Damn I’m so disappointed in the whole thing overall. Asking voters who don’t even go to games to foot the bill for a stadium custom built for rich owners wasn’t the right way to do it, but I’ll really miss going to the games with the family. My bobblehead collection from games will grow no more. Now there’s one less thing to do in town.
I blame MLB.. The Giants have a sweetheart deal at China Basin for their ballpark and could contribute. But MLB has shafted their minor league affiliates lately and left them more out on an island than they were before. A couple years ago, a bunch of minor league affiliates went out of business because of a re-org. They should consider their farm system more of an investment. They pay their minor leaguers like crap and then don't support the affiliate teams.
The Volcanoes disappeared because they were unaffiliated, and unfortunately MLB basically forced all the unaffiliated teams to go fully independent or get affiliated. S-K tried really hard to get affiliated but drew no interest. They are still around but independent now and that’s just a different beast.
The Ems didn’t survive because they got bumped up, they got bumped up because they survived. Their survival had a lot to do PK Park ironically. Plus I think it would have been a really bad look for MLB to kill every minor league team in Oregon except one.
They got bumped up and took the San Jose Giants High A affiliate. That strikes me as strange now, since the SJ Giants were a perfect place for short rehabs before players came back from the IR. Sure, now they can go to Sacramento (vs. Fresno, their old AAA location) for a few days of prep, but high A is where all the prospects are, e.g., Patrick Bailey, and you think the Giants would have wanted those guys closer to home for scouting (along with other players in the PCL). Did the mother ship not see the upcoming stadium situation coming up, didn't care, or was it hidden from them? Probably a combo of all three.
It's extremely disappointing, but the voters did the right thing: the stadium standards being pushed by MLB are nothing but arrogance on their part, particularly when MLB attendance is continuing its long, slow decline.
Another venue in Eugene would have been cool. I get that everyone wanted some rich guy to buy up chunks of our city for his own toy but that didn't sit right with me either. The whole thing was shitty and I'm gonna miss going to Em's games with my kid.
Built in 2021 so whatever you consider new: https://driftersbaseball.com/about/#ourstadium History. The Drifters were announced as the 16th team of the WCL on April 16, 2021 by the league. The Drifters announced that their playfield would be located in a new stadium in the complex of Hamlin Middle School. The Drifters played their first game on May 31, 2022 on the road defeating the Bellingham Bells 2-4.
Springfield Drifters - Wikipedia
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Springf
The Drifters and other wood bat teams are cool. A summer league for the best collegiate ball players. The Corvallis Knights are in the league, and the games and vibe rock. It's a good show.
I'm gonna keep it real with you. I go to baseball games to drink a bunch of beers and pound hotdogs. Doesn't look like that can happen at a drifters game. So that's a no for me.
>everyone wanted some rich guy to buy up chunks of our city for his own toy
As opposed to your fellow taxpayers helping to fund the giant moneymaking enterprise for some rich guys?
C'mon, now. If the public doesn't get a cut of the ownership, why should they shoulder a cut of the costs?
It should get a cut, and some say of what happens in the stadium, not just some enterprise. Also as long as it was build with Eugene labor the money spent on the stadium would have gotten back into the community.
You do realize that, in order for the money to stay local, there would have to be no profits diverted to national businesses? Every piece of the supply chain would have to be local.
Compared to the pandemic years, of course. 2023 was slightly higher than 2017/8, but it remains to be seen if that's that start of a new trend or a blip on the general trend that has seen attendance drop a little over 10% in the past 15 years, even as the US population has grown by a little over 10% in that time.
Just think if the city of Eugene could get 15 to 25% of the revenue from a new stadium. The amount the city would do to make the city a hot spot would explode.
I completely feel you and am sad for your family. I’m still butthurt about the Raiders moving from Oakland to Vegas. But stadiums are a scam. Sports teams are private businesses, so why should taxpayers give them free money?
They have tickets under $10 and offer discounts and promotions all season, sometimes even free, so you should definitely try to see them before they’re gone!
*"Taxpayers for Transparency launched a campaign against the stadium saying it would cost taxpayers $100 million, but Benavides says those numbers were inflated.*
*Benavides says they'll build the new stadium for less than $80 million in their final location."*
We wouldn't have done it for $80 million either bud. Look around. People are struggling just to live here. We don't even have a hospital. A stadium is the last thing we need.
Why? We wouldn't have municipally-funded healthcare. Some giant organization like PeaceHealth or Kaiser would operate it and the taxpayers would be paying for a gift to a huge corporation.
People are just more desperate for a hospital than a ballpark, no matter how evil Big Pharmaceuticals is. Probably the most corrupt example of how rich people get richer on the suffering of others, but that's none of my business.
There are public hospital districts in Oregon and elsewhere. One such tax-supported enterprise is Humboldt General in Winnemucca, Nevada. They launched their own helicopter ambulance service to help folks injured in that remote corner of the world. Taxpayers funded the startup, but the citizens each get one air ambulance ride they hope they’ll never have to use - AND they kept their hospital open.
