Jul 11, 2015 8 min read

Washington Frontier League Baseball LLC and its owner, Stuart A. Williams, are litigating a dispute over establishing a Kokomo, Ind., expansion team, a market it lost to a rival league in a maneuver it branded “a civil conspiracy.”

In a suit initiated in November against MKE Sports and Entertainment, the firm that held the management contract for the Frontier League’s Rockford Aviators, Williams, of Upper St. Clair, and the Frontier League claim they were deprived of a $50,000 expansion fee and a baseball club which its owners value at $1 million.

The suit showed the Wild Things ownership made several demands on the Frontier League since August 2014 to take legal action, but when the league refused to do so, Williams proceeded on his own. Court documents reveal Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee imposed a “substantial” fine on those who successfully wooed Kokomo to sign with a competitor’s league, but the actual 44-page decision Lee issued was ordered sealed by the court.

Meanwhile, MKE Sports and Entertainment recently terminated its contract with the Aviators after Lee ruled MKE’s owner, Michael Zimmerman, who is also named in the lawsuit, has an ownership interest in multiple baseball teams in another league, violating the Frontier League’s bylaws. Lee ordered the Aviators to be in compliance or lose their membership in the league, according to a league news release.

The matter goes back to the spring meetings of 2014, when the Frontier League’s board of directors identified Kokomo, Ind., 50 miles north of Indianapolis, as an expansion opportunity and asked the Wild Things’ Williams and Clint Brown, owner of the Florence Freedom baseball team, be its representatives in securing a lease for a park in that market.

By June 2014, Brown withdrew from negotiations, leaving Williams as the Frontier League’s sole representative in Kokomo. He learned there was a rival league trying to seal a deal with the city of Kokomo.

Williams claims his efforts to negotiate with Kokomo were undermined by W. Chris Hanners, owner of Rock River Valley Baseball LLC, which operates the Rockford Aviators, and board member at the time Bryan Wickline, alleging they were working with Zimmerman and MKE. The MKE website describes Zimmerman as a Southeast Wisconsin developer and venture capitalist and the suit in Indianapolis federal court identifies him as the chief executive officer of the Aviators.

Last July, Thomas R. Ysura, general counsel for the Frontier League, wrote to the Hanners Group warning them to discontinue negotiations with Kokomo and that refusing to “stand down would constitute a breach of fiduciary duties to the league and its members.”

According to court documents, MKE claimed the city of Kokomo chose it after considering various proposals. MKE secured a lease for the Kokomo team July 11, 2014, and attempted to use it as leverage to gain membership in the Frontier League, which the board of directors rejected.

MKE then introduced the Kokomo Jackrabbits as part of the Prospect League, a summer wood bat league for college players. Wickline, who was president since the inaugural season of 2009, became the league’s second commissioner as it headed into the 12-team 2015 season, according to the Jackrabbits’ website. MKE also fields a Prospect League team in Jamestown, N.Y.

The Wild Things and Williams claim they “have been materially harmed” by Zimmerman and the others interfering with the Frontier League’s proposed development of the Kokomo baseball market and branded Hanners, Wickline and the Rock River Valley club “a civil conspiracy.” Under the Frontier League’s bylaws, Washington filed a complaint against the Hanners Group in August 2014.

“Hanners, Wickline and the Rock River Club, collectively and separately, owe the (Frontier) League, Williams and the Washington Club … duties of loyalty and of good faith and fair dealing,” the suit claims.

The Frontier League, an independent baseball league, has 14 teams, including one team, the Frontier Greys, that operates without a home park and is operated by the league. Williams, his wife, Francine, and another unnamed investor who lives in Pennsylvania own the limited liability company that runs the Wild Things. Williams also is a director of the league, which is a not-for-profit corporation in Ohio and maintains a principal place of business in Illinois.

Williams, in the suit, cites Frontier League bylaws which prohibit individuals from owning another baseball team within the league or in any other baseball league unless approved by a two-thirds vote of the league’s members.

