If you've been around since the 80s, you had the misfortune of living through Ted Stepien’s ownership of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1980-1983. You might be aware of the fact that Stepien was also the owner of a highly successful professional men's softball team, the Cleveland Competitors, which he had purchased in 1978 as the Cleveland Jaybirds of the APSPL (American Professional Slo-Pitch League).
Cleveland and Milwaukee broke from this league to form the NASL (North American Softball League). Ironically, the new league lasted a single season and was absorbed back into the APSPL, forming yet another new league, the UPSL (United Professional Softball League) for the 1981 season. It did not save the men’s professional softball experiment, as this new league folded in 1983.
So with that all being said, what's the deal with Ted Stepien throwing softballs off the Terminal Tower?
A Long History of Throwing Softballs Off the Tallest Building in Cleveland
You might remember Stepien’s softball stunt, but it was hardly an original idea. The Cleveland Indians first took part in the idea of dropping balls off the Terminal Tower in 1938. It was a publicity stunt to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Terminal Tower, which was the tallest building in the country behind New York City until 1967.
Tribe catchers Hank Helf and Frankie Pytlak were designated to catch balls tossed by third baseman Ken Keltner from 700 feet above the street. Although each catcher was able to catch at least one, other tosses were reported to have taken frighteningly hard, violent bounces off the sidewalk.
Flash forward to 1980 and the idea by city organizers to recreate the ball toss event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the completion of the tower.
So, of course they first reached out to the Cleveland Indians again, who wanted absolutely no part of the dangerous stunt. In stepped Ted Stepien and his Cleveland Competitors softball team, and on June 24th, 1980, the infamous event took place.
Ted Stepien's Ill-Fated 1980 Softball Stunt
What we found curious was the fact that the 1938 event reportedly had over 10,000 on hand to witness things, whereas the 1980 event drew an estimated 5,000 or so. Maybe there was just less to do in 1938.
Stepien himself was set to be the one to toss the softballs from the top of the tower. In later years he was quoted as saying something to the effect of, “This is going to be bad, I’m going to hurt someone.” He should have listened to that inner voice of his, as he ended up paying a settlement to a woman whose wrist was broken by one of the errant tosses.
Stepien hurled the first ball away from the building so it would clear the building all the way down, but that first ball damaged a parked car, which probably should have ended things right there. But somehow the stunt went on, and the damage balls two and three did was a bit more consequential.
Ball #2 hit a 66-year-old man in the shoulder area but that didn’t seem too serious enough for anyone to say “Let's put an end to this insanity," so Stepien went ahead and lobbed ball #3.
Ball #3 ended up breaking the wrist of a woman by the name of Gayle Falinski, and despite even this turn of events, the debacle was still not called, as ball #4 ended up missing the crowd, thankfully, altogether, and when ball #5 landed in the mitt of Competitors player Mike Zarefoss, sanity and order were finally restored and the event was called.
Stepien must have been a bit rattled by the news cameras on hand to cover the event and was quick to lay blame for the outcome on the organizers of the event for not first allowing he and his players to practice before allowing a crowd to gather. It should also be noted that Cleveland police did the best they could trying to position the crowd but without ever having to deal with an event of this kind, it was pretty much impossible to coordinate spectators.
Ted Stepien had a pretty storied Cleveland history, and certainly not all bad. And as you can see here, some of that history was just downright bizarre, too.