Category Archives: Baseball

05.31.11
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FiveThirtyEight and Yelp’s Stadium Survey: Coliseum ranks 29th

Nate Silver’s plenty busy writing about politics year round, but occasionally he’s able to write about baseball in some capacity. In a blog post at FiveThirtyEight, Silver ranks all 30 MLB ballparks and 4 other previous ballparks via Yelp’s ratings system. The Coliseum ranks next-to-last among active venues with a 3.13 rating. Upon reading several pages of “reviews”, I had to conclude that at least for the Coliseum the rating is flawed. Numerous people based their review on the stadium as a football venue. Others rated based on attending both Raiders and A’s games. More than a few mistakenly rated Oracle Arena next door, instead of the stadium. I’d go through the trouble of parsing the reviews to get a better contextual sample, but not even I’m that patient with Yelp.

That’s not to say that the methodology is flawed for all venues. Most ballparks are getting reviews for being single-purpose baseball facilities, so there’s no contamination with most ratings as there is with the Coliseum. No, this is not a particularly scientific study, but as Silver notes, it’s more comprehensive than a single writer’s opinion as he takes an all-expenses paid trip all over North America to review venues. Silver also lists the standard deviation, which for the Coliseum is among the highest (1.21). All that means in laymen’s terms is that the ratings for the Coli were all over the place, whereas the ratings for PNC Park (st. dev.: 0.49) were uniformly excellent.

05.28.11
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Getting desperate in the big city

Two items left out of yesterday’s news post have to do with the ongoing financial struggles of the Mets and Dodgers, or rather their ownership groups.

  • Hedge fund mover and shaker David Einhorn has dropped $200 million for a 1/3 share of the Mets, which may be enough to rescue Fred Wilpon. Or is it? According to ESPN and the New York Times, Einhorn has an option to acquire up to 60% (and controlling) interest in the team from Wilpon, should the beleaguered owner not be able to pay back the $200 million. If the Madoff trustee case ends with Wilpon having to liquidate much of his real estate holdings or other investments, he may not be able to pay back Einhorn, setting the stage for a takeover. Einhorn is no stranger to playing hardball, having called for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s ouster earlier in the week. Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital owns more than 9 million shares of MSFT. No matter how you slice it, the deal is not the safe one many expected Wilpon to make.
  • Reports came in over the last couple of days showing that Dodgers owner Frank McCourt will in fact make payroll in time for the end of the month. By taking certain future payments up front to cover the May 31 payroll, McCourt has ensured that MLB won’t be able to pull the trigger on a takeover of the team. In doing this McCourt has written off that revenue for later in the season, and he merely pushes the deadline back two weeks. The next payroll deadline is June 15, and it is unknown what tricks McCourt has left up his sleeve to take care of business then. Combine that with flagging attendance, a lawsuit against the team and owner filed by the family of beating victim Bryan Stow, and the fact that another round of divorce settlement talks ended earlier in the week with no movement, and it’s clear that it’s only a matter of time before McCourt loses the team completely. The only thing up for debate is how delusional McCourt is to keep this charade up.

One interesting arena tidbit. Arena operators will be scrambling this summer to fill dates in anticipation of what may be a lengthy NBA lockout. A quote from Orlando executive director of venues:

Johnson said he can book a popular artist to replace a Magic game with a notice of 30 days. He said Taylor Swift’s concert next Saturday sold out in three minutes.

And that’s an arena is more lucrative to run than any outdoor stadium. It also reminds me of George Vukasin Sr.’s anecdote about Bill Graham getting The Grateful Dead to help the Coliseum Commission on occasion by booking a weeklong “residency.” It’s almost inconceivable to think that a local band could quickly and easily sign on for one or several dates just to help out an arena operator or city these days.

05.27.11
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News for 5/27/11

Sacramento has the feasibility study for its new arena at the its website, along with additional renderings. Besides the lack of financing plan that would have to be determined by the end of the “100 Day Plan,” I noticed one other thing. As part of the effort to cut costs, there is no separate club level. Instead, the club seats are largely confined to one side of the arena and courtside sidelines, with the club lounge taking up part of the main concourse.

