Sentinel gets it right on baseball in Leominster

It must be time for a vacation or a visit to the doctor. I read an editorial in the Sentinel and Enterprise this morning and agreed wholeheartedly with the premise.

I know.

The Sentinel opined this morning that Leominster should only pursue the minor league stadium plan if it includes an affiliated franchise:

We've been very supportive of a plan to put a professional baseball stadium on the landfill in the past, but worry about the prospects for success of an independent baseball team in Leominster, particularly with independent teams already in Worcester and nearby Nashua, N.H.

And while Nashua's team started out strongly, they have struggled in recent years. We think a big part of the reason for that is because they are an independent team and not associated with a professional baseball team...

No one would like to see a professional baseball team come to Leominster more than us, but we'd like to see a team affiliated with a Major League team make Leominster home, not an independent team.

Other than the poor "Bad team could strike out in Leominster" headline (just because a team is affiliated doesn't mean it won't be awful...and besides, I can't read anything in the Sentinel without something bothering me), I heartily agree.

Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Baseball Sentinel and Enterprise

Bring the Spinners to Leominster

Last weekend, the Sentinel and Enterprise rolled out their periodic story about the plans to build a minor league baseball stadium at the old landfill in Leominster. The story is strikingly similar to 2006 reports, right down to Mayor Dean Mazzarella's still-moronic suggestion that the field could be used for Little League games when the pros aren't using it (note to the mayor: a Little League diamond and a minor league diamond are dramatically different sizes).

I have opposed the plan because I believe the city will be left with an empty stadium in short order if they build it for an independent league team like the Worcester Tornaodoes. The only way I see it as a success is if a team with a major league affiliation (like the relationship the Lowell Spinners have with the Red Sox) is the tenant.

Did I mention the Spinners? The single-A club is nearing the end of its lease with the city of Lowell and rumors are that the city will be holding out for more money in the next agreement. This is the break Leominster has been waiting for. If the city is serious about building a minor league complex, they should jump into the bidding for the Spinners and offer to let them lease the proposed stadium at no or minimal cost. Get the Spinners on board in Leominster and build the stadium now.

According to the Lowell Sun, city leaders are frustrated that they are seeing very little revenue from the Spinners' current lease:

Under the terms of the Spinners' current deal with the city, which expires Dec. 31, the team retains all ticket, advertising and concessions income but has to cover operating expenses and field maintenance....

[According to City Manager Bernie Lynch], while some Spinners fans include a stop at a local restaurant or other business with their trip into Lowell for a game, many just go to LeLacheur Park and leave. The visitors also require the city to pay for special police details and constitute wear and tear on Lowell's roadways.

"All of those things cost the city taxpayers money," Lynch said. "Based upon that logic, we think there should be some revenue that comes back to the city as a result of that."

Since the current deal took effect, for the 1998 season, the team's only payments to the city have been an annual contribution of $25,000 toward a repair and improvement fund for the park.

This is the big issue in all stadium projects and negotiations: Are the collateral benefits of bringing more commerce to the restaurants and businesses in the city enough to offset the artificially low rent paid by the teams? Some say yes, some say no (for a small city like Leominster I'd say yes, for a metropolis like Boston, I'd say no).

Lowell-based blogger Richard Howe is afraid that the Lowell city council are among those that say say no:

Be sure to get out to LeLacheur Park and catch a Spinners game this summer because the team will be playing elsewhere next season....

Every city in New England (except, perhaps, Boston, Pawtucket and Portland) would do anything to land this team. Anyone who thinks the Spinners could not find a new deal as lucrative to the team as the current lease with Lowell in another city just doesn’t understand the economics of professional baseball (and the motivations of civic leaders who hunger for a civic asset like the Spinners). But it looks like there are plenty of folks (on the council and at the [Lowell Sun] newspaper, for starters) who think they know better.

This is Leominster's opportunity. The problem, of course, is that the city probably can't build a stadium in time for June, 2009 when the Spinners (or whatever they'd be called in Leominster--the Flamingos? the Appleseeds?) open their season. But man, if they ever want to make a big splash with a ball team, this is the chance.

If the city is really serious about bringing minor league baseball to Leominster, they should do whatever it takes to get the Spinners to come to town. Otherwise, Leominster should stay out of the baseball business altogether, or at least until another affiliated minor league team becomes available.

Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Baseball Lowell Spinners

Magic Number: 7

Jim Tankersley at the Chicago Tribune takes Barack Obama's lead in the Democratic Primary race and compares it to a baseball pennant race. If anyone has been having a hard time figuring out exactly where things stand, this analysis might help bring it into focus (at least if you're a baseball fan):

Clinton and rival Barack Obama have combined to secure about 88 percent of the available delegates in their nomination battle, the rough equivalent of playing 142 games in a 162-game baseball season...

At a similar point in a baseball playoff race, fans start obsessing over their team's "magic number," the games it must win--or its opponent must lose, or a combination of the two--to wrap up a postseason berth.

Obama needs to win about 36 percent of the remaining delegates, according to The Associated Press, to wrap the nomination. If the primaries were a baseball season and Obama were a team, there would be 20 games left to play, Obama would have a 14-game lead and his magic number would be seven.

If this were baseball, a Clinton comeback would be the greatest comeback in baseball history. It wouldn't happen in baseball and won't happen in politics. That's why Obama has started working on his getting his playoff rotation set instead of worrying about remaining contest.

Tags: Election 2008 Democratic Primary Barack Obama Hillary Clinton baseball

A cautionary tale for Leominster's baseball plans

Last spring, when details of a potential minor league baseball stadium in Leominster were unveiled, I wrote the following in opposition of the plan:

The city needs to be 100% sure that a team will be successful before it helps to build a ballpark. Unlike an indoor arena like the Tsongas Arena in Lowell or the Verizon Center in Manchester which can be used to host hockey, basketball, tennis, boxing, curling, and other concerts and civic events year 'round, a ballpark is what it is. Other than the occasional concert while the home team is on the road, or perhaps hosting a baseball event like an MIAA state championship, when a ballpark is empty there isn't much use for it. The worst thing that could happen would be to build a ballpark and then have it sit empty ten years down the road because an independent team or league has folded.

Now the city of Lynn, which hosted one of the more successful independent minor league teams in the region, is confronting the same dilemma Leominster could face if they build a stadium:

After five seasons, the independent baseball team will be folding once the series is over, unable to attract a big enough fan base to make team owner Nick Lopardo's multimillion-dollar investment pay off, a top league official said.

"He simply didn't draw enough people," Miles Wolff, the league's commissioner, said in a telephone interview from Canada. "He gave it everything he had for five years, but it just didn't work out."

According the the story the team, which is playing for the Can-Am League Championship this weekend, was third in the Can-Am League in attendance. If a potential league champion with one of the highest attendance figures in the league is folding after five seasons because it is losing money, why would the city of Leominster risk building a $16 million stadium complex for a similar experience?

Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Lynn Baseball Minor League Can-Am League