Tides Deathwatch

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think if they end up in New Orleans it will be because they lost the game of musical chairs.

[soupcan]

New Orleans in the summer? Ugh.

I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be. I've been there in November and its hot and muggy then.

[MFS62]

I think I read that the New Orleans team played at least some of their home games in the Dome. Those games produced some interesting stats because I believe one of the foul lines was kinda' short.
Does anyone know if that place has been repaired since Katrina?

Later

[Guest cooby]

Saints are playing there next week


http://sports.excite.com/news/09192006/v0348.html


And in fact have sold out their season

[Guest Edgy DC]

soupcan wrote: N'awlins? Isn't the point of all this reshuffling to bring the AAA squad gegraphically closer to the big league one?

That's an assumption. But there are naturally other interests in play.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

soupcan wrote: New Orleans in the summer? Ugh. I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be. I've been there in November and its hot and muggy then.

My friend got a grad degree from Tulane and you're right, New Orleans is not where you want to be in the summer.

[Willets Point]

The New Orleans Zephyrs are the only professional sports team from Louisiana to win a championship. They also are the first team to return to playing home games in New Orleans (Metairie actually) after Hurricane Katrina. Hey, it would make for a good road trip to see the future Mets play in New Orleans.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Daily News, I think, speculated that the Mets will probably end up claiming Columbus.

If they do, I hope they ditch the Clippers name. (And yes, I know it's highly unlikely.) Columbus Clippers sounds too Yankee-ish to me, not only because of the 28 years as an affiliate, but also because of DiMaggio.

I'd name them the Columbus Pigeons. (Columbo, the explorer's untranslated name, means "pigeon" in Italian.)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Other options

The Columbus Discoverers
The Columbus Explorers
The Columbus Franchise
The Columbus Renaissance Men
The Knights of Columbus
The Ohio Players

[Guest KC]

The Wall Street Journal has a story today about the shifting of the AAA teams.
If someone has online access it would probably make a good post, ours (works)
account seems to have lapsed and I didn't have time to figure out why.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Can you give me something more to go on?

[Guest sharpie]

I hope they do go to New Orleans. A colleague's brother is the GM there, I have an old friend there I wouldn't mind seeing and all of it adds up to me being more likely to go there than to ever go to Columbus, Ohio.

[Guest KC]

SK: >>>Can you give me something more to go on?<<<

It's in the A section of today's paper and about three quarters of the way
down the internet main page. Most of the good links on that site require
an online subscription.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Do you have a title or an author?

I don't have WSJ online, but I have other methods of tracking things down.

[Guest KC]

One of my ten unwritten rules is The Wall Street Journal
never leaves the office.

And no, I'm not posting the other nine rules on a public forum.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

OK. In that case, you'll have to wait until the person I know with better access gets back from a Little League board meeting.

[MFS62]

In a related item, I heard that The Hagerstown Suns web site is reporting that the Suns have signed an agreement with the Washington Nationals to serve as their lower A farm team. Where does this leave the Mets? What locations are open? The Nationals are leaving Savannah, GA.

Edgy, have you read/heard anything about this?

Later

[Farmer Ted]

Mets officials were in Scranton yesterday. Heard it on the radio.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Didn't the Mets just join up with the Suns this season?

That was a quickie.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Shaking Up the Lineup

In Minor-League Affiliations,
Musical Chairs Has Replaced
Baseball as Game of the Week

By RUSSELL ADAMS
September 20, 2006; Page A19

Go just about anywhere in the former coal-mining towns of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in eastern Pennsylvania, and someone will be talking about it. A priest referenced it at a morning Mass on Sunday, and a judge stopped the county commissioner in the street to ask for an update.

After 18 seasons, the Philadelphia Phillies and their top minor-league baseball club, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, are severing ties. But what has everybody here talking is the hot pursuit of a new tenant for Lackawanna County Stadium. The county is talking with the New York Mets and the New York Yankees, both of whom passed through town yesterday. The sales pitch by Lackawanna County officials includes a tour of the stadium's new $3.2. million clubhouse, an offer to replace the artificial turf with real grass and a promise to bring in a new group to manage the franchise. A decision is expected this week.

OUT OF THE BALLPARK



[Out of the Ballpark]

Five Triple-A teams and their major-league partners are playing musical cares. A look at why it wasn't working out.

What's unfolding in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre is part of a bigger shake-up in baseball. Five major-league teams -- the Phillies, Mets, Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals -- are scouting new homes for their Triple-A clubs. While there is some degree of reshuffling in minor-league baseball every couple of years, the current round of remapping is part of a broader shift in the relationship between the major and minor leagues.

Minor-league baseball has been one of the feel-good stories of sports in recent years. Attendance has taken off, thanks to affordable ticket prices, more intimate stadiums and a carnival atmosphere at the games. Minor-league baseball also has been a big moneymaker for team owners, whose growing success has allowed them to gain more independence from the major-league clubs. At this point, the big-league teams supply only the players and coaches -- the minor-league owners take care of the rest, from marketing to maintenance.

[The Norfolk Tides, long the New York Mets top farm team, is on the move.]

The Norfolk Tides, long the New York Mets top farm team, is on the move.

Now, a number of major-league teams are hoping to consolidate their baseball operations -- including their handful of minor-league teams -- in closer proximity to the city where the major-league team is based. The idea is that that will it easier both to move players up and down between the majors and minors, and that it will help build fans' interest by exposing them to players earlier in their careers.

"A lot of teams have gone in that direction," says Jeff Luhnow, vice president of player procurement for the St. Louis Cardinals. Mr. Luhnow says "clustering" minor-league affiliates is not only "a good way to build up the regional fan base," but also allows major-league executives to spend more time with their player prospects.

