American Association SUNDAY Insider: BITT
Before we get to the topic of the Insider, I want to apologize to those who read the nightly recaps. I've been laid up with gout and dehydration this week. I haven't been able to muster up the energy to do the work involved with getting the recaps out in a timely manner. I'll be back with them after the All Star Break.
Yesterday afternoon I came across the news that legendary Independent Baseball pitcher, coach, and scout Jeff Bittiger lost his battle with Cancer at the age of 63. I knew that Bittiger had Cancer a few years back, but didn't know what the severity of it was. The last time I talked to him was in September of 2020. At the time Bittiger in what was a lost year for Minor League Baseball, was doing color commentary for the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. I can imagine it was an outlet for Bittiger without having players to scout in any other league but the American Association, playing a truncated 50 game schedule. Bill Tyler and I spoke to Bittiger after a game. He was wondering if the Saints were going to go AAA. I guess either he knew something Tyler and I didn't or just had a real good hunch, like great scouts tend to have.
The first memory of Bittiger was when he was a pitcher on the 1987 Minnesota Twins World Series team. For a team that would win a World Series, the Twins outside of Frank Viola, Bert Blyleven and to an extent Les Straker lacked quality starting pitching. Guys way on the back nine of their careers were given a chance in the rotation such as Steve Carlton and Joe Niekro both in their 40's.
Bittiger was given one start in his Twins career, on September 7th at Comiskey Park versus the Chicago White Sox. Bittiger threw seven innings allowing one run on six hits walking nobody and striking out five. He allowed a home run, but it was to Harold Baines, one of 384 hit by the future Hall of Famer.
I never understood why there was never another start for Bittiger considering the state of the rotation. Bittiger made two other appearances for the Twins out of the bullpen, something that wasn't in his pitching DNA. The Twins chose Niekro and his 6.26 ERA for the post season roster. More about Bittiger and Niekro later.
Bittiger went on to pitch in Chicago in 1988 making 25 appearances. Bittiger threw two games in 1989 in his last taste of Major League Baseball. But it was far from the end for his pitching career that would end up spanning 22 seasons until he too hit the age of 40.
In 1993 the Northern League set up shop. With teams nearby in Rochester and St. Paul, I had a choice to make as a fan. I chose to be a St. Paul fan as I had fallen in love with the Twin Cities and with what the Saints had going on, I had to be part of it. So there I was on a June Friday night in Rochester, my first time going there that didn't involve "cruising Broadway Avenue", at Mayo Park ready to watch my new favorite team on the road taking on the Rochester Aces. Mayo Park was a pillbox even for Independent Baseball at that time. So high scores were not out of the ordinary. As I settled into my front row seat, I look at the lineups and see that Jeff Bittiger, yes that Jeff Bittiger that I felt like never got a fair shot with the Twins, was starting for the Aces that night. How would the Saints have a chance? Well, it was a night that didn't see a box score go in the Bittiger scrapbook as the Saints used the small dimensions and shaky defense around Bittiger to put up 9 runs in an inning to knock him out of the game. How could that be, I wondered?
Well, it was an aberration and Bittiger helped the Aces pass up the Saints and win the first half championship under the leadership of Doug Simunic. It earned Bittiger a look with AA Memphis, at that time a Royals affiliate. But Bittiger insisted as part of the deal that he'd return to Rochester to pitch in the playoffs. His start came in Game Three. Amid a pregame show that caused the game to be delayed by nearly half an hour, it threw Bittiger off his routine and allowed the Saints to score three runs in the first inning. From there, Bittiger shut the door, keeping the Aces in the game but in another story that night, Don Heinkel who also had pitched in the Majors at the same time as Bittiger was throwing his last game ever and made it count, shutting down Rochester. I was too into the Saints winning and chugging Pig's Eye Beer to realize that I was watching two warriors battling on the mound.
Bittiger moved on to Winnipeg with Simunic and some parts of the Aces as the Goldeyes were considered an expansion team, but they were basically a replacement for Rochester who had failed miserably to draw fans, just 90 minutes south of St. Paul where they had to turn fans away.
Bittiger got his first championship ring with the Goldeyes in 1994. After a so so first half, Simunic rebuilt the Goldeyes. The Goldeyes ran away with the second half title and then defeated Sioux City to win the 1994 championship. The Goldeyes were back in the Championship Series in 1995 but succumbed to St. Paul in a series in which the Goldeyes split in St. Paul but lost both games in Winnipeg. Winnipeg Stadium was also an unfriendly place to pitch as there was a short distance to the left field wall due to doubling as a football stadium. But Bittiger won 17 games total in his two seasons in Winnipeg, pretty impressive when you consider there wasn't a 100 game season like there is today. The Goldeyes played 70-75 games a season.
