Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008

Is the California League about to shrink?

It would seem like just another Sunday baseball game at John Thurman Field tonight with the Modesto Nuts playing host to Bakersfield.

But if recent national reports hold true, the game might hold deeper meaning for Modesto's minor-league baseball fans, and for the future of the California League.

Tonight may be the final time a team representing Bakersfield plays in Modesto.

Baseball America reported this month that the owners of the California League franchises in Bakersfield and Adelanto (High Desert) have begun discussions with Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor to move their teams to the East Coast, to begin play in the Carolina League as early as the 2009 season. Such a move would leave the California League with eight teams.

"The only thing I can say is that we have two bad situations in the California League," league president Joe Gagliardi said. "We have two major-league clubs dissatisfied with their minor-league facilities. But this is nothing new. This is not a strange situation."

Bakersfield's Sam Lynn Ballpark was built in 1941 and is the only professional park in the United States in which the sun sets beyond the center-field fence. That design blunder causes games to start as late at 7:55 p.m. in July and August, but it's only one problem with the Bakersfield experience.

"Bakersfield is a terrible facility with a terrible clubhouse, and we stay there in a terrible hotel," Nuts manager Jerry Weinstein said. "The town is OK, but the places we spend most of our time in Bakersfield are not very good."

The stadium was constructed in a desolate part of Bakersfield, an area north of downtown infrequently visited by the locals and an area made even more irrelevant by that city's sprawling western growth. The Blaze is affiliated with the Texas Rangers.

"You don't have to throw up a big, elaborate stadium in Bakersfield," Blaze manager Damon Berryhill said. "You could go with something like you have here in Modesto, and if you put it on the west side of town you'd do well with it. People don't want to come to that part of town, especially when we have to start games at 7:50 in the middle of summer."

The City of Adelanto carved its 3,808-seat stadium into the Mojave Desert in 1991 and had great early success at the gate, despite never holding on to a major-league affiliation for more than four years.

More recently, fans have stayed away from Mavericks games. Bakersfield was last in the California League in attendance in 2007, while the Mavericks -- the affiliate of the Seattle Mariners -- ranked eighth in the 10-team league. Visalia, which is in the middle of a major renovation of its ballpark, was ninth.

Nothing new for league

Talks of secession from the California League seem to pop up about every four years. Visalia was reported to be on the move earlier this decade, and Bakersfield's situation has been tenuous for much longer.

Gagliardi, who has been a team owner in the California League and the league's president since 1982, sees little new in these latest threats.

"I've gone through this same thing twice before, and the idea has been aborted twice before," Gagliardi said. "As long as there is no deal, there's nothing to talk about. I'm spending a lot of time on the phone talking to the media about a deal that doesn't exist."

The most likely site for relocation is The Diamond in Richmond, Va., a 12,134-capacity stadium that was refurbished in 1984 for Atlanta's Triple-A affiliate. A new ballpark near Atlanta is being built as the Braves' affiliate home in 2009.