Fort Myers Mighty Mussels

• Location: Fort Myers, FL
• League: Florida State League 2020 (did not play); Low-A Southeast 2021; Florida State League 2022-
• Affiliation: Minnesota Twins 2020-present
• Ballpark: Hammond Stadium

Team History

The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, of the Florida State League and briefly in Low-A Southeast, are the southernmost farm team in Organized Baseball. The Minnesota Twins farmhands play their home games at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, FL.

The Fort Myers run of the franchise represents a remarkable turnaround. The Miami Marlins - a Class A team whose brand saluted an earlier Triple-A Miami team that had moved to Puerto Rico - had seen their fortunes fall as Miami became a big-league sports town pioneered by the NFL's Miami Dolphins. In 1989, the M.S. Goldklang Co. - now the Goldklang Group - bought the Marlins and two other minor league franchises.

Majority owner Marvin Goldklang, a successful lawyer and investor, had formed the company in 1985 - six years after becoming a minority owner of the New York Yankees. The firm hired Mike Veeck - son of legendary baseball owner/promoter Bill Veeck - as president of the club, which they promptly renamed the Miami Miracle. Veeck made a presentation at the 1990 Winter Meetings on making ends meet while running a minor-league team in a major-league city, after only one season of doing so, but in 1992 the Miracle appeared in Fort Myers. The move resulted less from a change of Veeck's mind than from the announced advent of the big-league Florida Marlins, created through the expansion of 1993.

The Goldklang Group sold the Fort Myers Miracle in 2014, with one of the new minority owners taking the reins as president. Five years later, the owners changed presidents. Three weeks after taking over, Bob Ohrablo announced the team would drop its long-time Miracle nickname in favor of "Mighty Mussels".

During its Miracle days, this became the only franchise to play at least one game in all four Lee County stadiums that have hosted pro baseball seasons. Hammond Stadium was a given, of course, with the Miracle having played their home games there since the 1992 move. They picked up the second in 2006, when they helped Lee County celebrate the 100th anniversary of Terry Park, a recreational municipal park that includes Park T. Pigott Memorial Stadium, by playing a game there. Despite its official name and signage, that ballpark is better known as "Terry Park" or "Terry Park Ballfield", and it started hosting pro ball, both spring training and teams in various Florida-based minor leagues, in the mid-1920s. When Hammond underwent a deep renovation in 2015, the Miracle played their home games at the Red Sox's jetBlue Park spring training complex. Those three having come by chance and circumstance, the Miracle played a single game at City of Palms Park in 2018 specifically to complete the set. Palms had hosted the Red Sox for spring training and their Rookie-Class team in the Gulf Coast League from 1993 through 2011.

MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization lowered the Mussels, and most of the Florida State League, by one level.

Year-by-Year Record

Year	Record	Finish	Manager	Playoffs	Hitting coach	Pitching coach	Coach
2020	Season cancelled
2021	60-54	3rd	Brian Meyer		Derek Shomon	Carlos Hernandez, Dan Urbina (until July), Peter Larson	Rayden Sierra
2022	69-59	2nd	Brian Meyer	Lost in 1st round	Rayden Sierra	Jared Gaynor, Carlos Hernandez	Takashi Miyoshi
2023	67-64	5th	Brian Meyer		Rayden Sierra	Jared Gaynor, Richard Salazar	Luis Reyes
2024			Brian Meyer		Luis Reyes	Ryan Ricci, Richard Salazar	Collin McBride

Related Sites

• Official Site