The Falcons joined the BBF Third Division for their first season of competitive baseball. Coach Earl Dix joined the team to assist their development whilst Dominic continued as Manager. Lee Manning committed to making the Falcons his senior team. The Falcons came out of the season with a respectable 7-9 win/loss record, but this does not tell the whole story. 4 of the 7 wins were actually due to the forfeits of the opponents.
The season did show many encouraging signs. On 27th April 1997 The Falcons beat the Southend Peers by an enormous 68 runs to 13. There were five home runs for the Falcons that day prompting the Watford Observer Headline “Home run crazy”.
Unfortunately the following week the Falcons lost 38 to 6 against the London Exiles. This was a bad tempered affair and no love was lost between the teams. For the mid-part of the season the Falcons won and lost games but always by large run differences demonstrating the huge difference in standards between opponents. There was no real sense of momentum.
As the season began to draw to an end the Falcons began to record tighter scorelines. They met the Exiles again later in the season; the Falcons still running out losers but this time to a more respectable 4 – 13. The last games of the season were a double-header against the BBF favourites Bracknell. Once again the Falcons lost, but managed to give their opponents some competition. They lost the first game 17 to 23 but in the last game the margin was just one run. Whilst the losses were hard to take, progress was clearly being made.