Angle view of ICON Taylor arena interior. Club seats are colored blue-violet. Arena is designed to host a hockey team as well as the Kings.

While the Maloofs continue to maintain that the Kings are not for sale, as many as three groups have surfaced that could buy the franchise if it were available. Ron Burkle continues to be the popular choice, with the “mystery Nevada businessman” being second. Now a group fronted by former King Chris Webber has surfaced, and its chief moneyman is a Filipino businessman named Manny V. Pangilinan, or as he’s known in Manila, “MVP.” With frequent talk of Chinese interests getting a controlling piece of a NBA franchise, it would be somewhat poetic to have a Filipino be the first Asian to do so. FWIW, there are three national sports in The Philippines: basketball, boxing, and cockfighting. It’s not going to make me anymore a Kings fan than Erik Spoelstra (who is half-Filipino) being the head coach of the Miami Heat makes me a Heat fan, but it’s something to be proud of.

Another week, another arena proposal. This time it’s in Baltimore, a city whose 50-year old arena hasn’t fielded a major franchise in nearly 40 years. 92-year-old construction magnate Willard Hackerman is willing to pay for the arena as part of an elaborate redevelopment plan along the Inner Harbor. Like Sprint Center in Kansas City, the arena would be built on spec, without a major pro tenant. Baltimore has been without an indoor sports franchise for so long that it’s hard to know if one would be successful there. It appears that Hackerman is willing to give it shot. Hackerman’s company, Whiting-Turner, built M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens.

ESPN’s Jim Caple came out with his “official” MLB owner’s rankings. Lew Wolff placed 17th, higher than I would’ve expected. Must be the national media bias.

Here on the blog, 980 Park concept originator Bryan Grunwald received word from the City of Oakland that his concept will in fact be part of the Victory Court EIR, hopefully as a full alternative. Unfortunately, Grunwald also was informed that there is no schedule for the release of the EIR. With MLB moving glacially and putting the A’s on the backburner, I suppose it affords the City time to be thorough. Weren’t they supposed to have the whole thing done (and certified) in around a year?

On the redevelopment tip, there are now three bills working more-or-less in conjunction to provide a less wasteful alternative to the current scheme, which is enshrined in the California Constitution. A fourth bill works against redevelopment, as wished by Governor Jerry Brown. Here’s the list:

  • SB 286 would restrict how projects are funded. Currently redevelopment dollars are a free-for-all as long as they can be applied to a “blighted” area. If this bill passes money for stadiums and arenas would require a public vote in the affected municipalities.
  • SB 450 seeks to rein in waste by capping administrative costs, while pushing the requirement that 20% of funds be spent on affordable housing, to the forefront.
  • SB 214 would allow the creation of new infrastructure districts whose purpose would be to finance infrastructure projects (roads, highways, sewers, etc.).
  • AB 101 is the aforementioned anti-redevelopment bill. Should any municipality’s RDA have any surpluses after obligations are met, those surpluses would vest with the municipality instead of being sandboxed for redevelopment purposes.

The University of Michigan wants to expand The Big House to 120,000 seats. Might want to fix the football program first.

If you wear a “Yankees Suck” T-shirt at the O.co Liseum next week, will you get thrown out as this lawyer did at the Trop last week?

Added 2:15 PM – The Minnesota legislative session ended with no action on stadiums for the Minnesota Vikings and St. Paul Saints. A deal would have to be done in a special session.

05.24.11
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Want a franchise? Empty your wallet

Just as the stock and housing markets have experienced bubbles, MLB appears to be in a bubble of its own when it comes to buying and selling franchises. Last week, Drayton McLane and Jim Crane came to a surprisingly high price of $680 million for the Astros. That follows up the auction-boosted $593 million paid by Nolan Ryan’s group for the Texas Rangers. In both cases the final sale prices were a combined $348 million more than Forbes’ valuations at the times of those sales. Prior to the two Texas teams, the Padres and Cubs pulled $100+ million premiums over Forbes.

