In its inaugural campaign, Monterey Bay F.C. fared better than many new clubs.

Dave Faries here, applauding a season now ended. However long its history may extend, a team has only one shot at performing well in an inaugural season. Although Monterey Bay F.C. finished the 2022 campaign on a three game losing streak, the team put together a solid first year.

At this time 12 months ago Monterey Bay F.C. consisted of an owner, Ray Beshoff, head coach and sporting director Frank Yallop and a few other front office personnel. There were no players and the stadium was a construction site. Their season wrapped up last weekend with a 12 win-4 tie-18 loss record—just shy of winning or drawing 50 percent of matches played. And until the final two contests the club was still in the playoff hunt.

That’s pretty strong, especially considering the many early struggles. Monterey Bay was 1-6 by the time Cardinale Stadium was ready to host its first home game. At midseason the record stood at 5-1-11 with 16 points. Four or five different goalkeepers had taken to the pitch—hard to keep track—and injuries had also riddled the back line. But as things came together, the team went 7-3-7 the rest of the way, claiming an additional 24 points.

Expansion franchises are expected to drag themselves through woe and misery in their inaugural campaigns. This is especially true of teams pieced together in decades past, when established teams only cast unwanted players into the available pool. Looking at football, baseball, basketball and hockey, only one expansion club—a single one—assembled a winning percentage above .500.

You have to know? NHL’s 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights, at .678 for the season. The best finish for a new NFL team came in 1995, when the Carolina Panthers went 7-9. In 1961, the Los Angeles Angels set the mark for Major League Baseball expansion clubs, finishing at 70-91. The Chicago Bulls won 33 games in the 1966-67 season—its first—to 48 defeats. They would have to wait awhile for Michael Jordan.

A few expansion franchises proved so laughable that they became famous. If you could look past their peachy uniforms, it was difficult not to sympathize with the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The team lost all 14 games that year and the first 12 of 1977. Head coach John McKay, who had been lured from a successful run at USC, became infamous for his quips as losses mounted. “We can’t stop the pass or the run,” he once said. “Otherwise we’re in great shape.” He also noted “we can’t win at home and we can’t win on the road. What we need is a neutral site.” His most memorable may also be apocryphal, or at least borrowed from a frustrated coach of yore, but it’s worth mentioning. Analyzing a loss, a reporter asked about the team’s execution. “I’m all for it,” McKay is supposed to have said.

The best Frank Yallop could muster—on the record—came following a game that saw Monterey Bay turn things around after a challenging first half. The exchange went like this: “What did you tell them at halftime?” “I can’t repeat that,” he said. The response was followed by a laugh.

In terms of charming ineptitude, the 1962 New York Mets are champions. In its first season, the castoffs were under the charge of Casey Stengel, a managerial legend who captured seven titles at the helm of the Yankees. But his Mets ended the fray with a 40-120 record and a fan base that fell in love with their sorry plight. Writer Jimmy Breslin even found a book in their stumbles, titled Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

The team put some past-their-prime stars like Richie Ashburn and Gil Hodges in uniform. Some promising talent came up through the farm system, including Ed Kranepool. But the heart and soul of a squad that found so many ways to lose was Marv Throneberry.

One story. Throneberry once crushed an apparent triple—to which field and against which team I can’t recall at the moment; it’s been a few decades since I read Breslin’s work. As he stood on third, the opposing pitcher calmly tossed the ball to the first baseman, who stepped on the bag. The umpire threw up a thumb, calling Throneberry out on the play. On his way around first, Marvelous Marv had failed to touch the base.

Enraged, Stengel rushed out of the dugout to argue, but the first base coach corralled him. “Relax,” he told the manager. “He didn’t touch second, either.”

So 12-4-18 and an “almost” when it comes to playoff contention? It was actually a very good year.

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A round of applause for Monterey Bay F.C.’s first season. Bright Eyes on stage in Monterey.