For 26 seasons, from 1970-1995, the Green Bay Blue Ribbons called Joannes Stadium home, but in 1996, fans in Northeastern Wisconsin were treated to a different brand of baseball, when the Green Bay Sultans brought professional baseball back to the area for one memorable summer.
Coming off of back-to-back Wisconsin State League Championships in 1994 and 1995, Blue Ribbons’ President Denny Ruh felt the team had done as much as they could do at that time in the WSL, and looking for a bigger challenge, the team signed on to move from the semi-pro to professional ranks, joining the independent Prairie League for the ’96 season.
After a name-the-team contest that received over 200 submissions, the name Sultans was selected as the winner, and pro ball was back at Joannes for the first time since the Green Bay Blue Jays franchise folded in 1960.
Playing in the independent Prairie League, the Sultans roster featured a pair of players with big league resumes; former Twins third baseman Terry Jorgensen and ex-Rangers, Cubs and Twins pitcher Mike Mason.
The team also added several other players with minor league experience, including former Milwaukee Brewers farmhands Chad Kopitzke and Terry Rosenkranz, with plenty of familiar Blue Ribbons names like Troy Cota, Dan Miller, Cory Schaefer, Dan Zeratsky and more, sprinkled throughout the roster.
The Sultans acquired former Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander Curry Duetch with their first-round draft pick, but it was a former Ribbon, Cota, who got the start for the Sultans on Opening Night.
The season started on a high note, when the Sultans defeated the Brainerd Bobcats 5-3, behind 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball from Cota, and home runs from Zeratsky and center fielder Augie Gonzalez, but the mood was dampened slightly when only about 400 fans showed up for the opener.
The cold and dreary conditions kept many fans away, and would prove to be an omen of things to come, as the Sultans were often plagued by bad weather early on, which certainly didn’t help attendance.
Scheduled to play 80 games over 99 days in their inaugural season, the Sultans wound up playing just 64 due to rainouts, and the folding of the Brainerd franchise just 16 games into the season.
On the field, things were a challenge for the team as well, as they finished the season with an overall record of just 18-46.
There were some bright spots, however.
Tom Smith, a switch-hitting outfielder, who was a former 7th-round pick of the Kansas City Royals and played just down the road with the Appleton Foxes in 1991, proved to be a dominant force at the plate, slugging a team-high 18 home runs and finishing the year with an OPS of 1.058.
Jorgensen, a former D3 Player of the Year at UW-Oshkosh, gave the fans a first-hand look at what an ex-big leaguer could do, hitting .402 with three homers in 27 games.
Al Quintana, another former Pirates prospect, started 74 games as the team’s shortstop and recorded a club-best 88 hits, while speedy outfielder Ramon Vega, a former Giants minor leaguer out of Venezuela, swiped a team-high 14 bases.
Despite the increased talent on the field, the Sultans wound up averaging only about 500 fans per game, about 25% capacity, falling well-shy of the 1000-1500 per night that Ruh was anticipating.
With a $75,000 franchise fee, expansions to Joannes Stadium that included close to 1000 new seats, and a salary cap of $57,500 with player salaries averaging $600-$900/month per player, the Sultans found themselves struggling to survive in the Prairie League.
Road trips were especially tough for the Green Bay squad.
With teams located in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Canada, the bus rides could be grueling. The 21-hour ride to Saskatoon was by far the worst, but with many players being allowed to only play part-time, the Sultans had difficulties just fielding a roster for road games, sending only 12 players on one road trip, and 14 for another.
When Prairie League franchise fees doubled for the 1997 season, the writing was on the wall for the struggling Sultans,
Ruh, who worked tirelessly, displaying his love for the game of baseball and the Green Bay community, while serving as the team’s President, GM and Manager, did everything he could to keep the franchise going.
But in November of 1996 the bad news came, as the team had their franchise revoked by the Prairie League, due to their inability to pay their league fees amidst mounting debt.
Prairie League President Dave Ferguson said in a statement that the Sultans were “simply under-capitalized and under-staffed,” adding “One person can not do it alone.”
The Sultans took one more swing at pro ball, announcing in January that they would be joining the independent Heartland League in 1997, but reversed course in April, opting instead to return to their semi-pro roots.
They played one last season at Joannes as the Sultans in 1997, before returning to the Wisconsin State League as the Green Bay Billy’s in 1998, and to this day, remain the last professional baseball franchise to have played in Green Bay.