| Lancaster Stormers | |
| Founded: | 2003 |
| City: | Lancaster, Pennsylvania |
| Ballpark: | Clipper Magazine Stadium |
| Cap Logo: | Barnstormers_Cap_Logo.PNG |
| League: | Atlantic League of Professional Baseball |
| Division: | North Division |
| Former Names: |
|
| Retired Numbers: | 42 |
| Colors: | Red, black, gold, white |
| League Champs: | (4) 2006, 2014, 2022, 2023 |
| Division Champs: | (5) 2006, 2012, 2014, 2022, 2023 |
| Owner: | Lancaster Baseball, LLC |
| General Manager: | Michael Reynolds |
| Manager: | Ross Peeples |
| Media: | LNP |
| Mascot: | Cylo |
The Lancaster Stormers (formerly known as the Lancaster Barnstormers) is an American professional baseball team based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is a member of the North Division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a "partner league" of Major League Baseball.[1] [2] The team has played its home games at Clipper Magazine Stadium in the city's Northwest Corridor since 2005 when the stadium was completed.
Baseball first came to Lancaster County in the 1860s by soldiers returning home from the Civil War. They learned the rules while serving in the military and wanted to continue playing.[3] The very first professional baseball teams in Lancaster were the Lancaster Lancasters and the Lancaster Ironsides. The Lancasters played in the Keystone Association while the Ironsides played in the Eastern League, both starting in 1884. The following season, the Lancasters joined the Eastern League, and the two teams became rivals. They competed against each other for fan support, league affiliation, and money at the gate. At its peak, insults and refusals to play against each other were the norm. The teams finally agreed to play each other at the end of the 1884 season, in which the Ironsides defeated the Lancasters after seven very close games. Only the Lancasters continued to play the next season.[4]
In the 1894 to 1895 seasons, a team called the Lancaster Chicks played in the Keystone Association. An all-African-American team called the Lancaster Giants followed in 1887, and many Lancastrians supported the team despite the social pressure of the day. The Giants hosted many exhibition games against the Philadelphia Giants of the Keystone Club.[5]
Between 1896 and 1899, the first team called the Lancaster Maroons played in the original Atlantic League. In 1905, the second inception of the Maroons played in the Tri-State League.[6]
In 1906, the Maroons became the Lancaster Red Roses. As both teams were named for the opposing factions in England's historic Wars of the Roses, the name change infuriated the rival White Roses from the nearby city of York.[7]
In 2003, the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball formally announced an expansion team for the city of Lancaster. In November 2004, the Barnstormers announced the signing of Tom Herr, a Major League Baseball veteran and Lancaster native, as the team's first manager.[8] The Barnstormers' were set to begin competition in 2005 at the newly built Clipper Magazine Stadium.
On May 11, they lost their first game, 4–3, to the Atlantic City Surf, in front of 7,300 fans. They finished the 2005 season with a record of 64 wins and 76 losses. In finishing the first half of the 2006 season with a record of 38–25, the Barnstormers qualified for their first Atlantic League playoff berth. They also won the second half, posting a record of 37–26. After defeating division challenger, Atlantic City, in the first round of the playoffs, the Barnstormers swept the Bridgeport Bluefish to win their first Atlantic League championship, in only their second season. Pitcher Denny Harriger threw a complete game, breaking a franchise record for consecutive pitches. It was the city of Lancaster's first professional championship since 1955 when the former Red Roses won the Piedmont League title. The Barnstormers played in the 2012 Atlantic League Championship Series but were ultimately defeated by the Long Island Ducks in Game 5.[9] In 2012, the Lancaster Barnstormers set an Atlantic League record with 88 wins.[10]
Herr managed the team from 2005 to 2006 and from 2009 to 2010. In 2008, the Barnstormers was coached by Von Hayes, a former teammate of Herr from the 1989 and 1990 Philadelphia Phillies.[11] Rick Wise, the winning pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, is also a managerial alumnus of the Lancaster Barnstormers. He was the team's third base coach from the inaugural 2005 season to the end of the 2008 campaign. Herr, in his second term, was succeeded by Butch Hobson.[12]
The Lancaster Stormers was originally owned by Opening Day Partners (ODP), a company that specializes in baseball club and stadium operations. ODP also created Atlantic League clubs in York, Pennsylvania, Southern Maryland, and Sugar Land, Texas. On November 12, 2014, ODP transitioned its ownership of the Stormers to Lancaster Baseball, LLC. Lancaster Baseball consists of Ian Ruzow, Rob Liss, Steve Zuckerman, and Bob Zuckerman. Ian Ruzow was born in South Africa and moved to the USA in 1980. The other three partners are all natives of New York, and all four have lived in Lancaster for 40 years. Steve Zuckerman, Ian Ruzow, and Bob Zuckerman were the founders of Clipper Magazine, with Rob Liss joining them a few years later. Clipper Magazine has owned the naming rights to the stadium since 2005.