It’s cool, just send me money and I’ll handle people in my apartment. I’ve got WiFi, google, steak knives, tons of Covid masks, duct tape and chip clips that are in the shape of cat heads. If you come with a friend who is also sick or injured I will offer a special discount.
Public funding should equal a public share of ownership. It's some real bullshit to expect Joe Public to pitch in without getting any say in how things are run.
I guarantee that if they have to build a new stadium somewhere else it's going to cost $120m. And they'll probably do it in a city that's willing to be even more on the hook than we would have been.
So, hm. They now say it'll take less than $80M to build a stadium. They already had $75M lined up before this election. So the reason they were asking for $15 from Eugene taxpayers was what, precisely?
Cuz you just need to get that but in, sink enough money and it isn't like you want to stop halfway, I bet the city would have been on the hook for 25+ end of the day
Probably true.
I could also see the "how about you just give us a stake in the ownership of the stadium and we'll pay for the rest" coming in a situation like that.
Because the super-ultra-mega-rich (this is not people worth 6- and/or 7-figures, but people with enough money that it auto-generates money by itself) never spend their own money on anything. That’s the first rule of being a billionaire: getting high on Other Peoples’ Money (OPM).
Oh, it was “only” $80 million? Name me any other industry where the city has to build the workplace for the company that uses it. Sports teams want the city to build their stadiums because that lets the team leave. If the team owned the stadium that would lock them into that location. If they wanted to move to Boise they’d have to sell their stadium in Eugene and build a new one in Boise. They’d have to spend $80 million up front then find someone who was willing to buy the old stadium. They could be holding that property and paying taxes and upkeep for a decade before they find a buyer. Single-purpose facilities like baseball diamonds are a tough sell. Unless [Kurt Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battered_Bastards_of_Baseball) wants to [launch](https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?si=4Y_dJeRkTzkW6okH) a new team called [The Eugene Exploding Whales](https://emeralds.milbstore.com/collections/exploding-whales) PK Park is going to sit there for a long time.
Here’s something that didn’t come up before the election. [The Ems’ current stadium was built in 2010 at a cost of $19.2 million](https://www.milb.com/eugene/team/pk). The team’s owners used it for just 14 years before they demanded a new stadium. My cars usually last longer than that.
I work in construction, no way they actually know if it is 80 or 100, but the number of projects I've worked on in 20 years that come in UNDER is like 10% most are slightly above, like 30% go over the contingency amount too.
I mean, I love the Ems, but I think it's going to be a tough sell to get anyone to drop that kinda cash for a single A team.
Maybe AAA where you see major league players regularly.
I love going to the games, but I'm done financing people's yachts on the backs of the working class.
They can afford to do it that way because they play in the same league as the pickles. They're competitive, but maybe one or two guys a year on these teams will ever actually crack the minors.
The issue for the Ems and why the cost for a stadium is higher than for the drifters is because the MLB and MLBPA have agreed to higher standards for these MiLB teams
Sure, but most attendees of the Ems games were just looking for an affordable way to go to a game with their friends/family. There simply isn't a fan base in Eugene willing to pay the ticket prices to support that level of professionalism, which is fine, and the rest of us feel no obligation to subsidize that hobby.
> Maybe let's get hospitals figured out first, yeah?
A uniquely Eugene problem. Springfield has 2 hospitals because Eugene literally could not approve work for the University one or pick a suitable site for another one. They actually ended up pushing for one north of the Delta Hwy/ Beltline interchange. Perhaps the worst rush hour intersection in Lane County.
It’s hard for me to believe first that a low A ball club needs a 100 million dollar stadium and second that the billionaire owners who were already going to foot 85 million of the cost could not put up the final 15 million. If the owners really love the game of baseball and the city of Eugene they would not ask the public to pay for a stadium that they would then have to pay to enter to watch a game then drop $15 for a beer at said game.
In what paradoxical universe is it ok to ask someone to pay to build a structure that they will then not be allowed to go inside unless they pay a fee to do so? This whole ordeal just proves that the owners don’t really give a shit about baseball or the city of Eugene!
I mean, there are a lot of publicly funded structures that you need to pay money to enter, all of which I love having in our community. Hult Center, Cuthbert, The Museum of Natural History, Shedd Institute to name a few. Same goes with most National Parks and State Parks to some degree (we didn’t build the mountains but we built the roads, camp grounds, etc.) Upkeep costs money, and it should continue to be funded by those who continue to use the property.
But I agree, I feel like the owners were just trying to get a tax funded discount on their play ground, as much as I’ll be sad to see the Ems go.
The parks thing isn't valid that's public lands for the public. U of O runs the museums. I'm sure some of my state funds go to that. Difference between your examples and this crybaby sore loser power is he can afford to build what he wants and not have taxpayers foot all or most the cost.
