had players, I was part of the Trappers.

Donovan was the genius behind the Trappers’ organization. He had pitched for Seton Hall and in the minors where he threw a knuckle curve that froze hitters. He was charming, outgoing, smart and full of energy.

Donovan enticed owners, secured the Salt Lake territory and evenually the franchise. Arte Moreno, current owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, was among those owners.

To find players, Donovan recruited Van Schley, who had developed a vast network of college and professional players. Schley was an amazing scout and craftsman of baseball lineups.

It seemed to me right from the start that Schley had a charmed life. He lived in Malibu and his best friend was Bill Murray. He had a stunning wife and beautiful daughter. As if that were not enough, he was really good at what he did. So good that the Trappers won and won. In 1987 the team ran off a 29-game winning streak that put The Salt Lake Trappers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

We know it’s always fun to win, but for the Trappers, how and with whom they won was most of the fun. The players were marvelously talented, but they were baseball outsiders.

They really did play for the love of the game, making ridiculously small salaries and riding seedy busses into Canada. In 1990, one of the pitchers was a nuclear physicist in real life and drove over from Los Alamos, N.M., for the summer.

Willie Ambos, Benny Castillo, Eddie Ortega, Will Smith, Dave Marcon David Rolls and Rick Hirtensteiner are only a few of the names fans will remember from that year.