The word came down Wednesday afternoon, on the day that major league baseball’s 30 teams were extending “invitations” to their prospective minor league partners: Lancaster and the Antelope Valley would be on the outside, noses pressed against the figurative glass as the business of baseball proceeded without them.
Earlier in the day, Baseball America published a list of those “invitations,” the vast majority of which came under the heading of fait accompli. There were 120 available spots, and 119 were filled as of 9 a.m.
And at a little before 2 p.m., Fresno Bee columnist Marek Warszawski broke the story: The Fresno city council will vote Thursday on new contracts with MLB and with the owners of what had been the city’s Triple-A franchise, ending a stalemate and enabling Fresno to stay in affiliated baseball as the California League affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.
At a video conference featuring Fresno mayor Lee Brand and city council president Miguel Arias Wednesday afternoon, details of the negotiation were revealed, among them a reduction of rent from $500,000 yearly to $100,000, an increase in the city’s payment toward utility services, and a revised profit-sharing agreement between owners and city. Arias noted that between the original $45 million cost to build the city’s downtown stadium and more than $5 million in subsidies in the 20 years since, losing baseball and closing the ballpark would still leave Fresno taxpayers on the hook for around $20 million.
“We were left with a bad choice and a worse choice,” Arias said. The way he talked about the original decision to build the ballpark – not positively – you wondered if he’d debated whether to just let the whole thing go.
People in Lancaster would have appreciated that.
Instead, it is the Antelope Valley that now has a stadium with no team, and the conversation about how to utilize it will begin in earnest. Mayor R. Rex Parris estimated in a conversation Wednesday that the city could save $400,000 a year by closing the stadium, “and most of that’s (to) maintain the grass,” he said.
“I mean, we’re really proud of that stadium. Don’t get me wrong. It was the first stadium in the country to be powered by solar panels. … It’s unfortunate that this occurred, but we’ll adjust.”
Many of the 42 cities told they’re no longer good enough for affiliated baseball have been offered, and many will accept, spots in non-affiliated leagues or college/draft-eligible wood bat leagues by MLB. That’s a non-starter here, because as we noted a week ago there are no such leagues even close to Lancaster. The only league that geographically made sense was the league they used to be in.
“It’s obviously disheartening for us,” city manager Jason Caudle said Wednesday. “They’ve had a long history in Lancaster, a long successful history.
“We’re currently evaluating what operational opportunities exist for us in the future … but the maintenance of the facility to that (professional baseball) level of standard is likely going to be cost-prohibitive.”
Post-COVID, it will likely house high school and college baseball. Maybe concerts. Maybe soccer. Doesn’t matter. It won’t be the same.
Was the worst part the 13 months that the Antelope Valley’s team was in jeopardy, dating back to the first disclosure last year of MLB’s plan to reduce the size of its affiliated minor leagues essentially by 25 percent?
Was it the idea that the JetHawks never had a chance to say goodbye or to show their appreciation to their fans, because the pandemic idled all of minor league baseball in 2020?
Or was it that this just did not have to happen, period?
This is a thinning of the prospect herd, and it’s not subtle. It saves a few bucks, and I remain convinced a large part of this is to deflect a class action lawsuit over minor leaguers’ pay. (Pay the players more but pay fewer of them, nudge, wink). In October, the Supreme Court denied an MLB appeal and said the suit could go forward.
Eliminating teams – as well as entire rookie and short-season leagues – and permanently cutting the draft from 40 rounds to 15 will eliminate stories such as those of Mike Piazza (62nd round pick, Hall of Famer), or Keith Hernandez (42nd round), or Mark Buehrle (38th round) or John Smoltz (22nd round, Hall of Famer), guys who fought their way from suspect to prospect to star.
Instead we’ll be praising “undrafted free agents” who make the majors, and don’t we all want baseball to sound more like the NFL every day?
More than anything, however, baseball is about to lose a portion of its soul. The big cities and the bright lights are where reputations are made, but those little and mid-sized towns are where the game’s heartbeat truly exists, with the host families who can always say that a superstar or Hall of Famer bunked with them as a 19- or 20-year-old prospect, or the youngsters who treasure autographs from minor leaguers who turned out to be somebody special.
Maybe the MLB functionaries in their Park Ave. offices will understand this: Those people watch televised games and patronize sponsors and buy the merchandise, too.
“There’s a big support base,” Caudle said of JetHawks fans. “And when the first news came out a year ago that there was a potential elimination, yeah, there was a groundswell of citizen support.
“You know, unfortunately, MLB doesn’t necessarily listen to citizen support.”
That’s the problem.
jalexander@scng.com
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
https://goo.gl/hYDEHJ
No comments:
Post a Comment