News, notes and rumblings around the minors

Skylands Park, 2005

I don't know what it is about expansion and relocation when it comes to sports teams, but it always piques my interest. It doesn't even matter if the team leaving is hundreds of miles away, or if it's moving to somewhere else that's also hundreds of miles away. I guess I just love the newness of it -- new uniforms, colors, logos, identity. A new community, new fan base, new history. There's not a league I could care less about than the NBA, but I still read all about the New Orleans club dropping the Hornets nickname for Pelicans (and I think it'd be boring, lame and a bit disingenuous for the Charlotte Bobcats to change their name to Hornets; it's been done).

So when there's talk of expansion or relocation in the minor leagues -- the latter of which brought affiliate minor league ball back to New Jersey in the '90s (to Trenton) and 2001 (to Lakewood); perhaps that's where the interest comes from -- my ears perk up. And there's been quite a few rumblings in recent weeks involving leagues -- and one site -- that play in or near New Jersey.

 The New York-Penn League plans to move a club to Morgantown, W. Va., to share a ballpark with West Virginia University. The rumored team to make the shift is the Jamestown Jammers, who were next-to-last in NY-Penn attendance in 2012 (36,078 total, 1,031 per game), besting only their upstate New York neighbors, the Batavia Muckdogs. This would make the New York-Penn League the New York-Penn-Connecticut-Massachusetts-Vermont-Maryland-Ohio-West Virginia League. New Jersey used to be in there, too, before the Cardinals left Sussex County for State College, Pa.

 Speaking of Skylands Park up in Augusta, the new owner is exploring all avenues for a tenant, including summer collegiate leagues. But the ever-expanding Atlantic League may have some interest, too.

 As for the Atlantic League, it could soon find itself with franchises in Fort Worth, Texas (giving the Sugar Land Skeeters a neighbor), and in Virginia Beach and Loudon, Va.

 And, finally, Ottawa mayor Jim Watson continues his push to bring a Double-A Eastern League team to his city to be a Blue Jays affiliate, which will only revive speculation that Binghamton, N.Y., could lose its Eastern League club (and its Mets affiliation, which currently runs through 2016). It appears unlikely that Binghamton would lose affiliated baseball completely, because there remains speculation that NYSEG Stadium could then receive a New York-Penn League team, likely Batavia. This one particularly fascinates me because of the added layer of player development contracts. I looked at some affiliations last February, and though the expiration dates are, well, out of date, few if any of the affiliations changed. I'm curious if PDCs have ever been broken, renegotiated, bought out or even traded before. I'll try to get in touch with some contacts for some background.

The erosion of The Sandcastle

A mural at the entrance to the Sandcastle

Things are not looking good in Atlantic City. In some ways, that's true of many aspects of the Boardwalk Empire (great show, by the way), but it's especially true of the old ballpark where the Surf used to play.

Just two seasons after the club folded, The Sandcastle (I always preferred that moniker to its corporate-jeweler name) is fading fast. This great article (and video) in the Press of Atlantic City documents the stadium's heartbreaking decay, including graffiti on the murals (one of which is shown above) that line the main stairway. I'm amazed that the pictures of the park just 21 months into its hibernation are quite similar to those of Paterson's Hinchliffe Stadium. Perhaps the salt air accelerates the damage when the structure is not regularly maintained.

I visited The Sandcastle just once, in August 1999 during my "Summer of Dan" -- the eight weeks I spent visiting and reviewing minor league ballparks in New Jersey, Staten Island and Fayetteville, N.C., where I looked at the state of the Cape Fear Crocs, who had been sold and would become the Lakewood BlueClaws in 2001. The Sandcastle was my last stop, park eight of eight, and I loved ending the series with the southernmost team in the state after all my previous trips (other than North Carolina) had taken me north.

The series appeared in the paper I was working for at the time, and while some of the headlines on the columns were a little to heavy on the puns for my tastes, the one used for the Atlantic City column now seems rather apt: "Traveling to Atlantic City for baseball is worth the gamble." Even though the team didn't make it in the end, I think it was worth the gamble. Atlantic City, once a more family-friendly resort, is now an adult playground, the place for bachelor parties and senior-citizen day trips by the busload. The baseball team provided an option that allowed the kids to come along.

From 1998-2006, the Surf played in the Atlantic League, winning the circuit's inaugural championship. In 2007, they moved to the Can-Am League, in part because the shorter schedule -- which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day -- would better fit the tourist season in A.C. (and would cut operating costs). Despite increased attendance and a playoff appearance in 2007 and Cecil Fielder managing the team in 2008, the organization ceased operations in March 2009, just two months before the start of the Can-Am season.

