The Frontier League’s Oakland County Cruisers baseball team was born out of lessons learned from previous bids to bring independent professional baseball to southeastern Michigan that had come up a bit short … from downtown Mt. Clemens to downtown Pontiac … from the college campus of Oakland University in Rochester Hills to the corporate and retail campus of West Big Beaver Road in Troy.

The inability of parties to agree on where to locate a ball park; plans that called for stadiums too large to be funded privately, and the lack of grass-roots efforts aimed at galvanizing and unifying area businesses and local citizenry behind the cause, all combined to frustrate baseball fans in Oakland County who wanted what so many suburban communities across the country were enjoying – intimate and affordable community-oriented baseball!

Tim Nick, owner of Heroes Bar B Q & Brew was not bashful in his public claims that minor league baseball would work in Waterford Township – particularly at the Summit Place Mall where dwindling shoppers and a declining retail outlet occupancy rate cried for innovative action to reverse the trend.

Rob Hilliard, principal of Manhattan-on-Rouge Communications, watched with interest at the various attempts to bring “indy” baseball to the area.  More than a decade ago, he had been managing partner of the New Jersey Cardinals, a Class-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals playing in the New York-Penn League.  Hilliard developed Skylands Park, a 4,200-seat stadium nestled in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains in the northwest corner of New Jersey.

A casual conversation with Waterford Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marie Hauswirth brought Nick and Hilliard together.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Looking to bring key local business people into the fold, Nick and Hilliard approached Dave and Jim Huttenlocher.  They signed on – not because they were big baseball fans, but because they believed the project would be a tremendous asset to the community.  The Huttenlocher Group, a Waterford business since 1919, brought instant credibility to the effort and its newly formed business entity, “Ride The Wave” Indy Baseball, LLC.

The last key element to the management team was added when Dave Whinham, founder of The TEAM Sports Media & Entertainment LLC, agreed to have his firm join the effort. While his firm is based in Dublin, OH, Whinham, as well as Director of Business Development Kurt Luttermoser, are natives of metro Detroit. Each spent parts of their early careers in the area – Whinham having cut his teeth in the sports world with Mike Ilitch’s Detroit Drive of the Arena Football League and Luttermoser having spent several years working for the Tigers in Lakeland, FL, before logging time with The Palace of Auburn Hills in corporate sales.

Led by “Ride The Wave” Indy Baseball, LLC, Baseball Heroes of Oakland County is ready to usher in a new era of professional baseball.