We don’t see his name listed anywhere in association with the new summer collegiate Midwest Farm League based in Chicago (IL), but the four teams on deck for the circuit’s 2013 inaugural season have had Jamie Toole‘s fingerprints on them in the recent past. The league is being billed as “a professional development league for current and former collegiate level baseball players.”
As you recall, Toole withdrew his Will County CrackerJacks and Illinois Lincolns from the summer collegiate Midwest Collegiate League before the end of last season amid rumors of financial problems. At the same time, he was involved with the pay-t0-play Chicago Jets. Prior to his summer collegiate ventures in the Chicago market, Toole served as the general manager of the now-defunct Joliet JackHammers (Northern League) and was co-founder and CEO of the failed South Coast League.
View the MFL’s websites here and here. Follow the MFL on Twitter here. Thanks to a loyal reader for the heads up.
ballparkbiz.wordpress.com 
Jon, do you know these things that you are saying are factual or are you just being a critic? There seem to be NO specifics in your claim just a broad stroke with e brush similar to many of the posters prior to you. My favorite part is your personal experience in meeting this guy was a good one??? Please explain this situation and how you actually know this guy along with a description on he “tons of players” who have been screwed.
To reply to what you said, Big Mac, everyone who meets Jamie likes him at first. He is charming. He will tell you want you want to hear. He will suck you in and then screw you over. After he screws you over, he will put the burden of proof on you. He has no conscience, no soul.
Which leads me to think that all these positive posts from various user names are all from Jamie. You will not find anyone more disliked or distrusted in baseball than maybe the guy that owned the Schaumburg Flyers and the Lake County Fielders. They are birds of a feather.
And who are you, Fungo, and what have you ever done besides cash a paycheck that someone else signed, then go on the internet under a not-so-clever screen name and bash other people because it makes you feel bigger? What’s that…? Nothing? I didn’t think so.
if you have a address of Mr.Toole please share. I would like to collect my money that he let me high and dry. I would really like to shake his hand on a fine job he does sticking to people.
Start here:
http://www.midwestfarmleague.org/contact-us
Three of the four teams listed (Jets, Lincolns, and CrackerJacks) are/were Toole’s teams.
Alan
Look up his corporate entities, usually there is an address attached.
People who cares? All these guys in this league are sorry. Everyone associated with the league has done a horrible job and it is just a matter of time until the league dies. There website is horrible. There is no news on any of the team sites except horribly cropped photos showing players eyes and pictures from a soccer crowd.
The Northwoods and Prospect Leagues are the only legit summer ball leagues in that area. Has anyone heard anything from this league, I heard they were folding and the DuPage club was joining the PL?
The Great Plains League or Midwest Collegiate League or Midwest Farm LEague, whatever they want to call it…… IS NOT GOING TO WORK!!!!
I can tell you first hand that Jamie Toole is a grifter. If you don’t know the term, look it up. Translation: con man. He has screwed so many people over the years that no one in professional baseball will hire him. If he is such a brilliant baseball mind, why won’t anyone hire him? His name is mud in the baseball industry. Therefore, he has no choice but to start his own teams. It is not by choice, as he would rather play with other people’s money. He is out of options at this point and has to go at it alone.
Jamie was the gunman on the grassy knoll as well. He is also responsible for the debt ceiling debacle and global warming. Get a life cowardly posters and stop the character assassination on someone you don’t even know.
Defend Jamie all you want. Fact of the matter is that everything he has done while he was running teams has ended badly. History doesn’t lie. Everything he runs goes broke and he leaves broken promise and debts behind. He blamed other people in the past when he worked for others, but in the case of the Lincolns and Crackerjacks, he was the sole owner and he shut down the teams. In this thread, there has been no evidence of Jamie making good on the debts that he left behind in his recent debacle. None. He needs to come forward and prove that he has paid the debts that he left behind and took care of those players whose summer he wrecked by cancelling two teams seasons.
Well “David”, if your information is correct on Mr. Tool. He has gone backward in his employment, due to the fact he is a “scam artist”. You go from a MLB minor league team, to running a horrible Southcoast league, to running the Joliet jackhammers into the ground, to running a summer team with college kids, THAT PAID TO PLAY…. and some kids are still paying with their credit history… It shows his respect level as a person, and businessman. Thanks David, for pointing out the start of his decline, I just helped you finish the downward progression. His next natural step is running a youth league….. Thank goodness all my children are adults. My thoughts go out to all the vendors, and families he has screwed over the past year.. Great choice of friends you have…. With friends like him, who needs enemies….
