Chronicle of a Collapse Fortetold
October 24, 2021
Life’s Important Connections
October 25, 2021
League of Their Own
Donnie Moorhouse ’87 leans into the old adage of “if you build it, they will come”
BY SETH DUSSAULT ’11, MEd ’15
Chris Thompson (left) and Donnie Moorhouse '87, co-owners of the Westfield Starfires. Photo credit: Don Treeger / The Republican
DONNIE MOORHOUSE IS A BASEBALL GUY.
To many Yellow Jackets fans, that sentence seems to indicate the wrong sport. After all, the class of ’87 graduate was a goalkeeper on the ice hockey team and later an assistant coach, and he still serves as the play-by-play voice of the hockey squad at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he accurately predicted the Minutemen winning the 2021 NCAA National Championship.
But Moorhouse is a baseball guy. The whole family are baseball people, in fact. So, it should come as no surprise that, among the myriad of companies and tasks Moorhouse is involved in, ownership of a baseball team is one of them.
“I looked into the Futures League when Evan was playing college baseball, not in terms of ownership, just as a place for him to play summer ball. That’s when I first noticed there was a hole in the league footprint—they were all over New England but not in Western Mass. That’s when I first thought about Westfield (MA) as a potential franchise,” Moorhouse said.
That circumstance—trying to find his son a place to play—led to the idea. However, the idea did not become a plan until Moorhouse had a conversation with Chris Thompson.
“The idea really came to fruition when Chris Thompson came into the picture. He and I worked together in minor league hockey and would often talk about ownership and creating our own thing. When he decided it was time to make that leap of faith we came up with a plan, targeted the FCBL, and convinced them that Westfield was a great place for an expansion franchise.”
The Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL), a wood bat collegiate summer league where current college baseball players have a chance to get extra playing experience and be scouted by pro organizations, is one of a handful of notable leagues in the New England area. Though not as historic as the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL), it has had significant success in building its own brand of family friendly summer fun.
Starfires Head Coach Tony Deshler, pictured second from right. Photo credit: Evan Moorhouse
Andrew Ciacciarelli ’20, one of four Yellow Jackets on the inaugural roster, connected on the franchise’s first hit in its debut against the Pittsfield Suns in front of a crowd of 1,496. Photo credit: The Westfield News
Likewise, the City of Westfield has a rich baseball history, and the vision was an easy sell—filling a hole between Pittsfield and Worcester on the map and replacing the Martha’s Vineyard franchise that had jumped ship for the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). Historic Billy Bullens Field, located at Westfield Technical Academy, had hosted the Babe Ruth World Series in years past and could more than adequately handle college-caliber play.
We came up with a plan, targeted the FCBL, and convinced them that Westfield was a great place for an expansion franchise.
The name followed easily as well, relating to the nearby Barnes Air National Guard Base and the fighter jets often seen flying above the city. Even the team’s chosen victory song— “The Whole of the Moon” by The Waterboys—reflected the high-flying spirit of the Whip City.
The league agreed, and the Westfield Starfires were officially born on February 20, 2019. That meant the duo, along with Evan Moorhouse, had three months to pull together a roster, hire a staff, obtain sponsorships, and more—a process that generally takes a full year.
“It took bold statements and blind faith. We just kept moving forward. We started putting together a roster before we officially had a franchise. We landed a franchise before we had a lease for a field. There were speed bumps but no roadblocks. The City of Westfield is a great place to do business and we had tremendous support from City Hall,” Moorhouse said, adding, “The partnership works because Chris and I understand our roles and those roles reflect specific skill sets. He is the front of the house—handling corporate sponsorships, client relations, fan experiences, etc. I am back of the house—really working on the operations of the business, the nuts and bolts of how we get an event off the ground.”
Sure enough, at Bullens Field on May 31, 2019, there was FCBL baseball. Andrew Ciacciarelli ’20, one of four Yellow Jackets on the inaugural roster, connected on the franchise’s first hit in its debut against the Pittsfield Suns in front of a crowd of 1,496. Four days later, the squad earned its first victory, downing the Suns 7-4.
Though the team’s 15-41 record reflected the growing pains of a rookie franchise, the groundwork was laid for success. After all, the team would be on the same footing as everyone else, with a full offseason for the first time.
