WAKEFIELD — The year was 1985. Ronald Reagan was starting his second term as President. The summer saw Dire Strait’s “Money For Nothing” rule the music charts and the Wakefield Twi League was celebrating its 10th year of existence.
The prior season, the league saw East Side win the championship on a Roger Lapham gargantuan home run off a house on Albion Street. But that was 1984 and the new season brought new change in the form of a new team comprised of baseball friends and castoffs from other teams and a symbol that everybody would come to know.
This 2024 season marks the 40th anniversary of the Unknowns Twi League baseball team. Only the Highlife and the Brewers have been together longer, but there are three original members of the Orange — Ian Power, Jeff Power, and Michael “Moe” Maloney — who still wear the blue question mark to this day and are playing and having fun doing it.
The Unknowns were born in 1985. They wore orange and blue uniforms, no numerals and a very large question mark on their backs, you know because they were unknowns. The driving force of this new enterprise was Jack Carr and Ian Power. Forged from playing together for the Brewers and looking for more playing time, Ian and Jack went about recruiting new players to start a new team after the 1984 season. Their first signing was the easiest one to recruit. “Heffy” Power graduated high school and soon would be a consistent ace on the mound for the next three decades. Others followed, including, in that first wave of Orange players, Chris Apps, Ish, Craig and Glenn ”Crum” Strauss, Pit Gravallese, Bob Wesley and Dave Smith, DJ, Lenny D’Angelo and Tony Mastrangelo. It was Mastrangelo who would be credited with naming the team after a few beers, saying, “We are a bunch of Unknowns.”
That first season was forgettable as the Question Marks went winless in their inaugural season. Matter of fact, they didn’t win their first game until midway through the second season and in true Twi League fashion, Heffy Power got the win and the save by starting the game and coming back in to record the last out. The team was on the struggle bus for the first couple of years, always near the bottom of the standings until things turned around in 1988 and 1989 as the team made the playoffs and finals.
THE UNKNOWNS are celebrating their 40th season in the Wakefield Twi League. Pictured are three original members of the team, from left to right, Michael Maloney, Ian Power and Jeff Power. (Courtesy Photo)
It can be pointed out in the annals of Unknowns history, that 1994 was the year that the Orange arrived. The Unknowns reached the Twi finals against Mel & Sons Oilers. Though they lost in five games, mainly to the outstanding pitching of the Oilers’ Steve Amyouny, an Orange legend was born from the incredible postseason play of Pat “Big Boy” Donahue. The following year, the Orange was bolstered in the Twi draft by a future Twi League Hall of Famer, Geoff “Brady” Eriksen who still mans the shortstop position, 30 years later. Also worth mentioning, are Ian’s shrewd GM deals that landed the pitcher of the decade in Adam Colantuoni in a draft day trade.
If 1994 was the year they finally broke through, it was four years later in 1999 that the foundation of the team took shape. It all started at the Twi draft when the Orange selected four players, Greg Eriksen, Ryan Seeley, Evan Winters and Jamie Lynch who would be the cornerstones of excellence in the upcoming decade. The team was stocked from the unbelievable pitching of Adam “Twi Cy” Colantuoni, Jeff Power and Lynch to the clutch hitting of Mike Murphy, Chad Dwyer, Jack Carr, the Eriksen brothers and of course, coach Ian Power.
The Orange rolled through the 1999 Twi playoffs culminating with a 2-1 complete game gem from Dwyer over the Highlife to capture their first Chuckie Oates Memorial Trophy, kicking off a celebration party that ended two days later.
This was only the beginning. The Unknowns rattled off six consecutive Twi League Championships from 2001 to 2006, winning eight total titles from 1999 to 2008. That’s the definition of a dynasty. Throw in their last title in 2016, the one where, fresh off the beaches of the Outer Banks, Ian grabbed a bat to pinch hit and drive in the winning run with a clutch Sac Fly, and the team now has nine total trophies. They are looking this year for number 10.
In those 40 years, many friendships were formed among the teammates who to this day, still hang around, tell stories to the young Unknowns and support each other and the team.
The Orange have seen a lot of stuff over that course of time from marriages, divorces, deaths, births, BBQs and clambakes, to fathers who got to play and share the field with their sons with the new crop of Unknowns and even saw the first female play in the Twi and get a hit in her only at bat.
Through it all, these three OGs have witnessed about 90 percent of the Twi League history.
“Where else can you hang out with 12 of your best friends twice a week?” asks Jeff Power.
They can tell the stories of past Twi players.
“I hope these kids listened to the tales we told them and follow the blueprint we left them, cause after we’re gone, the show must go on,” says Moe Maloney.
And, after all, this is a game we all love and play for the pure joy and excitement. “Adults should not be allowed to have this much fun,” said Ian Power.
Yes indeed, it has been, 40 years of Unknowns fun.