I just want to point out that ALL players in the MCL PAID TO PLAY with the exception of the Liners club. This is not that uncommon for lower level college summer leagues. All of the MCL clubs are currently charging to play for next season as well. How do you think the commish is paying to rent that Indiana ballpark?
I don’t care how the “commish” is paying for his rent. What I do know is that Toole took money from these players and their families and pulled his teams from the league before the season was over. Under any circumstances, that is not excusable. It is not fair to the kids and it is not fair to the kids on other teams in the league who had games scheduled with his teams. I’d be curious to know if he prorated the fees that the players paid and gave them each a refund for games not played. I’d love to hear from some of the parents or players on this one.
Well said, Joliet Mom. The only thing I would add is that Toole hasn’t done’ this for just one year. It has been time and time again going back to the South Coast League of which he was CEO. He will do it again and probably get away with it as he has in the past. If he is indeed involved with the Midwest Farm League….. a farm league for independent baseball? Are you kidding me? Question is, which name will he use (he has many) Jamie Toole, J. Thomas Toole or James Toole. Show me a guy who uses multilple names depending on what business he is in and I’ll guarantee he has something to hide. .
Well said Ken Tater (aka Don Popravak)(the commish of the MCL) and well said Joliet Mom (aka Kimberly Popravak)(the real commish of the MCL).
I am not the commissioner of the MCL. The commissioner could be equally to blame in that situation for all I know. What I do know is that Toole always exits leaving people holding the bag and then pointing a finger at someone else. It has happened time and time again. . Let us review: CEO of the Southcoast League (bankrupt after one year and blamed the money source), GM of the Joliet JackHammers (bankrupt with bills unpaid around the area and blamed the owners), owner of two college summer teams (pulled teams from the league, left unpaid bills around and then blamed the league). IF he had FINALLY paid these bills (as someone had mentioned in this thread) he would have gone to the press and had them write an article on it or called a press conference. He is nothing short of a carnival barker. I challenge him to go to the press to show where he has satisfied all his debts for the Lincolns and the Crackerjacks. Prove it to us, Jamie. For once, quit hiding from your misdeeds.
Look it up folks. The record doesn’t lie. South Coast League, Jackhammers, Super Independent Baseball, Will County Crackerjacks, Illinois Lincolns, Chicago Jets, they all were failures and Jamie left people holding the bag for his debts. No one has ever called him on it. He always blamed someone else. But in the most recent case, he has no one else to blame for his mismangement and debts, so he blamed the league. Anyone who would give him their money is either out of their mind or hasn’t done any due diligence on this guy. Google Jamie Toole before you decide to play for him. You will see his past. He is a snake oil salesman that gives the business of baseball a bad name. His day will come. I don’t know how he lives with himself.
Of course everything you read on the internet is accurate. Let’s see….. the President is not a US citizen, Bigfoot is real, and the I guess the world is ending in a few weeks …. Ladies and Gentlemen, the MCL charged $0 for their franchises with exemption of DeKalb who was charged $25,000 but was supposed to pay after the season. The DeKalb team decided not to continue playing in the MCL so Popravik (league dictator/commissioner/owner of two teams) is offering free franchises left and right to anyone who will listen including the Lexington Blues team who has agreed to play in the MCL next year. The Rockford team is in shambles and their field is not suited for a little league team so any college coach that would let their players play in that mess is asking for injuries. The Zephyrs group is the internal laughing stock of the league and have been the league commish has tried to get them out of the league for years now, the DuPage group has the inly realistic chance of being a successful summer ball club and they should join the Prospect League as the MCL is on life support.
I agree. The internet is not always accurate. Great point. However, when you do your due diligence on someone and everything is negative, any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that you should stay away. Toole always leaves a bunch of unpaid bills and then blamed others. Never his fault. When he is the sole owner of a team, he has no one to blame but himself. What does he do? Blame the league. I am curious as to what happened with the bills he owed to the apartment complex and the country club for his golf outing. Was the fact that he didn’t pay his bills (once again) the fault of the league? No, it was Toole’s fault. He just didn’t have anyone else to blame so he created a distraction by pulling his teams out of the league. He is a parasite.