* - Debt may not include all debt for related companies. ** - Astros sale is not yet final.

It’s not only MLB. Last year the Warriors were sold for a NBA record sale price of $450 million. Again, this was around $100 million more than expected for the team. Compare these recent sales to those of a few years ago in the table above. In those cases the disparities weren’t nearly as vast and could be easily explained. Nowadays it’s hard to say. The Astros reportedly fetched a higher price due to projected higher revenues from a new regional sports network. Yet the Rangers’ premium price didn’t even include all of the parking lots surrounding the stadium, and it’s possible that a future sale of the Dodgers will have similar limitations. I have a few hunches as to why this bubble is occurring:

  • Money has been sitting on the sidelines of the broader market for so long that interested buyers are willing to pay premiums for sports properties.
  • Local TV revenue is starting go through the roof for more than the big market teams, which is encouraging investors to buy into teams with long, locked-in TV contracts.
  • MLB’s CBA in particular looks attractive to investors because cost controls are inherent for each team and there’s little worry about labor strife.
  • Someone (who?) may be priming the pump on franchises.

That last bit is complete speculation with no basis in fact, but how else can you explain it?

The next franchise likely to be sold will be the Braves (again), who were sold in 2007 as part of tax-free, debt-free equity swap between Ted Turner and John Malone’s Liberty Media. Those tax breaks expire next year, which means the clock is ticking for the Braves. I’m curious to see what price they fetch – and whether having zero debt load makes any difference.

As long as franchises continue to be sold for premium prices, the market creates yet another obstacle for Oakland. Let’s say the Wolff gives up on the Bay Area and announces he wants to sell with Fisher. Bidding could easily grow to over $400 million with no guarantee of a hometown discount. The best hope for the pro-Oakland crowd would be if Fisher could be convinced to stay on as silent majority partner and another managing partner were brought in, much the same way Bill Neukom was brought into the Giants. But if you’re Fisher, how do you sign on without guarantees you’re getting real returns? By real returns, I mean a ballpark that more than pays for itself. If I knew the answer, perhaps I wouldn’t be so skeptical about Oakland’s chances.

05.20.11
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News for 5/21/11 (Rapture Day)

KNBR update man Dan Dibley announced Friday that he was leaving the station for 95.7 Sports Radio, where it appears he will have similar (perhaps expanded) duties. He’s a quality guy who’s from the Bay Area and knows the local sports scene (including the Quakes), which for KBWF is half the battle.

Speaking of 95.7, does anyone know where Chris Townsend is? His Twitter feed has been silent for 24 hours. Maybe he’s just getting a day or weekend off. He has worked pretty much every day without a break since the station switched formats on Opening Day, so he deserves a rest. I hope everything’s alright otherwise.

Marcos Breton and Ann Killion both have profiles of the A’s as the team labors in in relative anonymity across the Bay from the World Champs. Such is life.

San Jose’s redevelopment king, Harry Mavrogenes, announced that he’s stepping down in a month. SJRA has been cutting staff and running on fumes for a year now, making Mavrogenes’ departure more symbolic than anything. The agency has been dying for a while, and for better or worse, will never be the same. With land acquisition and development powers transferred to the San Jose Diridon Development Authority (of which Mavrogenes was a signatory), his capacity as SJRA head was no longer needed to finish the ballpark work.

Did you know that the headquarters of Family Radio (whose leader Harold Camping is predicting The Rapture on Saturday) is on Hegenberger, just across the Nimitz from the Coliseum? There is a tangential relation to the A’s besides proximity. Family Radio bought KFRC-610 from CBS in 2005, creating a very uncomfortable combination of God talk and A’s talk/games during the 2005 season.

SFGate/Chronicle blogger Peter Hartlaub has a couple of great posts showing what BART could’ve been like if vision didn’t give way to politics and construction photos including the Transbay Tube.

