London Rippers: R.I.P.

For most people attending the Wild Things' contest Tuesday night against the London Rippers, it seemed like just another game. The Rippers were a bit sloppy, and at times seemed disinterested, but that's not unusual for a team on the final night of a six-game road trip.

For the Rippers, the game had a funeral feel. Less than three hours after the game, the Rippers folded. "Ceased operations" is how Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee described the team's situation. At 12:01 a.m. last night, the Rippers were no more.

In other words, the London Rippers are dead. The headstone should read: London Rippers. Born: 2011-12 Offseason. Died: July 25, 2012. Cause: Lack of Money.

The Rippers' players learned less than hour before the game that the team's owners were pulling the plug on the franchise. Detroit-based obstetrician and gynecologist Othman Kadry owned 90 percent of the team. The remainder was owned by David Martin, who was the team's manager and general manager. Martin did not attend the series against the Wild Things. He missed the final five games in London's brief history.

Rumors had been circulating for several weeks that the Rippers were on shaky financial footing. London had a league-worst attendance, an average of 845 per home game at Labatt Park, where the team did not have a liquor license to sell beer. Last week, the Rippers were locked out of their team store for failure to pay rent.

According to the London Free Press, the Rippers were scheduled to pay the City of London rent payments of $6,250 June 6, June 23, July 20 and Aug. 14. The contract also specified that the Rippers were to donate $23,000 to the city in four equal instalments due in November 2011, April 2012, November 2012 and April 2013.

In place of the Rippers, the Frontier League will form a traveling team that will play London's remaining schedule. Any team that was scheduled to play at London will have home games instead against the traveling team, which will be known as the Road Warriors.

Matt Dumouchelle, the Rippers' director of media relations, declined to comment to the Observer-Reporter. He did tell the Free Press that the news hit the players hard.

"A lot of them are worried about what happens to them next, some were angry about how things went down and everyone was worried for the guys sitting next to them," he said. "It hasn't been an easy day."

The Rippers' situation also sparked a strange scene after the game. Washington manager Chris Bando and coach Jim Tatum, two team officials and an intern stood outside the Rippers' clubhouse door for about an hour, trying to finalize what turned out to be four trades for London players before the team folded at midnight.

Washington sent Doug Thennis, Will Arnold, Tanner Leighton and Tyler Oldham to London in exchanger for catcher Jim Vahalik, first baseman Mark Samuelson, second baseman Brad Agustin and outfielder Chris Lloyd.

Thennis, Arnold, Leighton and Oldham spent all of about 10 minutes as members of the Rippers. All of London's players became free agents at 12:01 a.m., though Lee said any Rippers player wanting to remain in the league would be guaranteed a spot on the Road Warriors, who will debut Thursday at Lake Erie.

At this time, nobody knows how many players will show up to play for the Road Warriors. Or how many of the new Wild Things will be in Washington tonight in time for the first game of a series against Florence.

Most of London's players went back to Ontario last night to get their cars, clothes and any other things they had left in London.

Without the four newly acquired players, Washington has only seven position players on the roster, which could make tonight's lineup interesting.

Record-setting season

The Wild Things will set at least one team record this season: most players used.

Washington made another roster move Monday, releasing 6-8, 275-pound designated hitter Tim Leary and signing outfielder Tanner Leighton, who recently completed his senior season at The Masters, an NAIA school in California.

Leary was batting only .130 (6-for-46 with 20 strikeouts) since joining the Wild Things June 7. Leighton, who is from Meridian, Idaho, the hometown of former Pirates pitcher Vernon Law, batted .322 this spring with three home runs and 31 stolen bases.

Leighton becomes the 48th player to appear on Washington's roster during the regular season, which is more than the Wild Things used in any of their previous 10 seasons. They used 47 in 2009.

When Leighton makes his debut, he will be the 46th player to get into a game this year. The Wild Things signed two players, infielder Anthony Long and catcher Cody Coffman, but released them before they ever played in a game.

Washington manager Chris Bando said before the series against Lake Erie began that he had one more roster move to make. This, apparently, is the move and the flurry of roster moves will be stopping, for various reasons. One is that the Frontier League has a limit of 25 transactions (not every roster move counts as a transaction) per team during the regular season. Washington is at 21 moves, according to the league office.

"The first third of the season, you find out who will be your team. The second third of the season, you build team chemistry. The final third, you make a run for the playoffs," Bando said. "That's what we're going to do."

Bando said many of the roster moves were made because several players classified as Experienced by Frontier League roster standards did not play to the level that the coaching staff expected. Many of those players were replaced by rookies from NAIA schools in California.

"We made some poor decisions on some of the Experienced guys who we thought would be productive," Bando said. "They didn't pan out. We will have to be better at selecting our Experienced players in the future.

"Because we had some Experienced guys who didn't produce the way we expected, we went with the approach of signing all young college guys and sinking or swimming with them. What we found out is, you can't miss on your Experienced guys. They have to be the nucleus of your club. In years to come, we don't want to be having as much turnover as we've had."