The team's original name (the Barnstormers), selected in a fan ballot,[13] refers to the tradition of "barnstorming," which means to travel around an area appearing in exhibition sports events, especially baseball games.[14] The term was used to describe Lancaster's baseball teams as early as 1906 when the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer reported, "There was a crowd of between seven and eight hundred persons out on Friday to see the Lancaster barnstormers play the Philadelphia Giants."[15] Their original primary logo incorporated the colors red, navy blue, and khaki previously used by the Lancaster Red Roses of affiliated Minor League Baseball from 1940 to 1961.[16] The name and logo also alluded to Lancaster's Pennsylvania Dutch agricultural heritage. The team's name was changed to the Stormers in a rebranding effort between the 2023 and 2024 seasons.[17]
After winning their second straight Atlantic League title in 2023, Barnstormers social media began to tease "A New Storm," set to be announced on February 15, 2024. On that day, the team unveiled a new logo set and a new name. Now known as the Lancaster Stormers, the new logo set includes a bull's head, with a lightning bolt down the middle of its face in red and khaki colors as the main logo. Alternate logos include the bull charging through a barn, a circular logo with the team name on the outside with a barn in a storm inside the circle, while keeping the white L with a baseball as a homage to the prior name and logo set.
The primary colors of the Stormers is red, black, gold, and white. These are similar to the colors previously used by the Red Roses to reflect Lancaster's baseball heritage. The primary logo features the "Stormers" wordmark in red with a white outline set against a black background. The letters are in a custom font inspired by fraktur, a Pennsylvania Dutch blackletter calligraphy. A bull's head completes the logo below the wordmark in red, black, and gold. There is also a lightning bolt across the bull's forehead. The secondary logo features a bull charging through a barn while the tertiary logo is a black roundel with a red outline and "Lancaster Stormers" in gold letters. Inside the roundel, there is a baseball field with a red barn as a backstop featuring two white Xs implied on the door trim symbolizing the Stormers' twentieth season. A rooster-themed weathervane tops the barn with lightning striking it.[18]
The Stormers home cap is red, charged with a stylized cursive L in white with a black and gold outline interweaving with a curving baseball. The home jerseys are white with red headspoon piping and the cursive "Stormers" wordmark across the front in red, black, and gold. The away jersey is gray with red headspoon piping, featuring the cursive "Lancaster" wordmark in white and outlined in gold and black. The Stormers wear red belts, socks, and undershirts with all uniforms.
| Lancaster Stormers – 2005 to 2022[19] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | W–L | Percentage | Finish | Playoffs | |
| 2005 | 63–77 | .450 | 6th, South Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2006 | 75–51 | .595 | 2nd, South Division | Won championship over Bridgeport 3–0 | |
| 2007 | 57–69 | .452 | 3rd, South Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2008 | 64–76 | .457 | 3rd, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2009 | 67–73 | .479 | 3rd, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2010 | 63–76 | .453 | 3rd, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2011 | 69–56 | .552 | 2nd, Freedom Division | 2–3 | |
| 2012 | 88–52 | .629 | 1st, Freedom Division | 5–3 (won division final), 4–6 (lost championship) | |
| 2013 | 72–67 | .518 | 3rd, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2014 | 70–53 | .569 | 2nd, Freedom Division | Won championship over Sugar Land 3–0 | |
| 2015 | 75–65 | .536 | 1st, Freedom Division | 1–3 | |
| 2016 | 67–73 | .479 | 3rd, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2017 | 76–64 | .543 | 1st, Freedom Division | Did not qualify; York Revolution won the second half; Southern Maryland won the first half | |
| 2018 | 74–52 | .587 | 2nd, Freedom Division | 2–3 | |
| 2019 | 51–89 | .364 | 4th, Freedom Division | Did not qualify | |
| 2020 | Season canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic | ||||
| 2021 | 56–63 | .471 | 3rd in North Division (first half) 4th in North Division (second half) | Did not qualify; Southern Maryland won the second half; Long Island won the first half | |
| 2022 | 73–58 | .557 | 1st, North Division | Won championship over High Point 3–0 | |
| 2023 | 62-62 | .500 | 1st, North Division (second half) | Won championship over Gastonia 3-2 | |
| Totals (2005–2023) | 1222–1176 | .510 | 35–23 | ||
| War of the Roses | 163–173 | .485 | |||
Every Stormers game was broadcast on WLAN (1390 AM) and WPDC (1600 AM) by Dave Collins, their announcer.[20] Select home games were televised on Blue Ridge Cable-11.[21] On April 20, 2023, the Atlantic League announced that all games, including the Barnstormers, would be streamed exclusively on FloSports.[22]
The Lancaster Stormers' mascot is an anthropomorphic, red cow named Cylo. He wears the team's home jersey with striped socks and retro-style sneakers. Cylo debuted on March 4, 2005, at the Mascot Roller Mill in the Lancaster County village of Mascot. His name in full is Cyloicious L. Barnstormer, alluding to Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young and to silos, representing the county's agricultural heritage.[23] The mascot was designed by the Raymond Entertainment Group, which also produces the Phillie Phanatic's costume.