Jamie McCourt wants an immediate sale of the Dodgers so that she can cash out while she can. Which would be awesome for Dodgers fans who want to turn the page, A’s fans who want the team taken off the backburner, and pretty much everyone else except for Angels and Giants fans who are experiencing some deep schadenfreude.

The athletic facilities at Stanford are going to turn into one gigantic WiFi hotspot, thanks to AT&T. You know, it’d be nice if Verizon did the same for the Coliseum, seeing as they’re the telecom sponsor there.

Added 5/21 9:30 AM- John Fisher has to be taking it in the shorts this weekend as the GAP dove 17% in trading yesterday after it reset annual earnings expectations down 22%.

05.18.11
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Blame it on the rain

Lately baseball writers have been looking far and wide to figure out what is keeping fans away from ballparks this year. Poor weather is the most often blamed culprit, thanks to 30-and-counting rainouts this season, 9 more than the entire total in 2010. Frank McCourt is also shouldering much of the blame, since the malaise hovering over the Dodgers is driving fans away from Chavez Ravine. Worse, the optics of ballparks with much worse (unannounced) turnstile counts than ticket sales makes the problem that much more apparent.

MLB isn’t alone in this regard. The NFL posted two straight annual attendance declines before bouncing back last year. NBA attendance has been flagging while the NHL has surged post-lockout. With the economy still spotty in many places, on-site pro sports consumption is considered something of a luxury for many consumers, making long-term commitments a tough sell in tough times.

We’re just past the quarter pole of the season, so I figured it was a good time to take a look at this. I’ve sampled off attendance statistics throughout the league, cutting off the last two seasons at May 20, 2010 and yesterday, respectively. The high number of rainouts this year and the generally irregular nature of the schedule makes it difficult to get a completely even comparison, so this was as close as I could get. While the Dodgers are the obvious trending team, when you look at the table below you might see something different.

Gains for last year’s two World Series participants, Texas and San Francisco, have more than made up for the Dodgers’ decline. In fact, the top five gainers have surpassed the losses incurred by the top five losers. Yet league attendance has gone down nearly 1% per game. The Dodgers are part of the economic foundation of the league, and once McCourt is rightfully ousted and a another owner enters the picture, the team’s attendance will be well on its way to recovery. So what’s the real problem?

If anything, the problem is the number of no-shows. Only the league and the teams know the actual number of people entering each stadium. If the announced crowd is double that of the actual number of people who show up, that could add up hundreds of thousands lost each game in terms of concessions and merchandise revenue. Take the A’s, for instance. The last two crowds were announced to be over 10,000, even though it was abundantly clear that far less than 10,000 were present. 5,000 no-shows x $10 per fan spent = $50,000. The A’s are used to this, so they staff accordingly for it and make it up on the back end thanks to revenue sharing. On the other hand, the Dodgers might have as many as 20,000 no-shows for a home date. 20,000 no-shows x $10 per fan spent = $200,000, and that might be conservative. Get 50 home dates like that, and suddenly the Dodgers have lost $10 million over the course of the season. If there’s anything that should provide impetus for Bud Selig to act on getting the Dodgers settled ASAP, that’s it.

As for the weather, that’s going to remain a tricky issue as the season progresses. The May 11 A’s-Rangers rainout had only one realistic makeup date thanks to complexities within the schedule. That date was July 7, which was confirmed earlier this week. Since teams can’t play more than 20 dates in a row and off days are scheduled to prevent that, putting a makeup date in one of those late season off days creates a risk of playing that kind of really long streak. The unbalanced schedule doesn’t help either because there’s no guarantee that one team will play an interdivisional opponent late in the season in a way that a makeup game can be accommodated. Worse, rainouts that are made up the following day as part of a doubleheader aren’t counted as part of attendance, which makes them a net loss on their own. Teams in the Midwest and East Coast are going so far as to preemptively postpone games, with upset fans reporting that the actual conditions at the cancelled game time weren’t as bad as feared.