Other factors have also helped to weaken the ties that used to bind minor and major leagues. They include a minor-league-stadium building boom that has caused major-league clubs to pay more attention to the quality of the facilities.

Since Sept. 16, when teams were free to negotiate new affiliate agreements, many of these minor-league towns have begun aggressively wooing potential major-league partners.

The Phillies will be moving their Triple-A team to Allentown, Pa. (after a two-year stop in Ottawa, Canada), which is not only closer to Philadelphia but also has offered to build the team a new stadium. The Yankees' decision to scout other possible places for their Triple-A team effectively puts Columbus, Ohio, where the team has been based for 28 years, back in play -- which is why the Mets, whose Triple-A team has been based in Norfolk, Va., is reportedly looking at Columbus as well as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The Orioles and Nationals, meanwhile, are in talks with Norfolk, which is in those teams TV markets. And if the Nationals switch their affiliation closer to home, that will leave New Orleans looking for a major-league organization.

As major-league clubs have come to rely more on team-owned television networks and the revenue they generate, they've also realized it pays to have their minor-league clubs within the areas those networks reach. That's another big reason why the Orioles and Nationals are aggressively pursuing Norfolk, the Mets and Yankees are considering Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and the Phillies will relocate their Triple-A operation to Allentown.

The relationship between Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and the Phillies crumbled because of everything from the county's delay in modernizing the baseball facilities to a feeling by the local fans that they've been snubbed by the big-league team. County officials make no secret of their preference for the Yankees, which they view as a vehicle to tell the world they've graduated from coal-scarred town to a miniature big city with a thriving service-based economy and a blossoming cultural scene. The Yankees' "association will get us one step closer to letting the rest of the world know," says Robert Cordaro, a member of the board of commissioners in Lackawanna County, which owns and operates the Red Barons.

As a whole, minor-league baseball continues to draw large crowds, bringing in a record 41.7 million fans this past season. But interest has waned in a number of cities, as fans have become disenchanted with teams. The Ottawa Lynx, the Baltimore Orioles affiliate, which broke International League attendance records in 1993, this year finished last in the league in attendance. Attendance for the Columbus Clippers, the Yankees' Triple-A team, has been on the decline recently as fans have grown increasingly frustrated with the team's poor performance. In Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where the Red Barons at one time drew 12,000 people to a stadium with fewer than 11,000 seats, the club drew only about 3,000 fans a game for two recent playoff games.

Minor-league and major-league teams are bound together by so-called player-development contracts, which typically run in two-year cycles. So every couple of years, teams are free to change affiliations. Sometimes the major-league club initiates the switch, while other times the minor-league team takes the lead. All the minor-league teams -- not just Triple A but other levels as well -- have a contract with the league that guarantees the owners the right to have a team. The cities hosting the team are at the mercy of the minor-league owners, who may decide to move or sell a team.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and the Phillies were once a perfect match. Fans packed the stadium and developed a kinship with former Phillies stars like Darren Daulton, who passed through before leading the team to a World Series appearance in 1993. But the team came to be a financial drain on county coffers, accumulating some $10 million in losses (including bond payments on the stadium) over the last six or seven years, according to Mr. Cordaro. Meantime, the Phillies became increasingly dissatisfied with the county's inability to upgrade the facilities, while fans grew tired of watching a losing team.

Write to Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

[soupcan]

My aging eyes won't allow me to get all the way through Scarlet's post so if I'm repeating here, I'm sorry.

I read in the NYTimes this morning that Columbus has affiliated with the Washington Senators for two years with an eye towards hooking up with either the Reds or Indians when their current agreements witheir respective AAA clubs expire.

And, failing to recognize the pure genius of Edgy's 'Ohio Players' suggestion, they will retain the name Clippers.

[Willets Point]

Columbus Swing Voters has a good ring to me.

[MFS62]

Willets Point wrote: Columbus Swing Voters has a good ring to me.

That would go over as well as the name
Columbus- Not the Buckeyes

Later

[Farmer Ted]

My nrother lives in Columbus and confirms the Nats AAA squad is going there AND possibly retaining the Clippers name. He and I both believe that the Clippers name was born out of Nazi-brenner's loves for boats and a tribute to his father who was a ship-building magnate. Researchers, please confirm or deny.

[Willets Point]

Farmer Ted wrote: My nrother lives in Columbus and confirms the Nats AAA squad is going there AND possibly retaining the Clippers name. He and I both believe that the Clippers name was born out of Nazi-brenner's loves for boats and a tribute to his father who was a ship-building magnate. Researchers, please confirm or deny.

The Clippers website notes that the team was known as the Clippers first when they were a Pirates affilliate 1977-1978. I would infer that would mean Steinbrenner was not involved.

It is an odd name for an inland city franchise.

[MFS62]

Farmer Ted wrote: My nrother lives in Columbus and confirms the Nats AAA squad is going there AND possibly retaining the Clippers name. He and I both believe that the Clippers name was born out of Nazi-brenner's loves for boats and a tribute to his father who was a ship-building magnate. Researchers, please confirm or deny.

Ted, most of us dislike Boss George enough without calling him a "Nazi".

As for the rest, yes, his family earned its fortune in the ship-building business, so that sounds reasonable about naming the team the Clippers.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think the ships they're referring to would be those of Christopher Columbus, not those of George Steinbrenner. Especially since the team was called the Clippers before the Yankees got there.

[Willets Point]

Well that's bad history since clippers are a specific type of sailing ship from the 19th-century.

[MFS62]

Willets Point wrote: Well that's bad history since clippers are a specific type of sailing ship from the 19th-century.

Weren't the Clipper ships trading vessels?
George prefers free agency.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Columbus Circles.