Perhaps baseball can't last in Atlantic City, despite overwhelming support for other clubs across the Garden State. Or maybe independent baseball was the problem. Unfortunately, the unaffiliated ranks are likely the only option for another go at it in the Jersey Shore's southern capital. Though I can't find a reliable source, I would presume that Atlantic City lies within the Phillies' territorial rights, so they would have to approve any affiliated team that moved into the region. The best fits among the affiliated ranks would be the South Atlantic League, with the BlueClaws as a rival, or the Eastern League, of which the Trenton Thunder are a part. But the Phillies already have affiliates in those leagues, in Lakewood itself and Reading, Pa., respectively, and they're not likely to change.

So Atlantic City's Sandcastle will likely continue to decay until the economy improves and some enterprising developer buys the ballpark and the land and turns it into a strip mall or go-cart track or some other attraction. And I'll have just that one night at the yard and the photos in the slideshow below, presented with the melodramatic crooning of Ol' Blue Eyes. A bit cheesy, yes, but it feels appropriate this time. Or you can just view the photos here.

Traveling to Atlantic City for baseball is worth the gamble

Warming up in the Atlantic City Surf bullpen.

This is the eighth in a series. Previous posts are:

Trenton Thunder
Cape Fear Crocs
Newark Bears
New Jersey Cardinals
New Jersey Jackals
Staten Island Yankees
Somerset Patriots

August 22, 1999

The Surf is always up at the Sandcastle.

The name is a bit misleading, but nonetheless, a trip to The Sandcastle is like a night at the beach.

The home of the Atlantic City Surf sits between a highway and an airfield – not the boardwalk and the shoreline – and, well, it’s not actually made out of sand. But it is an attractive, nostalgia-inspiring place. There’s a certain Boys of Summer feeling about it.

Arrive early and walk around the outside of the park – the outfield corners provide a close view of each team’s bullpen as the players prepare for the game during batting practice. Most likely you’ll find a small gathering of children – more like a chain-link gang than a knothole gang – chasing each baseball that clears the fence.

The steps leading up to the main entrance are decorated on each side by baseball murals depicting Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and generic feel-good scenes of sandlot games and barnstorming teams.

Inside, the wide concourse makes for easy access to seats, via the Monopoly-named rows – from Baltic Avenue in left field to Mediterranean Avenue in right. The closer the seats to home plate, the more prestigious the names. The two lower sections behind home are Boardwalk and Park Place.

The 5,836 seats share the same color scheme as the Surf uniforms, a soothing complement of aqua and blue – the color we all would like the Atlantic Ocean to be along the Jersey Shore.

Like any minor league park – and increasingly the major league venues as well – the outfield is one panoramic billboard mosaic. Missing from the various advertisements, though, is Donald Trump’s collection of hotels and casinos. There’s no need, though – Trump Plaza and the Taj Mahal dominate the Atlantic City skyline that serves as the backdrop to the field.

Arriving close to two hours before the 7:05 p.m. game on Wednesday, I bought a $9 box seat that put me in the front row behind the Surf dugout on the third-base side.

From there, you have a great view of the game, plenty of leg room and a dugout roof that can be used as a footrest or a place to set your dinner. You also get a front-row center orchestra seat for the fifth-inning “YMCA” dance, featuring as many kids as can fit safely on the roof.

Such a close seat also allows for a close view of Surf catcher Hector Villanueva, the former Chicago Cub who could have been the origin of the term “backstop” to refer to a pitcher’s batterymate.

The 6-1, 220-pound catcher took the ceremonial first pitches from two guests, then handled the ceremonial first bag of peanuts tossed out by a peanut vendor because it was his birthday. The vendor took the bag back before Hector had a chance to eat the peanuts.

Atlantic City owner Frank Boulton is the founder of the independent Atlantic League, which will expand to eight teams next summer.

Boulton, a Long Island resident, will also own the Long Island Ducks.

The Surf nickname works well so close to the ocean, but makes for some puns that get old fast. The public-address announcer begins the bottom of each inning with, “Ladies and gentlemen, Surrrrrrrrrrf’s up!” Each new pitcher was introduced with a different name for the mound – from sandhill to sand dune.

Before entering the game, instead of warming up in the bullpen, the relievers get loose in the Sandbox. OK, that one I kind of liked.

The Surf, in their second year at A.C., won the game, completing a three-game sweep of the Somerset Patriots. Former Met Chuck E. Carr homered and scored twice for the “Beach Boys,” (another one thought up by the P.A. guy) the 1998 Atlantic League champions.

Former major league all-star Ruben Sierra went 1-for-4 with a single, and Villanueva walked twice but never made it around to score. Kerry Taylor went 7 1/3 innings to improve to 2-2 on the season.

