Giffen's adult league hits grand slam

Former Beacon Journal Sports Editor Tom Giffen has turned an avocation for pickup baseball games into a lucrative profession. Giffen, 57, is in his 13th year as the owner of Roy Hobbs Baseball, a national organization that provides formal competition for adult men and women in the sport. In 2005, its membership will consist of about 400 teams spread across virtually every state.

BJ sports writer Tom Gaffney tells the story in a Community Extra story titled “Adult League hits grand slam” in the Beacon Journal on Sunday, May 1, 2005.

in 1990, Giffen spearheaded what was to become a four-team league of adult men playing out of Akron. The following year, the league grew to 11 teams and joined Roy Hobbs Baseball, which was then owned by Ron Monks of California.

Then on New Year's Eve in 1992 Monk sold Roy Hobbs Baseball to Giffen and his wife, Ellen, for an undisclosed amount.

For several years, Giffen ran Roy Hobbs Baseball out of his basement and continued to work at the Beacon Journal. In the mid-1990s, the organization began to bring in more and more teams and the scope truly took on a national feel. That was when he resigned from the newspaper to work full time at his business

Roy Hobbs, by the way, is the fictional hero of Bernard Malamud's novel, “The Natural.” Robert Redford played the lead role in the movie of the same name.

To read Gaffney’s piece, click on the headline above.

For more information on Roy Hobbs, call 330-923-3400 or go to the Web site at
www.royhobbs.com