With this being a period of inactivity for the Wild Things, it's a good time to get caught up on what's happening around the Frontier League:
* There appears to be a good chance the FL will have two new teams in 2010 - one in a ballpark to be built in Woodstock. OK, so it's not
that Woodstock. This is in McHenry County, Ill., northwest of Chicago and east of Rockford.
The other franchise is ticketed for a new ballpark at Heartland Community College in Normal, Ill., located between Peoria and Champaign.
Plans were announced weeks ago for a 6,500-seat multipurpose facility in Woodstock. Private donations and investors will fund the entire project. The Woodstock City Council (I don't know if Wavy Gravy is the president or not) approved zoning variances, clearing the way for more than 30 acres of land to be used for the ballpark. The schedule calls for site prep work in the spring and a June groundbreaking.
The ballpark in Normal was approved a few hours ago. The cost of the project has been estimated at $12 million. The town will contribute a maximum of $1.5 million for a parking lot. That money will be repaid through parking fees. The town will get half of the $3 parking charge, which is expected to generate about $100,000 a year.
I don't know how adding two franchise jammed around Rockford and Windy City helps the FL. The most glaring problem the league has is the gap between Florence, Lake Erie and Washington. The league desperately needs to add a franchise in Indiana and one in central/southern Ohio or even West Virginia. Adding two more teams in Chicagoland doesn't help.
* Owners of the Midwest Sliders are feeling the nation's financial pinch. From a story in Crain's Detroit Business:
One minor-league casualty of the economy has been the effort to build a $9.5 million Frontier League baseball stadium in Waterford Township (Mich.). The plan is still on track, said Rob Hilliard, managing partner of investors Baseball Heroes of Oakland County L.L.C., but backers have been forced to seek equity financing rather than bank financing.
“The debt side of the capital markets is horrible. It doesn't matter if the rate is zero percent if the banks aren't lending,” he said.
Owners also couldn't get a land deal done for the 4,000-seat stadium until late summer, it forced the stadium opening back a year, Hilliard said.
The team, which eventually will be called the Oakland County Cruisers, will play this year at Eastern Michigan University's 1,300-seat baseball stadium, and then move into the Diamond at the Summit stadium, next to the Summit Place Mall in 2010, Hilliard said.
Investors already have sunk $4 million into the project, and hired Leonard Capital Markets of Troy and Dickinson Wright P.L.L.C.'s Ann Arbor office to raise the remainder.
“It's a struggle and you have to be more creative in giving local business their money's worth. There's a challenge on the advertising side because of recession,” Hilliard said. “Times are tough and if the business is getting a good return on investment, they're going to keep in place their (investment) package. If they're struggling, it could be a victim.”
* Former Wild Things pitchers Stephen Spragg and Jeff Michael were among nine players released by the Lake County Crushers.
* Florence and River City swung a big trade (by FL standards). The Freedom sent outfielder Garth McKinney (.303, 18 HR, 28 SB), infielder Dorian Rojas and pitcher Brandon Hamlett to River City for infielder Brad Hough (.270, 9 HR, 24 SB), first baseman-outfielder Jeff Miller (.283, 15 HR) and pitcher Jonathan Miller (3-5, 3.76, 9 saves). The guys going to Florence probably wanted to re-connect with manager Toby Rumfield, who held the same job with the Rascals last year. Looks like Florence got the better end of this deal, though giving up McKinney wasn't easy.
* The Windy City Thunderbolts will hold an open tryout Feb. 7 in, of all places, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Labels: Ill., McHenry County, Woodstock