It was fireworks night after the game, so I put my feet up on the dugout as each light tower was shut down for the show. While the pyrotechnic display exploded beyond the scoreboard in left field and the patriotic music came through the speakers, I thought how nice it was for the Surf to end my eight-week summer odyssey at minor league ballparks with such flair.

Now I might have a chance to catch the Mets at Shea.

Newark delivers history lesson

The Bears' den in Newark.

August 1, 1999

New Jersey's baseball history is rooted in Newark. Sure, one of the first organized professional games was played in Hoboken, but Newark's involvement with the national pastime lasted much longer.

However, in 1949, it all disappeared. The old Newark Bears, at times a Class AAA affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers and then the New York Yankees, were sold to the Chicago Cubs and moved to Springfield, Mass. In 1937, the Bears won the pennant by 251/2 games, went on to win the "Little World Series" and are considered one of the best minor league teams of all time.

The Eagles, Newark's franchise in the Negro Leagues back when too many people felt separation was necessary, also left town, and it took 50 years to bring baseball back.

Baseball's back in Newark with the new Bears playing in the independent Atlantic League at their unfinished park along McCarter Highway and the Passaic River. Officially, it's called Riverfront Stadium, but everyone considers it "The Den." They are the Bears, after all.

Attending a Newark Bears game does have a feeling of history to it, knowing that these players are, in a way, descendants of baseball back in the day when the uniforms were flannel and never included the color teal. My mother came with me on this trip because her family history dates back to Newark's Italian north side, where her grandmother's house was torn down to make way for Interstate 280.

Riverfront Stadium actually borders the McCarter Highway, which runs along the Passaic River. The $34 million park, which makes it one of the most expensive minor league parks in America, is finished enough to play baseball – the concourse and all the seats are complete, as are the clubhouses down the left field line. But the second level – what will become the press and broadcast booths and luxury boxes – is still under construction. A drawing in the program shows what the place will look like, with landscaping and a courtyard surrounding it, when construction is complete. Parking is conveniently close for $4.

These young Bears – who played last season in Bridgeport, Conn., and the first part of 1999 at Skylands Park in Augusta – are owned by former Yankees and Mets catcher Rick Cerone, who was at the turnstiles when the gates opened. Cerone spent much of the game in the stands, signing autographs and even dancing between innings at one point.

Whether or not current players, such as former Yankee Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens, know anything about Newark's history, the game program does a fine job of reminding the fans. Old photos of both the Bears and Eagles appear on the cover and throughout the magazine, along with an article on the history of the current stadium's site as well as team history. It's the best program I've seen after visiting five parks, with detailed player profiles and lots of information about the team history and how Newark got baseball back.

Even the mascot, Rip 'N Ruppert, gets his name from the past – Ruppert Stadium, where those Bears and Eagles used to play in a park named for one–time Yankee owner Col. Jacob Ruppert.

Mom and I settled into our $8 seats just beyond first base, and the first few innings of Tuesday's game went quickly. The Bears' Tim Cain and the Bridgeport Bluefish's Al Sontag battled to a 2–1 Bridgeport lead after four innings. In the fifth, shortstop Cesar Morillo and third baseman Meulens sent back–to–back home runs toward McCarter Highway for a 3–2 Bears lead. Cain couldn't hold it, though, and Bridgeport scored two in the eighth and one in the ninth for a 5–3 victory.

Morillo's homer, because it was the Bears' first of the night, won the couple next to me a free dinner. Later in the night, two more couples competed for Great Adventure tickets. The men tossed up water balloons and the ladies had to hit the balloons with bats. It certainly cooled them off. If you're interested in winning, be sure to sign up for the promotions along the concourse.

As far as food – when it's not under– or over–cooked, it basically tastes the same at all ballparks, with slight differences in selection. I had a decent $2.25 hamburger (again, like the Jackals' game, no cheese) and a great $2 pretzel. Beer – Coors, Coors Light, Sam Adams, Killian's – cost $3.25 to $4. Mom said the hot dogs were good and hot, and the service was very nice. Chicken sandwiches and bags of chips were also available.

The attendance Tuesday was announced at 2,623, but there was a sense that it went way beyond the 6,100 capacity of the Den. With the Bears back in town, Newark has 50 years of baseball to catch up on.

DIRECTIONS: Take the New Jersey Turnplike to Exit 15W. Get on I–280 West to Exit 15A (Route21) Follow signs for Route 21 South– also McCarter Highway. Turn right onto Route 21. At the second light, turn right onto Bridge Street. The stadium will be on the right.

A visit to Bridgewater the Patriotic thing to do

Behind the plate in Bridgewater.

