The year was 1998 – 25 years ago – and New Jersey gas stations were charging $1.06 per gallon.
     Seinfeld’s last episode had just aired on May14, and now, on June 5, a highly successful, nationally prominent businessman who lived in Montclair was launching a new professional baseball team called the New Jersey Jackals, who would play at the brand-new ballpark he just paid to build on the campus of Montclair State University.

     It was a big time for baseball in the Garden State. The Trenton Thunder and the New Jersey Cardinals were a few years old and were doing well, and the Somerset Patriots were taking the field as an independent in the brand new Atlantic League. The Patriots’ ballpark in Bridgewater was being funded by the county taxpayers, but the Jackals’ park in Little Falls was funded by one wealthy individual.

     His name was Floyd Hall, and he was the CEO of Kmart, a chain of department stores that dominated this and many other states before Target and Wal-Mart arrived to do battle in the upcoming years.
     Mr. Hall paid for both Yogi Berra Stadium and Floyd Hall Arena down the road, which holds two NHL-sized skating rinks. He also paid his new baseball team’s way into the Northeast League, and on that June 5 evening 25 years ago, the Jackals played their first game in Little Falls and beat the Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs, 2-1, on a walk-off home run in the 13th inning.

     New Jersey would wind up winning the Northeast League championship that first season, then the team moved into the Northern League the following year and lost in that league’s championship series.

     In those first two years, the Jackals had a certain outfielder who was clearly the most famous man in the dugout. The 28-year-old played in only 12 games in 1998 and batted an incredible .424. In 1999, at age 29, he played in 81 games for New Jersey and batted an even .300. 

     He was not flamboyant, he had experienced just a cup of coffee with 11 games in the big leagues, he would never make it back to the majors. But he was Pete Rose Jr., the son of the legendary Cincinnati Reds icon, who, to this day, holds the record for the most hits in major league history. 

     “CJ Rose,” as he was known, had to help at the box office, but then poof, he was gone, playing another 10 years in a couple of other independent leagues. He ended his career at age 39 with the York Revolution.

     CJ was gone quickly, but the New Jersey Jackals were on the map. 

     “Titanic” dominated the Oscars in 1998, while two new television shows, “Sex and the City” and “Will & Grace” were the national rage. Frank Sinatra died that year, Google was founded by two Stanford PhD students, and President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice.

     Here at the brand-new stadium, the measurements down the lines were 308 feet and dead center was 398 feet, all a tribute to the one and only Number 8, New York Yankees legend and longtime Montclair resident Yogi Berra.

     Yogi had overseen construction of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center down the rightfield line of the ballpark.  He also showed up at games a few times each year for photos and autographs, and he was known to entertain guests in the indoor/outdoor skybox atop the museum.

     The hall-of-famer died in 2015 and the official address of the stadium was changed in 2016 to 8 Yogi Berra Drive.

     The team changed, too. The Northern League only lasted another five years, then it – and the Jackals – were absorbed back into the Northeast League for the 2003 and 2004 seasons. A huge change came in 2005 when the team joined the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball, and New Jersey would remain in the Can-Am League until it folded after the 2019 season.

     That’s when most Can-Am teams moved into the Frontier League, the oldest and most successful league in the nation and now a “partner league” of Major League Baseball. And that’s where we are today, with endless memories of the 24 seasons that came before this one.

     The Jackals marked this special year with a 25th anniversary event at the stadium on June 4, but it’s really a summer-long celebration. So many great nights in the past… and hopes of so many more to come in the future…

By Carl Barbati, former sports editor of the New Jersey Herald, Daily Record and The Daily Trentonian.