You Never Know
To commemorate our 30th anniversary season, Ron Arnst spoke with several key figures from our past and created multimedia articles which first appeared in the Goldeyes Digital Magazine throughout the 2023 season. For those who may have missed those articles, we will be reposting them here on Goldeyes.com. Enjoy!
By Ron Arnst
With a wildly successful first game behind them, things looked pretty rosy for the 1994 Winnipeg Goldeyes team.
But baseball has a way of bringing you back to earth and the Goldeyes landed with a resounding thump.
The Goldeyes finished the first half of the 80-game season well back of the first place Sioux City. The Explorers won 27 of their first 40 and secured a spot in the Northern League Championship series.
The Goldeyes won only 16 games while losing 24. They faced a huge comeback challenge if they wanted to earn a playoff spot.
Manager Doug Simunic, who would go on to earn a reputation as an excellent judge of baseball talent as well as an unparalleled architect of winning teams, made a shrewd move very early in the season. He acquired a player he knew from his previous job in Rochester, outfielder Steve Dailey.
The 24-year-old had played well for Simunic’s Aces but ended up in Duluth after a dispersal draft. Dailey and Duluth did not fit well, Steve hit a meagre .129 over the first 10 games of the season. As Dailey told the Winnipeg Free Press:
“I couldn’t hit my way out of a wet paper bag with Duluth, but I told (Simunic) ‘I’ve always hit. I’m going to hit,’ but for it to happen that quickly —like immediately, the first game — I was all of a sudden feeling good and the rest is history.”
History indeed.
Dailey hit .340 for the Goldeyes and led the club with 14 homers. Dailey’s resurgence was a significant factor in the Goldeyes’ second half turnaround.
Simunic also went to work over the short break between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second 40-game mini-season. His two most prominent and impactful acquisitions were a pair of veteran players: Pete Coachman and Jim Wilson.
Coachman was a career .281 hitter in the minor leagues, most of it at the Triple A level.
Wilson was a power hitter was experience in the high minors where he hit over 100 homers.
Both were pivotal pieces in the rebuild.
Darryl Brinkley topped the team with 44 RBI while hitting a strong .293.
The Goldeyes were strong up the middle. Shortstop Mike Hankins was a .320 hitter and second baseman Dave Lowery checked in at .284. Together, Hankins and Lowery totaled 98 double plays.
Simunic also credited his catcher, Dann Bilardello, with being a driving force in the second half comeback.
Darryl Brinkley topped the team with 44 RBI while hitting a strong .293.
The Goldeyes were strong up the middle. Shortstop Mike Hankins was a .320 hitter and second baseman Dave Lowery checked in at .284. Together, Hankins and Lowery totaled 98 double plays.
Simunic also credited his catcher, Dann Bilardello, with being a driving force in the second half comeback.
On the mound, former major leaguer Jeff Bittiger was the team’s best starting pitcher, finishing with a 9-4 record and a 3.05 ERA in 14 starts. Bittiger pitched 85 2/3 innings in 1994, allowing just 70 hits, only 3 homeruns and striking out 100 opposing batters.
Mark Futrell and Jack Jones were the next best hurlers on the staff. Both performed double duty, starting and relieving. Futrell appeared in 20 games, 12 of them as a starter. He posted an 8-5 record and a 3.30 ERA. Jones got into 24 games including 9 starts. He won 6, lost 5 and pitched to a team best 3.03 ERA.
Remarkably, the Goldeyes made their second half Championship run without the man who may have been their best pitcher. Opening Day starter Tim Cain dominated Northern League opponents, winning 5 of his 6 starts with a stingy 2.30 ERA. Cain was so good that the Boston Red Sox wasted no time in buying his contract and assigning him to their Double A New Britain farm team.
As the second half of the 1994 season began, it quickly became apparent that the Goldeyes were a team to be reckoned with. They had what every Championship team has - strength up the middle, a strong veteran core and an ample supply of talented younger players.
They rolled through the second half, winning 27 games and finishing first. That meant a berth in the Northern League’s best of five final series. Their opponents would be first half winners Sioux City.
The Explorers were almost as good in the second half as they were in the first, winning another 25 games and ending the season with as 11-game hit streak. Even the most ardent of the 212,571 fans the Goldeyes drew in 1994 had to admit their team was the underdog in this fight.
The Goldeyes defied the experts form charts, and shocked the Explorers, by winning the first game 5-3 on Darryl Brinkley’s 2 out, 2 run double in the top of the 8th. They put an exclamation point on the series with a resounding 16-1 win in game two.
The Explorers showed their mettle and denied the Goldeyes a sweep with a 6-3 win in Winnipeg, setting the stage for a pivotal game the next night.
Game four welcomed 7,379 fans, many hoping for a Goldeyes triumph that had seemed improbable just a few days earlier. Dann Bilardello, the former Montreal Expo who was a big contributor to the Opening Day win, ensured the fans would go home happy with a grand slam homer in the 4th inning.
September 9th, 1994, was red-circled as the date of the Winnipeg Goldeyes first Championship.
The Championship was completely unexpected by the Goldeyes organization. General Manager John Hindle called it “almost too much” after the wildly successful first season.
Owner Sam Katz said it defied pro sports logic that dictated new franchises invariably had to suffer through difficult times before grabbing the brass ring.
The post-game scene was what we normally expect a Championship celebration to be. Back slapping, unconstrained joy and smiles big enough to fill the ballpark. On the field, in the midst of the happy mayhem, Bilardello found Goldeyes’ owner Sam Katz.
“Enjoy this Sam. Enjoy it all. You never know when it will happen again.”
The well-meaning Goldeyes’ star had no idea how right he would be.
It would be 18 years before the Goldeyes would hoist a Championship trophy again.
[Editor's note: The author was standing next to Bilardello and Katz as this exchange happened back in 1994]
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Blue Cross Park is located on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. We respect the Treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.