Then, the world stopped.
It took bold statements and blind faith. We just kept moving forward.
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC shut down just about everything in March of 2020, and sports were no exception. Even as understanding of the situation increased and numbers decreased, the CCBL, NECBL, and other leagues shut down for the season. However, the FCBL waited, hoping to work out a way to play
Then, on June 22, 2020, it was decided: play ball. A thirty-nine-game slate with six teams was set, the Starfires among them.
“As a league we decided that with or without fans we were going to try and play baseball. We developed strict protocols for being at the ballpark that started from the parking lot (staggered parking) and continued into the ballpark. We treated all the surfaces in the ballpark before home games, had a sociallydistanced seating plan, and asked fans to wear masks whenever they weren’t seated. We took the temperature of every player before they were allowed in for home games and before they got on the bus to get on the road. This was before vaccines or wide-spread testing. We got through the season without anyone being impacted by COVID,” Moorhouse noted.
Indeed, the team played all thirty-nine games, including an appearance on NESN, without so much as a single positive test result. Players from near and far dazzled, perhaps none more so than University of Connecticut pitcher/first baseman Reggie Crawford, named the league’s top pro pitching prospect. The franchise also introduced its first mascot: Stella Starfire, a female fighter pilot, an idea Moorhouse credits to his daughter and to his and Thompson’s wish to ensure the franchise could connect with girls as much as boys.
Still, uncertainties remained. With the impacts of the pandemic not waning as the calendar flipped to 2021, questions about capacity and safety limitations were unanswered right up through the start of the season, when the team was given the go-ahead to open the gates at 100 percent capacity.
Starfies outfielder and Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL) 2021 Most Valuable Player Cole Bartels. Photo credit: Peter Camyre
WITH THE FULL FORCE of the city behind them, the Starfires had their best successes in the young franchise’s existence, on and off the field. Events and the lengthened sixty-eight-game season meant taking in record crowds as individual fans and local businesses lined up to partake in the fun. The team introduced a second mascot, Stanley Starfire, a black squirrel reminiscent of those commonly found in the city’s Stanley Park, underlying the connection to Westfield’s day-to-day life. Fireworks nights in particular drew huge crowds.
On the field, Cole Bartels of Penn State University won the FCBL Home Run Derby and then league MVP with a .510 on-base percentage and Roland Thivierge of Mitchell College tossed the league’s only no-hitter of 2021—the franchise’s first—on the final day of the regular season, where the Starfires heartbreakingly missed the playoffs by a game when Worcester beat Nashua later that evening.
Moorhouse credits his son, Evan, the former director of hockey operations at AIC, with much of the success of the franchise.
“Evan does everything. Chris and I often talk about the fact that we don’t ever have to worry about baseball operations because Evan has developed and executed that part of the business flawlessly for three years, from travel, to uniforms, to the administration end of player signings, to dealing with the umpires and the league. Honestly, he does it so well that we don’t really know what he does. We just know that the baseball side of things is being handled. It really allows us to focus on the business side of things,” Moorhouse said.
That business side includes a myriad of corporate partnerships, including Westfield Bank, Westfield Gas and Electric and Whip City Fiber, and countless other businesses in Westfield and beyond. It also includes Starfire IPA.
The team-branded beer, a partnership with Amherst Brewing, has proven to be popular, and fans of it often ask for it at The Hangar in Westfield even in the offseason. The light, hoppy brew with a hit of lemongrass matches home runs for the most popular thing at the park during the season. Not only is it a unique item in the FCBL—the Starfires are the only team with their own branded beer—even the can itself is a keepsake, adorned in the franchise’s sky blue color and logo.
“We approached Amherst Brewing Company with the concept and they liked the idea. They came up with a recipe and it just progressed from there. It continues to be the best-selling item at the ballpark,” Moorhouse noted.
With all the experiences of three years in their pockets, the future is bright for the young franchise, and Moorhouse knows it. His idea is bearing baseball-shaped fruit in mass quantities.
“I think the last three years has really confirmed what we already knew—Westfield is a great baseball town, group sales is what drives attendance, and people love to have a hot dog and a beer when watching a ball game,” he said.
