After 25 Years, the Thunderbolts Remain a Cal Ripken Sr. League Cornerstone

In March of 2000, Takoma Park resident Richard O’Connor purchased a collegiate summer league baseball team named the Southern Maryland Battlecats – a name and location that would last for about a month. O’Connor, fueled by the desire to promote youth baseball in his community, moved the team to Silver Spring. 

The team was renamed to what Cal Ripken Sr. League fans know today as the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts. For the last 25 years, O’Connor has remained the team’s General Manager. 

Team President Edward Sharp has been by his side for those 25 years. For the first four years of the Thunderbolt's existence, Sharp served as the team’s secretary. Both Sharp and O’Connor are now members of the Cal Ripken Sr. League Hall of Fame. 

Things did not start out smoothly for O’Connor and his Thunderbolts in their debut season in the Clark Griffith Collegiate League. 

“I made the mistake of buying this team in March and thinking that you could recruit a team and be on the field in two months, but we prevailed,” O’Connor said. 

Prevailed is a strong word to use, but in terms of the roadblocks that Thunderbolts team faced, it is definitely appropriate. In their first year as the Thunderbolts, the team limped along to a 2-38 record. By the end of the season, only 12 players remained on the team, nine of them being pitchers. 

One of those pitchers who stuck around was future six-time MLB All-Star and World Series champion closer Jonathan Papelbon. In one of the final games of the season, Papelbon came up to bat and walked to first. Knowing the season of oddities was nearly over, former head coach Fred Rodriguez felt experimentive and gave Papelbon the signal to steal second. He slid in safely.

“I’m watching him get up and he’s jumping up and down, jumping up and down. He told me he was so excited because he hadn’t been on second base since he was an eighth grader,” O’Connor said. “I got to tell that story in the Red Sox bullpen.” 

Buying the team was just the first step for O’Connor and Sharp. Next, they had to raise around $25,000 to cover field rental and umpire expenses for the upcoming season. 

“There was no time to raise that, so it came out of our pockets,” O’Connor said. 

Their home ballpark, Blair Stadium, was not an ideal venue in the early 2000s. The field previously had been used as a dumping ground for construction material. There were no dugouts for the players to use, just benches. O’Connor described the infield as “rock-hard,” and said the outfield was infested with weeds. 

In 2003, the Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission agreed to resurface the field. While doing so, they found a car engine buried in the outfield and a rebar below home plate.

Over the next decade, the Thunderbolts raised more than $47,000 to install stadium seating, a concessions stand, dugouts, perimeter fencing, and an announcer’s booth. Now, their ballpark is one of the most beloved in the Cal Ripken Sr. League. 

Operationally, the Thunderbolts only had two staff members that first year: the head coach and one intern. Now, 25 seasons later, O’Connor employs 17 staff members to help with day-to-day operations. 

Success would come quickly for the Thunderbolts. In 2005, the team left the Clark Griffith League to become founding members of a new Maryland collegiate summer baseball league: the CRSCBL as we know it now. 

In the league’s debut season, the Thunderbolts were crowned co-champions along with the Bethesda Big Train. After eight innings of play, torrential downpour ended the championship game tied at four apiece. 

In 2006, the Thunderbolts defeated the now defunct Rockville Express to become the first team to win the league title outright, marking Silver Spring-Takoma’s second consecutive league championship. That summer is their last title to date.

“The team really came together,” O’Connor said. “The hitting, defense, and pitching. It’s been a long time since we’ve been there.”

The Thunderbolts came close to capturing their third title in 2019 against the Bethesda Big Train, but fell short after blowing a four-run lead in the eighth inning of the decisive game three of the series. 

That summer, now head coach Brock Hunter had just begun his tenure for the Thunderbolts as a pitching coach. 

“That 2019 team had all the pieces, home run power, strikeouts, guys hitting for average, good defense, just a lot of good stuff,” Hunter said. “They just won games and they got hot at the right time.”

Hunter took over as the Thunderbolts head coach for the 2021 season. This summer is his fifth year in charge of the team. One of his favorite parts of his job is getting to know and work with players who share the same passions as him off and on the field.

753 players have played their summer ball for the Thunderbolts. Of those 753, 176 have gone on to play professional ball at some level. 

Along with Papelbon, former Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals lefty Brett Cecil played for the Thunderbolts. Cecil is the only player in CRSCBL history to throw a complete game nine-inning no-hitter, doing so on June 12, 2005. Cecil was elected to the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate League Hall of Fame in its 2019 inaugural class. 

Players from Silver Spring have found other ways to get to the majors. Former Thunderbolt Mike Chernoff has served as the General Manager of the Cleveland Guardians since 2015. In that time, the team has made a World Series appearance and have made the MLB postseason six times.

But what truly makes the Thunderbolts excel is the product they offer to fans. While operating on a smaller budget than some other teams in the league, the Thunderbolts gameday experience brings fans back year after year.

“Our kids have a good time,” Thunderbolts fan Adam Lewis said. “They love it when they get to run the bases and the trivia questions. It’'s just a nice place to watch good quality baseball.”

At every home game, you can find O’Connor mingling with the fans in the refurbished Blair Stadium stands as he passes out raffle tickets, or on the field when he runs events between innings, such as kids races around the bases or baseball trivia. 

As one of the two remaining teams that have existed since the Cal Ripken Sr. League’s founding, the Thunderbolts have stuck around through thick and thin. O’Connor’s original goal was to create an experience for fans in the Silver Spring area similar to a minor league game. There is no doubt he has prevailed and more. 

Financial statistics courtesy of the Thunderbolts 25th anniversary program.