By adamg - Mon, 12/12/2005 - 8:58am.
- Send to a friend |
| 
| 
Recent comments
Boston Blogs Network
- Budget Cuts Could Shorten School Year
- Haverhill Brewery/The Tap – La Dame De Peronne
- You Tart!!!
- Goodbye, Silver Line.
- Goodbye, Silver Line.
- Gordon Edes Officially In at ESPNBoston.com
- Time For the Friday Megalinks
- A Little Birdy Told Me…
- Bicycle Film Festival
- Second Annual Boston Bikes Report Event
Background info
City Councilor John Tobin proposes bringing minor-league ball to Boston because Sox tickets are too expensive, basically.
Some other metro areas have
Some other metro areas have both major and minor league teams. Minnesota has the Twins while St. Paul has the Saints. The Bronx has the Yankees and Queens has the Mets, but Brooklyn has the Cyclones and Staten Island has its own Yankees.
Bring back the National League
I have always hoped for a return of a National League team. It's clear from the constant Fenway sell outs that this town is baseball hungry and can support a second team.
However, there are a ton of minor league teams around, and the market is getting saturated. Brockton has the Rocks/Rox (depending on which way you look at the logo). There's the Red Sox affiliate Lowell Spinners. Lynn is home to the North Shore Spirit, too. My guess is that Worcester (home of minor hockey Ice Cats) will angle for a baseball team next. Not to mention many families make the trip to Pawtucket to see the AAA Red Sox affiliate there.
As many know, Boston used to have a National League team before the Braves decamped in a midnight move to Milwaukee. It was a tunnel dream to think that the Expos-cum-Nationals would have landed here, and it's also doubtful that MLB will expand the National League to Boston when there are other cities clamoring for a team. But there is one National League team owner with Boston ties: Frank McCourt. Wouldn't it be nice if he moved the Dodgers to Boston? He could even build the park on all the South Boston waterfront real estate he owns. That's what I hope for. Sorry LA.
Dodgers?
Move the Dodgers to Boston? Yeah right. As much as the LA crowd wants to kick McCourt out of town, that idea is ridiculous.
In terms of a minor league squad, I think the market here could sustain it, contrary to popular belief. With so many youth teams in this area, a stadium of roughly 4,000 capacity placed in the right area (Southie waterfront?) could attract significant interest from the city neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs. With a low ticket price, I could see the team being successful.
A larger concern than the economics has to be the Red Sox. This team would likely not be an affiliate of theirs. Although I think that a minor league team here would benefit them, I'm sure their knee-jerk reaction would be to try to squash this thing. With their lobbying power in the city and on Beacon Hill, they're the ones that will have to be dealt with in this I imagine.
There was a time when the
There was a time when the Red Sox didn't sell out Fenway every game and even tickets to games against the Yankees tickets could be purchased just a few days before game day. That's how it was in the late 1990's. The kind of competitive and financial success the Sox are having now should not be taken for granted.
more distant, care less
Very few minor league teams are located in cities with major leauge teams. You could make the argument that the team in Lynn is close enoguh to boston. In this case, this idea serves no purpose because there already is a team. A small city farther from a major league stadium would get more attention because people out there dont care as much about the major leagues. Only a second major league team would get enough attention in boston. Teams are already in Lynn, Lowell, Pawtucket, Brockton, Worcester, Portland, Nashua, Manchester, burlington, new haven, new britian, and norwich, connecticut. The three places i think deserve a team would be springfield, hartford and either new bedford or fall river.
Tobin Fishing for an Issue?
Sowhere is this proposal coming from, exactly? Call me cynical, but politicians don't tend to make proposals just because an idea occurs to them. Have people been clamoring for a minor league ball club? Is this Tobin's attempt to look like he's doing something after an election that showed that one of the two neighborhoods he represents (Jamaica Plain) preferred his opponent?