Ken, I have done my due diligence and I gladly worked for Jamie with the CrackerJacks organization last summer. Honestly we were the best organization in that sorry league. (check out their sorry website, it hasn’t ben updated in three months)
Please be exact with your specific claims. Golf course has been paid, apartment complex settled, what else to you have in your “false accusation” bag?
I know for a fact that Jamie and his group have paid or are paying through payments every single cent that the Jacks or Lincolns owe. I know because I was owed money and I was paid. Do you know the CrackerJacks and Lincolns did business with over 50 vendors and to date they have had outstanding issues with four of those vendors?
I am sure that these facts don’t matter to you because it is much more fun to bash people then to truly try to understand what happened.
Just please stop making accusations about what you think you know in a public setting.
The real story of the MCL is coming out very, very soon and ALL these Jamie bashers on here are going to look like morons. The commissioner of that half ass league purposely forced the Jacks and Lincolns out of the league so his teams could compete for the championship. The commissioner also has made some very interesting comments that will make for interesting conversation about his try character….. stay tuned.
As far as a NL ‘return’ or who is fed up with who; it doesn’t matter what a league calls itself, it’s how strong and well-run the teams in it are. The west coast is questionable sure but that’s because the Golden League ruined any real market in the west and after being burned enough times by the GL, people will think twice about indy ball out there. Whether it’s Miles Wolff or the Big Bad Wolf, if the teams and league are well run and ethical it doesn’t matter what you call the league. The NL teams are all playing in other leagues or are gone – the good ones sustained, the bad ones died. Doesn’t matter if they were in the NL or AA or Grandpa’s Beer League.
Also, if you look at the league map of the Frontier League, the majority of their teams are in major markets, not smaller ones – Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. They’ve been successful using the model of going to suburban areas in major markets while still appearing to be a small town league. A few are still out in the sticks but for the most part they’re bunched in major markets.
Respectfully, I haven’t seen or heard of anything indicating a “fed up” relationship with the AA office. Logically, it would be somewhat unlikely just two years after the NoL-AA reunion. If Gary, WPG and FM had that much of an issue, it is more likely that those three would have propped up the weak sisters of the NoL.
On another note, what are peoples thoughts of Indy Baseball? I like the Atlantic League but it is very consistent and without much change. I am not banking on the concept of an Atlantic League II – it has been talked about it for years and years and I just do not see it, the Can-Am/American Association people seem to be fed up with Miles Wolff and the Frontier League is good for small markets and smaller ballparks…the west coast is questionable at best, I for one have said this numerous times on here but would like everyones take…What are your thoughts on a possible Northern League return?
Matty – I like the idea of an Atlantic league II. There are definitely markets in the mid-Atlantic region that can’t draw the 3-5 thousand a night to be viable in the Atlantic league but can draw half that which should fit into the AL2.
A Northern league return seems extremely unlikely. The Frontier league, American Association and Northwoods league have left few if any viable markets available for a Northern league return.
Pretty sad when you have to create your own league to house two teams that folded less than a year ago. How this guy continues to get people to buy into his ideas I will never know. Every league/team he’s been involved in has been a scam.
Someone please warn these poor kids before they sign up and make sure they don’t give this guy a dime. He creates scams to pay off previous scams.
“Rick” if that is your real name. Do you know Jamie? the reality is the worked in Major League Baseball for the Pittsburgh club, served as a very successful minor league baseball general manager for the Houston Astros organization and was a part of the JackHammers organization during the start up as well as coming back on board to help salvage the club during the worst financial time in our lifetimes. Were any of those I mentioned scams??? Then it seems like you are beating the same drum that several “people” using these cowardly user names do. You probably vote democrat too huh?
Whether Jamie worked in Major League Baseball or not is irrelevant at this point, he no longer works with MLB and there is a reason for that, there is also a reason why no one in Minor League Baseball will hire him and the fact that he has come out with the failed South Coast League and Super Indy Baseball has left people with very little patience for this guy and any news pertaining to him. I personally know tons of players who have personally been screwed by him, as well as many people in the SCL as well as in Joliet. My personal experience in meeting Jamie was a good one, but what he has done in so many failed circumstances is wrong.