BASE PATHS: NYCBL's Chamberlain won't return

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March 7, 2010

By Doug Smith The Journal-Register Sun Mar 07, 2010, 11:12 PM EST

One of the Niagara Power’s best friends won’t be around this summer.

Commissioner Dave Chamberlain, whose trust and confidence eased the Power’s way into the New York State Collegiate Baseball League, is gone. Did he step aside or was he pushed out? Was it interference or obstruction? Whatever the case, when the Power begins play in early June at Sal Maglie Stadium, the man second-most responsible for their presence will be catching rays in Florida.

Chamberlain, a military retiree from the Rochester area, has Seliged the NYCBL for 13 years. It seems longer. “It’s like waiving the Pope,” Base Paths kidded Chamberlain by phone. Chamberlain actually became commissioner in 1997, at the behest of then-new Hornell General Manager Tom Kenney.

“It’s been a great ride,” Chamberlain said. “It just seems I didn’t have what they think they need now.”

On that, at least, Chamberlain and League President Stan Lehman agree. “At this point we need a commissioner more attuned to the fund-raising side,” Lehman said. Chamberlain said this was not his forte: “I’m a baseball and recreation man. I didn’t want to be involved in that aspect.”

It’s not as if the office was “voided” to cut costs. Chamberlain’s stipend wouldn’t buy many meals at the Red Coach, or even the Marketside Diner. But the NCAA and Major League Baseball, who sanction the NYCBL, both mandate a commissioner, and so the search is on.

The genial, authoritative Chamberlain attended a game every day, sometimes two, grading amenities, among other things. The Power flunked hospitality one rainy night when Dave sought to protect his ink-stained notes by taking refuge in the maintenance office. The groundskeeper came in for sawdust and threw him out, an ejection surely unique in the annals of baseball.

Withal, he thought the world of the Power, even before its first pitch. Power President Cal Kern recalls, “Our application wasn’t really complete, we still had a few minor things to do, but Dave was so confident in our ability to measure up that he persuaded the owners to accept us.”

Revered by the owner, thumbed by the groundskeeper — only in Niagara Falls.

“When I first started, I thought, ‘I’ll need to be up north maybe just four months or so.’ As it turned out, I was needing to be up north like 10 months a year. I didn’t mind. I love the game and we accomplished a lot,” Chamberlain said.

Dave Chamberlain was that rarest of breeds, an out-of-towner who believed in Niagara Falls. His eventual successor has a big notebook to fill.

Signal back to Base Paths at pollyndoug@hotmail.com.

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