NEW BRITAIN — With just 115 days until the New Britain Bees begin their inaugural season in the Atlantic League, there is some excitement among the team’s front office about the prospects of the upcoming season.
The team recently officially announced its first general manager in Patrick Day and field manager, Stan Cliburn. Cliburn also managed the New Britain Rock Cats from 2001 to 2005 and both expressed their excitement of bringing an Atlantic League team to the city of New Britain.
“This is a startup,” Day said of the Bees. “I’ve done a startup in Montgomery, Alabama and it was the proudest moment of my career up until [now]. This is my 18th year in professional baseball. I’ve worked in 53-year-old stadiums, brand new stadiums,12-year-old stadiums, 8-year-old stadiums. I’ve seen it all. I’ve one a lot of it and I couldn’t be more excited to come back home. This is the closest professional baseball city to where I grew up along the Massachusetts line.”
For Day, New Britain was the first place he was able to experience baseball at the professional level.
“My brother, Rick, who is 12 years older than me, wanted to check out this phenom named Roger Clemens in 1983 and drove me down as an 8-year-old boy and we came and checked that out,” Day said during his introduction.
Cliburn said when he first heard of the Atlantic League he was interested, adding just because it has the independent title, does not mean it is not quality baseball.
In fact, many of the league’s players have played affiliated baseball.
“Now having joined the Atlantic League two years ago, I was excited,” Cliburn said. “I remember back in 2010 when I was out of a managing job in baseball, I called Joe Klein. Joe Klein is the director of baseball in the Atlantic League, former major league general manager for three different organizations (and) Rick White, who runs it and is our president and works in the front office with the Atlantic League. I was excited (and thought) ‘Hey. Can I get to that league?’
“I heard good things about it. I saw the players who were playing at the time and I was looking to manage guys like Lew Ford — who you remember here — and J.C. Romero (both are former Rock Cats), Randy Ruiz, all these players. Rich Hill, the young man who pitched for Frank Bolton last year on Long Island, just got a big contract in Major League Baseball.”
The Bees will open the season on April 21 at home against the York Revolution in what will begin a four-game series at New Britain Stadium.
David Glovach can be reached at (860) 801-5085 or dglovach@newbritainherald.com
On Twitter: @DavidGlovach