In a move that gave instant credibility to an expansion team, Bittiger and Simunic joined the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks for their Inaugural season in 1996. Bittiger was dominant in his first season with the RedHawks only losing one game while winning nine in 17 starts. The RedHawks made the playoffs after winning the second half. After beating their new regional rival Winnipeg in the first round, the RedHawks were stopped by the Saints in the Championship Series. This surprised me as the RedHawks were the superior team in the second half of the season head to head. Down 2-0 in the series, the RedHawks returned home for the rest of the series. It was Bittiger versus St. Paul's Jeff Alkire in game three. It was a classic pitching duel between the wily vet Bittiger and the 26 year old Alkire that was documented on the FX series Baseball Minnesota. Who knows how the game would've ended if a pop up by Joe Biernat did not get lost in the lights and didn't land for a double that led to the winning run.
It was just a prelude to what would become a tradition of winning in Fargo-Moorhead. The first championship came in 1998 with a team that was arguably one of the best ever in Independent Baseball. Bittiger won 12 of his 16 starts with a 1.94 ERA. They gained revenge on St. Paul, sweeping the Saints in dominant fashion in three games.
My first interaction with Bittiger and Simunic came in 2000 outside Wade Stadium in Duluth. The RedHawks were facing Duluth Superior for the chance to face the Northeast League Champion for the Northern League Championship. I made the trip up for the game wearing a Saints cap and Dukes shirt. Simunic stopped me and we all had a real nice conversation. It blew me away that an hour away from a playoff game, they would stop what they were doing to talk to a fan.
In 2000, Baseball Almanac named Bittiger as its Indpendent Baseball Player of the decade. Bittiger's active career wound down in 2001-2 as he started 14 games combined in his last two seasons.
Around this time, the first wave of social media, discussion forums, message boards, whatever you want to call them were becoming the thing. The discussion forums at nlfan.com, a fan website operated by Tyler became the place for fans, players and executives throughout the league to discuss topics pertinent to the league. Bittiger was a contributor and when he posted under a user name that was simply "Bit", you knew it was his post as he always posted in capital letters, you read it and learned. I would be amused when you would see regular fans try to dispute what Bittiger was saying, not realizing exactly who he was.
Then in 2004, I made my first trip to Fargo. In a meetup organized by Buchholz, I believe he was an assistant GM at the time? I got to meet up with Bittiger and Simunic at a Buffalo Wild Wings along with Tyler. I think I threw Bitt for a curve knowing that he pitched for the Twins in 1987. He told me that night he knew his days with the Twins were numbered when Dick Such told him to trail Joe Niekro and watch how he went about throwing his bullpen between starts. He said when they wanted him to emulate a knuckleballer, that was a sign. I was bold enough to bring up the game I saw in Rochester, Bittiger looks over at Simunic and asked him why he left him out there that long. We also talked pitch counts as the starting pitcher that night for the RedHawks, Mike Peschel threw around 130-140 pitches. Bittiger and Simunic flew in the face of modern thinking that pitch counts do not matter as long as the pitcher is feeling well. Simunic left a little early that night, ordering Bittiger to pay his tab, but the time spent at that table on a late night at a Buffalo Wild Wings talking baseball will always be one of my favorite all time baseball memories.
Bittiger remained involved with the RedHawks the rest of his career whether it be as a pitching coach and consultant. Meanwhile scouting for the Oakland Athletics. Bittiger had a hand in some way or another in all six of Fargo-Moorhead league championship to go along with 15 division titles. Can you imagine all the players throughout the years that Bittiger either got signed for the RedHawks or the Athletics. His finger print on Independent Baseball cannot possibly be measured.
As a tribute to Bittiger, today's AA Insider Power Rankings will be entirely in capital letters.
1. SIOUX CITY EXPLORERS 48
2. LAKE COUNTRY DOCKHOUNDS 44
3. SIOUX FALLS CANARIES 44
4. CHICAGO DOGS 43
5. KANSAS CITY MONARCHS 42
6. FARGO-MOORHEAD REDHAWKS 40
7. CLEBURNE RAILROADERS 38
8. KANE COUNTY COUGARS 32
9. LINCOLN SALTDOGS 30
10. MILWAUKEE MILKMEN 28
11. WINNIPEG GOLDEYES 26
12. GARY SOUTHSHORE RAILCATS 24
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