ARIZONA-MEXICO LEAGUE 2003

In 2001, Bob Lipp, a business owner from Wichita, Kansas, contacted long-time baseball executive Dick King. Lipp had worked several times in the 70’s and 80’s under King in the Wichita front office. King, along with Norb Ecksl recently founded the All-American Association, an independent baseball league that began play that summer. Lipp, met King and Ecksl in person, and it was agreed that Lipp would begin looking for a new community that could host a team in the AAA the following summer. Immediately, Lipp with King and Ecksl toured the ballpark in Ft. Worth and then, Lipp continued on to Victoria and Del Rio in Texas, and west to evaluate more communities and meet with city officials.

Dick King was 13 when he started as a concessionaire in Fairbury of the old Nebraska State League. His brother George and him went on to own several teams, Fairbury and Beatrice in that league and also purchased the Atlanta Crackers in the Southern Association in the 50’s. Dick was the front man. His first GM job away from family ownership was when he established the Marion Indians of the Illinois State League in 1947 and ’48. He was a major proponent in returning baseball to Yuma as the Sun Sox of the Arizona-Mexico League.

King was named Sporting News Executive of the Year in ’70. Major League baseball added two expansion teams in 1969 so each team had to expand their minor league system which included two new teams in the AAA American Association. In ’70 baseball returned to Wichita after a 13-year hiatus and King was at the helm. The Cleveland Indians were the parent club. Wichita, with King, led all of the minor leagues in season attendance with 280,000.

It was 1973 when Lipp and King crossed paths for the first time. Lipp worked stadium cleanup as a young teenager in Wichita’s Lawrence Stadium. King moved on to other GM positions across the country while Lipp worked different jobs with the Wichita team off-and-on through the 70’s. It wasn’t until 1985 when the two of them landed together again in the same front office.

AAA baseball lasted in Wichita during this stint through the 1984 season. Robert Rich of Buffalo, New York owned the Bisons AA team of the Eastern League and had wanted a AAA team in Buffalo for a few years. In late-84, the Wichita team owner, Milt Glickman, citing losses on the bottom-line for many years, sold the AAA team to Rich in Buffalo. Pro baseball had left Wichita once again.

At the same time, Lipp scheduled an appointment and met Joe Ryan at the American Association league office in the Petroleum Building in downtown Wichita. Lipp was interested in ownership or wanted to work front office and knew Ryan was to go-to guy. 

Ryan had a long baseball past, and had been GM of the Oklahoma City club and was elected president of the Association several years earlier. After Wichita left for Buffalo, Ryan elected to keep the league office in Wichita. It was a general rule, that normally, a professional league office is located in one of the league member cities. However, Ryan, from Florida, where his family remained, enjoyed living in Wichita.

Ryan persuaded the Association board to let him move the league offices to the Wichita stadium offices, vacated by the AAA team. The league office at the stadium was a good setup. 

Ryan did have an idea for Lipp. Since the pro team was gone and the offices were being utilized at the ballpark why not put together a team to play at the stadium. 

The Hutchinson Broncs had played for many years in the semi-pro Jayhawk League, a premier National Baseball Congress league. Ironically, the NBC was owned by Joe Ryan at that time. One of the premiere NBC leagues was the Jayhawk League wich was founded by Dick King. The Hutchinson Broncs were a member of the Jayhawk League. The ’82 team had Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds on the roster. 

Broncs owner Bob Considine thought it was time to retire from team ownership and at the same time Joe Ryan was looking for a team to put in Wichita.

The Broncs were moved to Wichita, renamed the Broncos and Ryan enlisted Dick King, so he returned to Wichita to help run the new team and NBC at the Wichita stadium offices.

Lipp bought into the Broncos team and was named Executive Vice President. The Broncos placed third in the ’85 NBC World Series. That summer King shared many stories about his career, the places he had been and the things that he had seen. 

One topic that stood out the most was about when King was running the Yuma club in ’55, which finished second with a respectable record of 83-57. He explained how the towns in that league had a really dedicated fan base. It was baseball fever in the southwest. The fever included Tucson and Bisbee with their ballparks, Cananea with the copper mine and big attendance and more. 

At the conclusion of the ’85 season, King asked Lipp to travel to the old baseball league area and poke around and see if there was enough to restart the league of the past. Lipp thought that was a huge undertaking but stayed at the Wichita office and continued working for the Association as president’s assistant.

Fast forward 15 years, Lipp remembered what King had said about baseball in the southwest and while searching for communities and ballparks, Lipp ran across the little known ballpark in Bisbee, Arizona. At the time there was limited information available about Warren Ballpark, which was touted as the oldest ballpark in America. He quickly made a phone call to Bisbee and was directed to Donna Harris, the Bisbee City Tourism Director. The director was excited about the inquiry, said the ballpark still existed and she emailed ballpark photos to Lipp.