Pitchers and catchers begin reporting to spring training on Feb. 16, 2005. That's a little more than nine weeks from now. So starting today, with these 10 Fridays we have between now and then, I've decided to post some columns I wrote a few years ago when I was covering the minor leagues. I've wanted to include them in an electronic archive for posterity, and I figured the offseason was as good a time as any. Actual print dates are listed, but I take no responsibility for the headlines editors gave the columns. They appear as the titles to each entry.

July 4, 1999

Six years ago, New Jersey had no professional baseball teams. Now there are six in the Garden State, with another just over on Staten Island and one coming to Lakewood in 2001. Staff writer Dan [Lastname] will spend a night out at the ballpark each week this summer in search of the best baseball experience this side of Flushing or the Bronx.

Welcome to my dream.

It did not take much for my editors to convince me to take this assignment. In fact, they barely had to ask, and I eagerly accepted. By the end of August, I’ll have visited all six minor league teams in New Jersey, as well as the new Yankees affiliate on Staten Island and one other franchise yet to be determined. Eight weeks, eight parks, eight columns relating my experiences.

It begins with our newest diamond, Bridgewater’s Somerset Ballpark, home of the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League, a six-team organization with thre of the franchises in New Jersey. All last season and the first month of the 1999 campaign, the Patriots played all their games on the road – 125 straight – while the new brick-faced park was built in Bridgewater.

Certainly, it was a burden to the players to live in motels and ride buses everywhere, but for the fans it was worth the wait.

Getting to the park was no problem; my friend Dave got us the 41 miles from Little Silver (Exit 109) to the parking lot in 45 minutes on a Monday night for a game against the Atlantic City Surf (the third Atlantic League team in the state is the Newark Bears, who will open their stadium on July 16). There is also the convenience of New Jersey Transit’s Northeast Corridor line stopping just beyond the right field wall, if that interchange from the Parkway onto 287 just north of the Driscoll Bridge does not excite you as much as it does Dave and his BMW.

Without advance tickets I went to the window and asked for two of the best available seats.

“O.K.,” said the woman behind the glass, “how about Field Box? Behind home plate, front row?”

I took them.

For $8.50 apiece, Dave and I found ourselves tugging at the protective screen behind the plate, telling each other how cool this was. Put me in the front row at the ballpark, and I regress into immaturity. After the Hillsborough Royals took the field with the Patriots for the National Anthem, sung by the Parsons School Chorus, we settled in for the first pitch from lefthander Justin Jensen. It was a fastball – behind the plate, you see everything. Throughout the game, Dave called out the pitches (“Oh, what a curve!”) while I kept score.

The front-row seats magnified the entire ballpark experience in the cozy stadium with seats down both foul lines and billboards lending color to the outfield wall. The continuous murmur from the crowd provided background for the sounds on the field – the pop of a fastball in the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat, the call of the umpire and the communication among the players. Even the labels on the bats were legible from Row 1.

The problem with sitting right behind the plate is those foul balls that hit the screen, which gives at least 12 inches. Lean forward in your seat at the wrong moment, and a ball could still bounce off your face. And watch those drinks you place on top of the wall – a ball high into the screen took ours out; luckily we’d drunk most of them. You don’t think of these things in the upper deck at Shea.

Independent baseball teams usually have a varied group of athletes on the roster. Some are former all-stars or world champions, others are rookies you’ve never heard of.

The most recognizable name on the Somerset roster is Bobby Bonds Jr., the son of the former Giant and brother of three-time MVP Barry. Junior Bonds is a lanky (6-4, 185 pounds) version of his brother with an identical stance, only from the right side of the plate.

The Surf brought with them Ruben Sierra, the former Texas Rangers superstar who could not seem to find as much success in Oakland, the Bronx, Detroit or the Mets farm system as he did in Arlington. When Sierra, batting cleanup, walked in the eighth and trotted down to first base, he became part of the perfect picture of independent league baseball.

Leading off first was Sierra, a former all-star and MVP runner-up who, at 6-1 and 200 pounds, still looks like a major leaguer. Covering the bag for Somerset was Brian Traxler, a 5-10, 240-pound bulldozer who would not look out of place playing in your local firemen’s beer-ball league.

Speaking of beer, this is where Somerset goes big-league. The drafts on tap cover all the Lites – Miller, Bud, Coors and so on – but at heavy prices, $3.50 and $4.25. Sodas are $2, but for $3 you get a cup to keep. The fries and hot dogs (which Dave called, “pretty good”) cost $3. Our favorite were the tri-colored nachos, $3.25 with just a little spice to the cheese. Or if you feel like pizza, flag down one of the Domino’s vendors in the stands.

Next week I’ll cross the Outerbridge Crossing to the College of Staten Island, home – for now – of the Class A Staten Island Yankees.