“In the end, his mother told him, it was the wailing that took his father. A pox on their family. After each joyous beginning, the wailing would consume him until the silent, stillbirth would drown the fairy’s cries with its gurgling, violent emptiness. The cycle continued, unabated, like the tide—day giving way to night. At last, when the cries began anew again, he stepped over the cliff’s edge and carried her wails with him below and buried them beneath the crashing waves. The next cries were the boy’s.”
When the famine hit, Atticus Jones and his mother left Ireland for Boston. An immigrant, raised alone by his mother with no siblings, Jones arrived speaking only Irish—a stranger in a far-off land. He took solace in the American game and, proved himself a fierce competitor and a quick study. Like many immigrants, he learned the language and built his network playing semi-professional ball.
Upon retiring from the game he loved, he entered into a clerkship with a local attorney that had been a fan of his semi-pro team and devoted his life to righting inequities through the law. Having helped many, and his own fortunes, through the practice of law, he used his small fortune to give back to the greater Boston community—and return to a love of his youth–by forming a new professional ballclub in Boston.
The Banshees, named for the folkloric creatures that had so vexed his father, are, like the city they call home, a ragtag rough-and-tumble band of men as likely to start a brawl as to win a ball game. Security at the Boston Yards, the park that they call home, is the strictest of any LBL venue. Historically, Banshees’ supporters have been known to rush onto the field of play to confront opposing teams and—if a Banshees’ player has not performed to expectations—their own players. The hostile environment provides for a strong home field advantage with Boston typically performing much better at home than on the road.