We could run into a situation in which this season, which is to end on a Wednesday (September 28), may be strung out one or two days later to properly account for all teams in contention fulfilling a 162-game schedule. That would incredibly ironic because this season started on March 31/April 1 to ensure that the regular season part ended early and the postseason wouldn’t stretch too far into November. Looks like Selig and the competition committee might run into a solution for the rainouts that doesn’t solve their postseason problem. Maybe Selig is looking forward to a prolonged NFL lockout, which would cause MLB to be the only major pro sport on broadcast TV come November (NBA/NHL are relegated to cable then, and the NBA may also be in a lockout).

05.13.11
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Wolff on Monty Show interview is up (updated with notes)

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to Lew Wolff on The Monty Show at 8, the good people at Sports Radio 95.7 got the MP3 version out in a hurry. Download it and give it a listen. Then come back here and comment away.

My thoughts:

I think we actually got some new insight into how MLB’s panel is operating. Wolff said that the committee hasn’t contacted him about Victory Court or any other Oakland option. Combine that with the zero communication between Wolff and the City of Oakland, and it has me wondering if the committee is supposed to be keeping everyone at arms length. While Victory Court is being evaluated and the EIR process is happening (note the updated counter on the right) any additional talks among the parties would be premature at best. Wolff is only going to act based on the panel’s recommendations and Selig’s actions. I don’t think that’s the way this should be progressing, but that appears to be the game.

As Jeffrey pointed out, the panel is looking at financing, which is the make-or-break issue for Oakland. Oakland can minimize site and infrastructure costs by reducing footprint (and needed parcel buys) and limiting new parking construction cost, both of which have been done in San Jose. I figure panel is not going to recommend that Wolff builds at Victory Court unless the financing pencils out, because MLB is not going to put a team’s ownership in a bad debt position just to satiate local critics. For reasons explained previously, it’s a bad assumption to think that the money in San Jose is easily transferable to Oakland.

Undoubtedly, the ongoing redevelopment saga will factor in. If SB 286 passes and both Oakland and San Jose require votes for their stadium projects, how would that affect the panel’s perspective? Adding a vote requirement complicate the timeline for Oakland, since it’s not a given that they’ll be able to line up EIR certification and ballot deadline perfectly. Consider the following timeline:

  • SB 286 passes and is signed into law by Governor Brown (as opposed to scrapping redevelopment altogether) this June.
  • Victory Court Draft EIR emerges, also in June. (hypothetical date)
  • 60-day review and comment period puts us in August.
  • EIR staff takes another 3 months to respond to questions and comments. That puts us in November.
  • Final EIR is distributed in December.
  • Final EIR comment period is 45-60 days, puts us at February 2012.
  • Currently the 2012 primary is scheduled for February 7, though a bill (AB 80) is working its way through the legislature that might push the date back to June. If it passes, Oakland could get its vote in June. If not, November or a special election/vote-by-mail.
  • That puts a Victory Court opening day at 2016 unless Oakland is simultaneously doing additional site acquisition, which Mayor Quan has indicated they aren’t. It also messes with the Raiders’ new Coliseum project because the A’s would have to play at the current Coliseum through 2015. The Raiders’ stadium would also require its own vote. Now that’s tangled.

The redevelopment stuff wasn’t discussed in the Wolff interview, but it may provide insight into how the panel is doing its work. As long as these pieces keep moving and the earth shifts, it’s going to be hard to make a decision until everything settles.

Sidebar: Wolff started the interview by plugging the film Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, which is playing as part of the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival. The film will play at the Camera 3 theater at 7 PM. After the showing there will be panel with Wolff, retired player Shawn Green, and A’s play-by-play man Ken Korach as the moderator.

05.09.11
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Another interleague plan

As part of Bud Selig’s in-plane tweaking of baseball, he’s drawn up several realignment concepts. A month ago we discussed two concepts and the motivations behind them. This time, we’re focusing on one seemingly simple plan that will assuredly draw both proponents and detractors. Conveniently, he’ll get to throw a few things against the wall at the owners meetings this week and see what sticks.