Lipp thought the ol’ ballpark photos looked great. Within days he was in the car traveling to Bisbee to meet with the director and tour Warren Ballpark. Lipp was impressed, the ballpark was well kept for being 93 years old. He could feel the history there.

While walking and looking at the ballpark, the director said that the people in Bisbee would love to have a team as in the past. She went on to say that Bisbee was a baseball town,. Bisbee hosted a pro team from the early 1900’s through 1955. Most recently a semi-pro game was played at the ballpark the previous July 4th. It was organized with only several days notice and nearly 1,000 people attended the game.

Back at the hotel that night, Lipp called Dick King with the report that Bisbee showed promise of a good place to have a team, Bisbee is small in size, but Douglas, 25 minutes to the east had a population of nearly 20,000 and Sierra Vista, 25 minutes to the west had population of nearly 100,000 with the army base included. 

During the call King relayed to Lipp that it didn’t look good for the All-American Association. There had been some problems with a couple of their teams and it looks like 2001 would be the only season the AAA would play.

Finding Bisbee was exciting, but the news about the AAA was disappointing. It all weighed heavy on Lipp. He thought about what the tourism director had told him. Was Bisbee a baseball town? Could it support a pro baseball team? Could other teams be created to build a league? There was so much information to digest.

During the next 18 months Lipp traveled to nearly 50 communities on both sides of the border to make presentations and try to enlist local ownership groups to place teams with the new upcoming league.

On Saturday, December 21, 2002, a meeting was held in the Blue Room at the Historic Copper Queen Hotel in Old Bisbee, Representatives of the Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings, Cananea Mineros, Juarez Halcones and Nogales Charros attended. This meeting resulted in the official formation of the Arizona–Mexico League (AZMXL), a league that would fill a void for the rookie year to third year professional player. Team directors were installed as league board directors: John Guy/Bisbee-Douglas; Abe Erdman/Cananea; Alicia Barboza/Juarez; and Shane Folsom/Nogales. The league voted to play 72 games and opening night would be May 30, 2003. 

Early on, many problems plagued the new league. 

The Cananea club could not obtain their state operating papers and tax registration until the day before the season started. This delay put a huge deficit in team revenue. But Opening Night drew 2,801 and that was a big boost in what had been a disappointment since the club started operating.

The accountant for the Cananea club had tried numerous times to get the paperwork needed from Hermosillo, the state capital. That year there was an election in Sonora. One of the governor candidates was from Cananea and the team asked him to travel to the capital to help get the paperwork. By Mexico law, without the proper business paperwork, no revenue can be brought in, which included a baseball game, selling tickets and concessions.

The governor candidate was successful in getting what was needed. He rushed the paperwork back to Cananea and the club started selling tickets and sponsorships about 24 hours before the season’s first pitch.

The Nogales club had many issues too. There were several pre-season games scheduled and one game at War Memorial Stadium in Nogales offered $1 beer night. Attendance for that game was under 100 and the majority owner pulled out. Lipp as league president reported to Nogales, and he summoned Dean Smith, the Cananea general manager to Nogales. Bisbee-Douglas lent two of their sales staff to Nogales to help too.

The Nogales majority owner attempted to back out of the team credit card charge the team had used to pay for training camp hotel rent. Many issues surrounded the team. 

A Bisbee-Douglas minority owner and marketing director David Skinner stepped in to keep the Nogales team running. He infused the team with new money and covered the past bills along with player payroll.

In less than a week, the expanded Nogales front office got the word out even more. The team offered to accept pesos for game admission and concessions and that helped too. Opening Night drew 886 while Tecate edged Nogales 9-8 in a back-and-forth game. Many pesos were spent at the game as expected.

A month prior to the start of the season the Juarez team moved to Tecate, Baja California and became the Tecate Cerveceros. The Juarez home stadium, Estadio Carta Blanca, was to undergo renovations, as agreed between the team and the stadium owner. The renovations had not begun as of 30 days before the beginning of the season, and the league voted to move the team to the next viable city, which was Tecate, BC.

The Bisbee-Douglas team notified the league office the morning of June 17, which was an off-day for each team, and requested an emergency meeting held at the Bisbee-Douglas team office. The meeting was held late-afternoon and directors of each team were present. Each team explained the difficulty of operations since the league inception. Bisbee-Douglas explained they had overdrawn at the bank, the new Nogales shareholder told the meeting they did not want to continue. What hope Bisbee-Douglas had with Skinner helping extend the season, was lost with him helping to bail out the Nogales team during the prior month. 

The directors of the Cananea and Tecate teams said they would try to continue their season. The president of the league, Bob Lipp, called for a vote. Each team voted and it was a 4-0 vote to suspend operations. 

The season lasted nearly three weeks and each team played 16 games. 

The league's highest profile player was former MLB outfielder Chuck Carr who signed with Bisbee-Douglas as a player-coach on May 7. Carr was the Major League stolen base leader in 1993, playing with the Florida Marlins.