Tuesday, March 22, 2005
More Live Baseball For Leeeny
Due to the recent puppy business, one thing I haven't had the time to do in the last week is poke around through the online media sources and my roster of linked Pirate blogs, to get a feel for what's going on in Florida at the moment. It's so very different to blog about Spring Training from 1200 miles away and filtered through beat reporters and other bloggers, as compared to being in Bradenton myself and typing about what my own eyeballs have observed. Frankly, the read/analyse/opine/post model is not what interests me much as a blogger, although I do it when I have a reasonably strong opinion about something. But that's in no way slamming anyone who blogs in that fashion. Au contraire, I rely on Rowdy and the others listed in my Links to do that better than I could ever manage. I just don't think there's much point to running this blog as a substandard clone of that sort of editorial endeavor. I'm the embedded reporter rather than the op-ed analyist, more interested in writing about things that I'm seeing for myself.
So, with that in mind, here's some baseball news going on right here in Central Pee-Ay, and it will presumably (HOPEFULLY) involve the Pirates in terms of their minor league affiliations:
Since last year the rumor mill in Altoona has been talking about the fact that the Curve's owners, Chuck Greenberg and his partners (who include Mario Lemieux and Jerome Bettis among others), were looking to work out some sort of deal with Penn State University up in State College. The goal was to upgrade the facilities for the university's varsity baseball team (which plays in the Big Ten and is usually pretty good) by building a new ballfield complex; and cooperatively to locate another minor-league franchise up there which would also use the facility, which Greenberg was hoping to purchase in the future. It was more than just scuttlebutt, because at one point Greenberg did let the local media know that this was indeed something he was working to accomplish.
Well, as of this press release dated Friday 3/18, that deal now appears to be happening. First two paragraphs:
The Pirate-related angle to this deal rests in the fact that the Pirates currently have their low-A-ball, short-season New York-Penn League affiliate, the Crosscutters, in Williamsport. Imagine, if you will, a somewhat zigzaggy diagonal line of something around 100 miles, running from southwest to northeast through the middle of Pennsylvania. Altoona, home of the Pirates' AA Eastern League affiliate the Altoona Curve, is at the southwestern endpoint of this line. Leeeny Herself lives in Tyrone, which is 17 miles up the line from Altoona. State College is 30 miles up the line from Tyrone, and Williamsport is at the northeastern endpoint of the line, 60 miles from State College. For reference, Pittsburgh is about 90 miles west of the Altoona end of the line.
Part of Chuck Greenberg's task in bringing this deal to fruition was to get the Crosscutters' ownership to sign off on allowing a competing NYPenn league franchise to relocate only 60 miles away. Apparently Chuck was successful in this. I expect that his considerable talents as a sports-team-owning, sports-marketing-savvy attorney came in handy.
It therefore seems likely to think (HOPE!) that the new State College ballclub will become the Bucco affiliate in the NYPenn league, requiring Williamsport to sign a new deal with another MLB organization. Williamsport is more commonly though of as Philly-centric than Pittsburgh-centric, but who knows what will result there. The only time I ever attended a game at Historic Bowman Field, in the mid '90s, the team was an affiliate of the Cubs. The Pirates picked them up in 1998, right before the Curve arrived in Altoona, in 1999.
But I got a bit of pretty reliable information recently, that posited that the NYPenn team most likely to relocate to State College would be the Oneonta (NY) Tigers, currently affiliated with Detroit. Oneonta's ballpark was built in 1939 and is in need of a lot of renovation. They have the 2nd lowest attendance in the NYPenn League, and the owner made some noise last year about selling the team unless there was a significant attendance increase. Attendance dropped further from that point until the end of the season. Thus spake Oneonta.
So if the stars align properly here, Leeeny may very well end up with:
· Low-A-ball Pirates prospects to see within half an hour's drive
· AA-ball Pirates prospects to see within 20 minutes' drive
· MLB Pirates to see within 2.5 hours' drive
My, my, my. Heaven and Iowa won't have nuthin' on moi. It may be true that Tyrone (pop. ~4500) is an eentsy little podunk town located in the middle of nowhere, but at least it's a WELL-LOCATED middle of nowhere, and increasingly so where Bucco Baseball is concerned.
I'm still waiting for sushi, however. It's available in Altoona and State College (I bow down to you, oh wonderful Wegman's), but its appearance in Tyrone is not expected anytime soon. Hell, we don't even have a Long John Silver's.
....(addendum, 3/24, 0934est).... And what will they name the ballteam?!! I'm going to have to chew on that. If any suggestions come to your mind, feel free to share them in the comments. As its name would imply, State College doesn't have much of an identity apart from PSU, so I don't know what else they have to work with, in the way that Altoona had the railroad. The State College Everlasting Joepas?