As much as we’ve focused on the plight of the A’s, Rays, Dodgers, and Mets, there is one ownership situation that’s flying under the radar. Jim Crane, who tried previously to buy the Astros and last year, the Rangers, is the only bidder of the Houston franchise this time around. He’s expected to be rewarded for his patience with a rather smooth, drama-free purchase. Longtime owner Drayton McLane has been looking to get out for a while, and Crane is the only guy bidding going into this week.

Crane’s n00b owner position puts Selig in a position where he could take care of realignment and interleague play in one fell swoop by switching the Astros to the AL West starting in 2012. Any pain for the franchise would be cushioned by automatically gaining a new in-state division rival in the Rangers. Also, remember that under the old two-division-per-league alignment, Houston was in the NL West.

The problem with going to fifteen teams in each league is that at least one interleague series would have to be played at all times (barring off days). Those already predisposed to disliking interleague play will hate this even more because it ceases to sequester interleague games into their own period (late May/June). However, it allows schedulers to stretch out the series so that highlighted interleague matchups are always featured on the weekends to maximize revenue.

To that end, I’ve mocked up a schedule of interleague games for next year. To quiet down the criticism, the actual number of interleague games would be reduced from 18 (for AL teams) or 15 (for some NL teams) to 12, including each team’s natural rivalry games. A cut of the schedule is below, with a link to the full schedule if you can click on the graphic.

Looking at the schedule, you’ll notice that during the first half of the season there are often two interleague series occurring simultaneously during the week. In the second half, that dies down. If the league wanted to go to 18 interleague games per team, additional series could be scheduled in this manner throughout the rest of the season. It has its issues, but as a compromise plan it might work. At least it would fix the ridiculous 15/18 game imbalance in the NL, which to my knowledge no one in the media has really critiqued nearly enough.

Added 3:30 PM – Table showing game distribution per division and interleague.


05.06.11
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News for 5/6/11 (updated)

After the rush of last week, this week is fairly light on news.

The Dodgers and Frank McCourt continue to make headlines off the field, managing to overshadow Andre Ethier’s 2930-game hitting streak.

  • It’s been widely reported that the team will not be able to make payroll on May 31, which will force MLB to bail the Dodgers out. Right now all financial decisions are going through MLB appointee Tom Schieffer. McCourt’s argument has been that Bud Selig’s unwillingness to approve a new media deal from Fox is causing this problem. It is likely that MLB will loan the team money to take care of payroll for the rest of the season, but the price paid will be the complete takeover of the team.
  • McCourt’s newly hired Vice Chairman, Steve Sokoroff, is McCourt’s trash-talking heel. Earlier in the week, Sokoroff accused Schieffer of not acting promptly to approve a security increase at Dodger Stadium in the wake of the death of Osama Bin Laden. Schieffer supplied an email to MLB showing that he approved the request in two minutes, which understandably got MLB very upset. McCourt was forced to apologize for Sokoroff, and probably lost whatever allies he had within the league in the process.
  • A rumor gaining traction has the NFL looking at the Dodger Stadium site as a future stadium home, either by replacing or sitting alongside the existing ballpark. AEG would be the party to make it happen. Whether it’s a swap or two stadia, the concept doesn’t make much sense from AEG’s perspective. One of the reasons to have a domed football stadium is that it serves a second, nearly as important purpose: it replaces and extends the convention center. A ballpark or any open-air stadium won’t work for that purpose. What’s more, AEG probably isn’t interested in pushing a bunch of pedestrian and vehicle traffic to Chavez Ravine, they’d like to keep it downtown. If anything, a football stadium at Chavez Ravine next to Dodger Stadium without any links to AEG might make the most sense of any deal. A NFL stadium could follow the same cost-saving construction principles (building into a hill) employed at Dodger Stadium and advertised for the City of Industry stadium, while displacing only 1,200 parking spaces and utilizing other existing infrastructure at the same time.
  • Even the financial investigation is getting bogged down. MLB wants hard or disc copies of financial records. The Dodgers will only allow auditors access to a “virtual data room” from which nothing can be removed. The IAEA had an easier time getting through inspections in Iraq than this.

