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Mike Scandura Pawtucket, R.I. - Pawtucket Red Sox owner Ben Mondor never professed to be a baseball fan. “I was an average sports fan … maybe I’d go to Boston a couple of times a year to see the Red Sox,” recalled Mondor. “You had a better chance to find me at the (Rhode Island) Philharmonic than at a ballpark.” That was 28 years ago. Now at age 79, the only minor league owner ever to be inducted into Boston’s Hall of Fame, the first so honored by a major club, is completely divesting himself of daily responsibilities. In this final year, the PawSox hosted the Triple-A All-Star Game. Under his watch, the team will have drawn nearly 11 million fans. Mondor has accomplished a great deal, considering the ravages of ill health have been dogging him for more than sixteen years. In 1988 he suffered a heart attack. Six years later he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. During that operation his prostate burst. A year ago he was diagnosed with cancer that has led to daily radiation treatments. It is this last battle that has slowed Ben down, and allowed Mondor to entertain his second retirement. Right Man for the JobA native of Woonsocket, R.I., Ben Mondor thought that he had retired at age 50. He made his money buying and restoring bankrupt businesses. “If you come from the poor people like I came from, and my father, you worked,” said Mondor. “And you tried to work harder. You weren’t a martyr. You just worked to get better to improve your standard. These were normal things for everybody. Today, it’s a non-working society.” Green Acres is the Place for Me…What became a dream began as a nightmare: Mondor purchased the bankrupt Pawtucket franchise on January 28, 1977, the tail end of one of the worst historic lows in the business of minor league baseball. Mondor and the man hired to serve as president of the franchise, Mike Tamburro, worked to turn around a club and a facility that were in complete disrepair. “We came here on a cold, gray, wet day and all we had was a set of keys,” said Mondor. “I saw frozen chicken bones in a concession stand and I asked ‘What did I get myself into?’ “Our office during the first three years was the one the umpires (eventually) used. The storage room for baseballs was a shower stall. In order to turn on the electricity for the photocopier, we had to turn on the scoreboard because of the crazy way the place was wired. “Some time in his life, every businessman knows he’s going to pull a boner, and I thought this was the one for me.” Two people worked hard to persuade Mondor to buy the PawSox: The late Chet Nichols, a retired banker who pitched for the Boston Braves, and the late Haywood Sullivan, then Boston’s general manager. “Chet was the head of the search committee and he really banged my head while explaining Triple-A baseball,” said Mondor. “He said it would be tremendous for the city and state if I were to get involved and help save the team. "After he took me to meet Haywood it was the beginning of the hard sell.” The hardest selling point: Erasing Pawtucket’s debt. Sorting Out The WreckageThe team had enough red ink to float the Titanic: The franchise was $2 million in debt in 1977. To go along with the crushing debt, the club had a negative reputation and an ancient facility located in a less-than-desirable part of town. McCoy Stadium was built from 1938 to 42 on what was then a swamp. “Since 1977 was an expansion year in major league baseball, I was told the timing was right,” said Mondor. “Eventually, I wrote a check to take care of certain expenses to get a new franchise, because I wanted a new, clean franchise. “A lot of people said they were going to sue me. Nobody did. But the biggest problem we encountered was that nobody wanted to do business with us because the reputation here was so bad. It was a new owner but it was still baseball out of McCoy.” C.O.D. BaseballAs a result, everything that was purchased had to be C.O.D., even the baseballs. Headaches like this were comparable to the ones Mondor and Tamburro received while listening to "experts" decree they couldn't operate a successful minor league franchise in the shadow of the Boston Red Sox, their major league affiliate which televised its games. The International League ‘encouraged’ Mondor to move the franchise to another city in each of its first two years in Pawtucket. "We started keeping a chart," recalled Mondor. "After three years, (we found) when Boston was playing the Yankees at home on television, that's when we drew the best." Turning A New CornerMondor also began to subscribe to the new drumbeat that would, in twenty years, completely revamp the minor leagues: A major league experience at a minor league park. “The philosophy we adopted was we wanted to build a fandom,” said Mondor. “We were going to treat them to the best baseball possible … no cheerleaders, no cow milking contests, no jalopy nights. We were going to show the fans our philosophy of a clean baseball game under the best circumstances you can have. The Pawsox even took the concept further than most minor league businesses, which still rely heavily on pyrotechnics, gimmicks and giveaways. “That first night, we threw everything away. We’ve never had a promotion on the field. We never had a doubt about deviating from our standard.” Pawtucket’s “standard” included a number of reforms to bring in more families:
“I’m from the old school, but we always wanted McCoy to be a place for kids and families,” said Mondor. “The first day (in 1977) we evicted 113 people. The majority was from two busloads that had come to see a particular player and they had ‘celebrated’ on the way down.” Rough crowds and baseball die-hards had been the stock and trade of the minor leagues for more than two decades. The minors had lost the larger local family audiences of pre-television baseball. Slim business prospects in the 1960’s and early 70’s had many stadiums aging and few new ones on the horizon. Through the tube and the local media’s fixation on big city franchises fans had drifted away from the “home town” team. The sport at the minor league level had an image problem that Mondor and other new owners had to face head-on. “We knew we were going to lose a lot of money for at least the first three years,” said Mondor. “But we agreed to a philosophy that we were going to build a fan base. Pawtucket: Where the Blues are a Good Thing“The blue seats are still $4 after 28 years. They got us here, these people. We’ll never leave them. We had the patience to do it even though it wasn’t funny to sit here and see 390 people show up.” Ten years ago, Mondor entertained stepping back, but the goal of renovating McCoy Stadium lured him back. “Why should I have quit? Mike (Tamburro) and I already had started discussions about pushing heavy to get the stadium renovated. At that time, I wanted to see it finished.” During the 1998-99 off season, McCoy underwent a $17 million renovation and expansion project that transformed it into one of the gems of the International League. Would Mondor’s philosophy show up in the way current and future minor league teams run their business? Ben says no. “What applies here wouldn’t apply somewhere else,” he said. “We’re independent. Take Syracuse and Rochester, for example. Both have over 7,500 stockholders. If you have partners and stockholders, they’re not going to sit around and wait to make money.” “God bless I was in no position to need the money and Mike was a master at handling it. That’s how you convert an operation to the philosophy we had.” Ever the humble businessman, Mondor is too modest:Many of his improvements to the business of minor league baseball have formed a guide for other owners. His low-gimmick, high-quality brand of the American pastime’s small-town edition broke the ice in the Northeast for the next generation of stadiums, team owners, and most important, fans. Many of the businesses that Ben Mondor turned around will be long forgotten. His retirement project is a gift to the warm Rhode Island summer nights: The crack of bats lobbing white spheres into the bug-laden lights of the outfield; Kids shouting and juggling hot dogs and gloves as a foul ball sails into their section; Baseball die-hards checking out the next Red Sox phenom with their stat charts and rotisserie league fact sheets; and families just out for an evening of fun. Mondor did more than salvage a flagging sports operation. He created a Rhode Island instution that will remember him for generations to come.
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