So, with that in mind, here's some baseball news going on right here in Central Pee-Ay, and it will presumably (HOPEFULLY) involve the Pirates in terms of their minor league affiliations:
Since last year the rumor mill in Altoona has been talking about the fact that the Curve's owners, Chuck Greenberg and his partners (who include Mario Lemieux and Jerome Bettis among others), were looking to work out some sort of deal with Penn State University up in State College. The goal was to upgrade the facilities for the university's varsity baseball team (which plays in the Big Ten and is usually pretty good) by building a new ballfield complex; and cooperatively to locate another minor-league franchise up there which would also use the facility, which Greenberg was hoping to purchase in the future. It was more than just scuttlebutt, because at one point Greenberg did let the local media know that this was indeed something he was working to accomplish.
Well, as of this press release dated Friday 3/18, that deal now appears to be happening. First two paragraphs:
Hershey, Pa. -- Featuring accommodations for approximately 6,000 spectators in its three-level design, preliminary plans for the new baseball park at Penn State's University Park campus were approved by the University's Board of Trustees Friday (March 18).The park will be adjacent to Beaver Stadium, and also to the Bryce Jordan Center. Say adios to another big chunk of football tailgating space. The past-third-base and left-field seats are going to have a fabulous view of Mount Nittany, it looks like.
The ballpark, which is being designed by the architectural firm of L. Robert Kimball and Associates of State College, will be the new home for the Penn State baseball team as well as a minor league baseball team to be acquired by the owners of the Altoona Curve franchise. The facility is scheduled to be ready for use by the minor league team in June 2006.
(click the pic to see a much larger version - it's about 1.3MB)
The Pirate-related angle to this deal rests in the fact that the Pirates currently have their low-A-ball, short-season New York-Penn League affiliate, the Crosscutters, in Williamsport. Imagine, if you will, a somewhat zigzaggy diagonal line of something around 100 miles, running from southwest to northeast through the middle of Pennsylvania. Altoona, home of the Pirates' AA Eastern League affiliate the Altoona Curve, is at the southwestern endpoint of this line. Leeeny Herself lives in Tyrone, which is 17 miles up the line from Altoona. State College is 30 miles up the line from Tyrone, and Williamsport is at the northeastern endpoint of the line, 60 miles from State College. For reference, Pittsburgh is about 90 miles west of the Altoona end of the line.
Part of Chuck Greenberg's task in bringing this deal to fruition was to get the Crosscutters' ownership to sign off on allowing a competing NYPenn league franchise to relocate only 60 miles away. Apparently Chuck was successful in this. I expect that his considerable talents as a sports-team-owning, sports-marketing-savvy attorney came in handy.
It therefore seems likely to think (HOPE!) that the new State College ballclub will become the Bucco affiliate in the NYPenn league, requiring Williamsport to sign a new deal with another MLB organization. Williamsport is more commonly though of as Philly-centric than Pittsburgh-centric, but who knows what will result there. The only time I ever attended a game at Historic Bowman Field, in the mid '90s, the team was an affiliate of the Cubs. The Pirates picked them up in 1998, right before the Curve arrived in Altoona, in 1999.
But I got a bit of pretty reliable information recently, that posited that the NYPenn team most likely to relocate to State College would be the Oneonta (NY) Tigers, currently affiliated with Detroit. Oneonta's ballpark was built in 1939 and is in need of a lot of renovation. They have the 2nd lowest attendance in the NYPenn League, and the owner made some noise last year about selling the team unless there was a significant attendance increase. Attendance dropped further from that point until the end of the season. Thus spake Oneonta.
So if the stars align properly here, Leeeny may very well end up with:
· Low-A-ball Pirates prospects to see within half an hour's drive
· AA-ball Pirates prospects to see within 20 minutes' drive
· MLB Pirates to see within 2.5 hours' drive
My, my, my. Heaven and Iowa won't have nuthin' on moi. It may be true that Tyrone (pop. ~4500) is an eentsy little podunk town located in the middle of nowhere, but at least it's a WELL-LOCATED middle of nowhere, and increasingly so where Bucco Baseball is concerned.
I'm still waiting for sushi, however. It's available in Altoona and State College (I bow down to you, oh wonderful Wegman's), but its appearance in Tyrone is not expected anytime soon. Hell, we don't even have a Long John Silver's.
....(addendum, 3/24, 0934est).... And what will they name the ballteam?!! I'm going to have to chew on that. If any suggestions come to your mind, feel free to share them in the comments. As its name would imply, State College doesn't have much of an identity apart from PSU, so I don't know what else they have to work with, in the way that Altoona had the railroad. The State College Everlasting Joepas?
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