The planned Las Vegas National Sports Center could move from Downtown to The Strip, right behind Mandalay Bay. Texas developer Chris Milam bought a large, undeveloped lot across the I-15 freeway from Mandalay Bay and has already signed the Las Vegas 51’s AAA franchise to move down there. Updated 9:33 PM – The 51’s have been sold to Milam, making the impetus to build LVNSC greater.

During the last A’s-Angels series in Anaheim, did anyone notice how the batter’s eye was redone? Instead of a tarp and a painted wall, there appears to be some turf up top and trees up front. I wonder if anyone’s done an analysis to see how batter’s eye changes affect team batting pre/post.

OT – Gus Johnson won’t be working CBS’s NCAA hoops tourney coverage anymore. Not cool.

Updated 9:44 PM – Look to next week for things to heat up a little as the next owners meetings are set for Wednesday and Thursday. The Dodgers may be the #1 discussion topic even though they aren’t on the agenda, with the Mets and a potential new minority owner #2. CBA framework will probably be close to finalized, and the A’s/Rays’ situations might make the talks (don’t count on it). From the LA Times’ Bill Shaikin:

The Dodgers’ situation is not on the agenda for next week’s meeting, and no action is expected with regard to the team, according to two people familiar with plans for the meeting but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

However, the Dodgers currently lack the cash to meet the May 31 payroll, a scenario that could trigger an ownership change, a legal confrontation between McCourt and Selig, or both.

If the Dodgers fail to meet the payroll, the commissioner’s office would pay the salaries, with McCourt almost certainly asked to sell the team. If he were to refuse, the league constitution specifically provides for “involuntary termination” of the franchise if the owner fails to repay any debts to the league within 30 days.

04.28.11
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San Rafael group looks to get NAL franchise

A group of investors is venturing to bring independent league ball back to the North Bay, in the form of a North American League franchise. The investor group, Centerfield Capital Partners, will make a public presentation tonight at the San Rafael Community Center. The details:

Please be aware that the city is considering a proposal to host Minor League baseball at Albert Park/Albert Field.

The plan includes seating for up to 1500 people. A total of 45 games would be played on Friday and Saturday nights, until 11pm, and some Sundays, May through September. A copy of the plan is available at the address listed below.

Beer and wine concessions will established.

A presentation will be given on April 28th at the San Rafael Community Center at 618 B Street at 7 pm by the developer CenterFieldPartners

Please attend and and share your thoughts on this project: Good for the area? Too much noise? Security/Police? Alcohol related issues?

City of San Rafael Contact is Carlene McCart, Director of Community Services, 618 B Street, 485-3333.

An article in last week’s Marin IJ has quotes from Brian Clark, the head of the investor group. The target ballfield at Albert Park is an old downtown charmer with a covered grandstand. Some area residents have responded by hiring an attorney, who may push for an environmental impact report.

The North American League came about as merger of three other independent leagues: Northern League, United Baseball League, and Golden Baseball League. You’ll remember the GBL had a prolific expansion last decade and attracted several past-their-prime stars, including Rickey Henderson (San Diego Surf Dawgs). The GBL’s head, David Kaval, left the league and joined the San Jose Earthquakes.

Centerfield Capital Partners has territorial rights over the entire Bay Area. The only other franchise in Northern California is the Chico Outlaws, a former GBL team. These efforts shouldn’t affect Chris Lee’s interest in getting a California League team in Windsor. San Rafael and Windsor are far enough apart that there shouldn’t be any encroachment of fanbases. For Lee, the gating mechanism continues to be the SF Giants, whose protection of its various territories continues to frustrate others all over the Bay.