After the Frontier League’s denial, Zimmerman was named CEO of the Rock River Valley club, with which MKE Sports had a “long-term managed services agreement,” the suit states, but that Zimmerman asserted in an email that he was going “to be in the Frontier League in some form for years to come.”

According to Williams, without a 14th home stadium in the Frontier League, each team continues to incur costs associated with the the operation of the Greys.

Williams asked he and Frontier Professional Baseball Inc. have a jury trial and be awarded damages from Zimmerman, MKE Baseball, and MKE Sports and Entertainment, including all costs associated with this season’s travel team and “for a reasonable period of time thereafter;” compensate Williams and his league for fair market value of the Kokomo expansion and the value of the $50,000 expansion fee; profits from Kokomo; and costs, fees and interest.

Lee issued a decision in April in response to the Washington club’s complaint against another member of the league, declared the document confidential and directed teams not to disseminate it to third parties. Although the decision is filed with U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, U.S. Magistrate Judge Debra McVicker Lynch for the Southern District of Indiana ordered last month that the 44-page decision remain under seal.

Andrew M. McNeil, Williams’ attorney in Indianapolis, offered a glimpse of Lee’s 44-page decision in a document of supplemental authority he filed with federal court because he said it provides context to the Frontier League’s “business judgment” in its motion to dismiss the original complaint, which Williams described as a “self-serving whitewash designed to conceal the bias and conflicts of interest on the part of the league ….

“The litigation committee has determined, based upon its business judgment, that the Frontier League has not been sufficiently injured to justify the pursuit of a claim by the Frontier League itself” and “based on its business judgment that (the Washington club’s) alleged injury to the Frontier League does not justify the substantial time and expense of litigation, as well as the ill will associated with being involved in this lawsuit that it determines is detrimental to the operation and future expansion of the Frontier League.”

Instead, it concluded the Frontier League should fine Rock River for its actions in relation to Kokomo to “ensure that such situations do not arise in the future.”

McNeil called the fine “substantial” but because the commissioner declared it confidential, he did not name the amount.

On June 19, the Frontier League’s executive committee unanimously affirmed the commissioner’s decision in a three-page decision of its own, according to court documents.

Phone and email messages left with Frontier League headquarters in Sauget, Ill., Friday afternoon were not answered by Saturday afternoon.

“This is extremely unfortunate and disappointing, and certainly not in the best interest of the City of Rockford and the Rockford Aviators franchise,” Zimmerman said in the news release announcing the termination of the Aviators management contract.

MKE Sports & Entertainment signed a managed service contract with the Aviators ownership group to lead a turnaround effort beginning this season.

“A three-to-four-year turnaround for the team was going to be an uphill battle by itself,” added Zimmerman. “But with the commissioner’s decision comes a significant setback for the team’s long-term survival. We would have loved to have been a part of the Rockford turnaround, but we will honor the league’s decision and step aside.”

The Aviators are currently appealing the commissioner’s decision, Zimmerman said.

Sources told the Observer-Reporter some Frontier League officials expressed doubts about Kokomo being a market large enough to support a team in the league. The Jackrabbits are averaging only 1,243 fans per game at Kokomo Municipal Stadium, which opened in May and has 2,350 permanent seats and room for an additional 1,200 fans in a lawn area. That per-game average attendance would rank next-to-last in the Frontier League.

A message left Friday afternoon with MKE’s attorney, Jacques Condon, for comment was not returned by Saturday. Williams also did not return a message seeking comment.

In the suit in federal court in Indianapolis, the parties requested a trial date next July, and a trial is expected to last five days.

According to an Observer-Reporter story in January, Williams turned his attention to adding another Frontier League team in Parkersburg, W.Va., if the city builds a multipurpose stadium. He would also have the option to relocate the Wild Things to West Virginia’s third-largest city.

Sports editor Chris Dugan contributed to this story.