By Dave Warner
In 1983, the Utica Blue Sox won a thrilling NY-Penn League championship. They were the last professional team to win a title in their league. Jim Gattis managed the team, and they had managed to beat the Little Falls Mets by .5 games in a tight Eastern Division race. The team went on to beat the Newark Orioles two games to one in a best-of-three championship series.
Following that wild ride to the title, Team President Roger Kahn, author of the highly-regarded “The Boys of Summer,” about the Brooklyn Dodgers, wrote about the Blue Sox season in another book called “Good Enough to Dream.”
Joanne Gerace, a Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame inductee, served as the team’s general manager and visited the field with Gattis and other team members last Friday. Along with the group was filmmaker Brad Weatherly, who is working on a feature film based on that season.
Scott Kinville interviewed key team members, who shared their memories about the season and about playing at Vets Field against the Little Falls Mets. You can watch the YouTube video by clicking here or watch it inserted below the photos.
