Minor league baseball in Paintsville and Pikeville? Here’s why it didn’t last long.
Minor league baseball in Eastern Kentucky was fun while it lasted. It just didn’t last very long.
Paintsville had a team in the Appalachian League from 1979 through 1984. Pikeville had a team in the same rookie league from 1982 through 1984.
If you watched the Pikeville squad in 1984, you might have seen future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux in his formative stages.
“I just remember it was my first time away from home (Las Vegas) and it was pretty tough. I had a hard time dealing with it,” Maddux told the Herald-Leader’s Mark Maloney in 1993. “I was just concerned with making it to the next level. I just wanted to make sure I took a step forward and not a step back.”
Maddux went 6-3 with a 2.63 ERA for Pikeville and was promoted to Class A Peoria in 1985.
Over in Paintsville, you could have seen future Reds star Jose Rijo taking his first baseball steps out of his native Dominican Republic at age 17.
“I hated it the first couple of days,” Rijo told Maloney for the same 1993 article. “I almost got run over by a car. I called my mom and told her I’m quitting.
“She said, ‘If you quit, you’ve got to get a job.’ . . . I decided not to quit.”
Paintsville was affiliated first with the New York Yankees and then the Milwaukee Brewers. Pikeville began as the Brewers and later was affiliated with the Chicago Cubs.
The Paintsville team’s departure for Montana after the 1984 season led to Pikeville’s departure.
David Mulliken, president of the Pikeville Cubs, told Maloney that the parent Chicago Cubs organization was happy with Pikeville, but league pressure made it impossible for the Cubs to hold out — at that point being 120 miles from its nearest competition.
“It is my understanding that the minor league directors of the other teams . . . didn’t want to make a trip to Eastern Kentucky to play just one team,” Pikeville Cubs general manager Jim Van Zant told Maloney.
The Cubs moved the team to Wytheville, Va., and the Appalachian League’s Eastern Kentucky flavor was gone.
In 1985, the Appalachian League consisted of the Bluefield (W.Va.) Orioles, Bristol (Va.) Tigers, Elizabethton (Tenn.) Twins, Johnson City (Tenn.) Cardinals, Kingsport (Tenn.) Mets, Pulaski (Va.) Braves and Wytheville Cubs. Though affiliations have changed, every one of those cities — with the exception of Wytheville — host Appalachian League teams today.
“The Cubs didn’t have any problems with the city of Pikeville,” Van Zant said at the time. “The people there went all out for the team. They gave them all they had.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2018 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Minor league baseball in Paintsville and Pikeville? Here’s why it didn’t last long.."