League History

Thank You to Reid Crosby for his hard work and keen interest in this project.

Floyd Brown, League Founder,
President 1984 - 2003

Our league was founded in 1984 by Floyd Brown and originally dubbed the Northern Vermont Old-Timers Baseball Association. The league formalized in 1988 with teams from Milton, Newport, Underhill, and Sheldon Springs represented. Key in instituting a board, by-laws, and dues was Harold Sargent, the manager of the Underhill team. In 1989 teams from Jericho and Winooski joined the league, and in 1991, the league became a member of MSBL, which had been established in 1988.

After additional expansion, the league split in 1995, with teams from Underhill, Enosburg (formerly Sheldon Springs), Westford, Franklin County, and South Burlington breaking away from our league to establish the Green Mountain Men's Senior Baseball League (now the Green Mountain Baseball Association), which competes under slightly different, although similar rules.

In 1998 Milton also left for the GMMSBL and our league was down to four teams. That number doubled for the 1999 season, however, and by 2002 there were 15 teams in our league, enough as to necessitate the addition of a second tier of playoffs at the end of the regular season.

In 2003, the league changed to its current name, the Vermont Senior Baseball League.

From 2001 to 2004, there was an unofficial “state title game” contested between the playoff champion of our league and the winner of the Green Mountain League. These games were contested with a compromise in the rules used, played using their pitching rules and our baserunning rules, and with the leagues alternating turns as the home team.

During the mid-‘00’s our league continued to expand, largely due to the efforts of Mike Wagner, peaking with 23 teams competing in 2008.

Currently there are 12 teams in our league, the fewest since 2002.

Our league's history is a long term project. The information presented here has been culled from web sites, newsletters, meeting minutes, emails, conversations. While attempting to be as diligent as possible, it is possible that there are mistakes in the information here. There is also currently very little information regarding the early years of the league, especially from 1984 through 2000. This was before Mike Wagner began releasing newsletters or a league website. If anyone has any information on these missing years, please contact Reid Crosby or Chris Welsh. . We are looking for things like final standings, season champions, league officers, and any pictures or tournament results. Or anything else you think would be relevant. A special thank you to Mike Wagner, Steve Ferreira, and Greg Bostock for the information we do have for the early years of the league.

At this point the focus of this project is on presenting the facts about the teams in the league. As time goes on, it’s possible that more individual, personal stories could be added as well. A good example of that is in the newsletters put out by Mike Wagner from 2001 to 2005. Game summaries and personal interviews are included in these and they do a great job of introducing everyone to the opponent in the other dugout.

This page will be updated as new information becomes available to us.

Old Newsletters

Mike Wagner, 2003

From 2001 - 2005, Mike Wagner published a league newsletter that he distributed to everyone-- players and managers alike. Here are all of those newsletters. Enjoy!

• September 2001
• May 2002
• July 2002
• Sept. 2002
• March 2003
• June 2003
• August 2003

League Champions over the years.

(i) 1997 Champlain won tiebreaker over Newport via runs scored in head to head matchups (season series tied 2-2)
(ii) 2007 Lake Region won tiebreaker over Williston via coin flip
(iii) 2009 Charlotte won tiebreaker over Williston via head to head results
(iv) 2013 Colchester won tiebreaker over Williston and Burlington via head to head results
(v) 2016 Williston won tiebreaker over Colchester via head to head results