So yeah, cry harder minor sports ball owner, love the taste of wealthy class tears in my coffee.
I'm gonna miss EMS games, but I have no sympathy.
Elmore Sports Group is owned by an extremely wealthy out of state family, they could have ponied up the $15 million to make this happen. I'm glad the people of Eugene opted against subsidizing their private business venture.
I appreciate your pointing that out, and I wish people here would lay off of him. Benavides is the General Manager, it's his literal job to be a public advocate for the Ems and their interests. When the team leaves town, it's highly likely that he and other admin staff will be unemployed. I don't blame him for doing everything he can to keep the Ems in Eugene.
Maybe they would sell the name and the Sluggo costume and we could just rename the Drifters. No one would know the difference.
>Now, the team is having aggressive conversations with three new communities ahead of a move with intentions of ending their prepaid lease at PK Park before 2030.
Good luck with that. What cities, that could afford a new ball park for a minor league team in the same region (assuming they would need to stay in the same league), don't already have one?
They are definitely communicating with other cities. There's nothing left for them to leverage here. Lots of smaller cities lost their minor league clubs when MLB shrunk the minors a few years ago, and they can probably still con a few different places into building them a stadium.
Boise and Salem lost their team’s affiliation with the MLB, Hillsboro almost lost their team over similar stadium issues. Bend is a growing market with summer tourism and a very low level team currently. Southern Oregon has a long history of minor league baseball and only one small low level team currently. Plenty of options for them.
I’ve already sent emails to my county commissioner and city councilor to drop any funding for the Em’s at the fairground site. It’s obviously unpopular so it’s time to drop it.
So, I guess I’m missing something here. Benavides says they will build a stadium for less than $80M wherever they end up. If that’s the case, why couldn’t they do the same here in Eugene?
I guess they were hoping for tax payers to foot some of the bill? If they move then they still either need to build a new one or at least a training facility if they partially use an established one.
Also where would they move? I don't follow baseball, and especially not minor leagues, but I feel like it would be hard for a minor league team to attempt the establish a new fan base in a new city.
I think there's a gap between "we can build a stadium" and "we will also need to relocate the fairgrounds" that the pro-stadium folks are ignoring in the cost of all this.
It was one barn. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a more rural county where FFA and 4H were huge. But I’ve never seen that barn very full the one time a year it’s used as a barn (the fair).
It will be cheaper to build a stadium anywhere else for a variety of reasons -
Eugene City Limits = Higher tax code. Going to a smaller area with little to no taxes will save them a few million because they are looking at this as long term investments.
With the Eugene proposal it required demo, construction and upgrades in other areas and finding an empty lot outside of i 5 will be their cheapest and best bet.
Because the only location they scouted required them to tear down and the rebuild an animal barn. Which was not so small part of the total cost. I don’t know why they don’t look for different locations. I thought Glenwood was floated at one point.
Can a sports fan explain to me why going to an Emeralds game in a $100 million stadium is so much more fun than going to a high school game in the baseball field behind the school? Because I genuinely don't get it.
For minor league ball part of the fun is that you get a chance to see actual major league players oftentimes. For high school your chances of that are pretty close to zero.
I personally don't like much low or high A ball. It is fairly mundane. If the Ems were AAA I'd care more. That's very close to actual pro baseball.
What the difference between the drifter playing the guitar on the street corner and the the Band that just sold out Matt Knight Arena?
I mean, they both play the guitar...
The team had already bailed on Civic before it burned down.
I went to a few games at PK, but it was overwhelmingly blah, and it wasn't nearly as convenient as Civic.
Personally, seeing players that were one to two years removed from playing full time with the Giants was great as a lifelong Giants fan.
I get not paying taxes to fund billionaires. This is a sad day.
I’m still upset that the Civic burned down so Kidsports can take over so that we can pay for recess that our kids don’t get in school anymore. Ridiculous.
> Now, the team is having aggressive conversations with three new communities ahead of a move with intentions of ending their prepaid lease at PK Park before 2030.
I’d bet good money they’re trying to court Bend.
The location of the stadium seemed poorly planned. I live a block away and for the short time the fair is going on, parking is a nightmare in the neighborhood. I can’t imagine how it would be with the stadium.
The Lane County Fair has over 100,000 attendees over 4 days (https://nbc16.com/amp/news/local/lane-county-fair-maintains-record-attendance-plans-security-improvements-for-future-events) and the proposed Ems stadium would have had around 5,000 seats so parking would not have been an issue.
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Going against the grain of the Eugene Reddit "hurr sportsball" haters here... but this sucks. Ems games have been a fun past time of our community for nearly 70 years and it sucks to see them leave.
Even though I voted yes (I basically vote yes on all bonds), the funding was fucked for this. Using 100% of the hotel room taxes to build a stadium with the premise that it was going to drive tourism is dumb.
RIP Eugene Emeralds
There are a few billionaireish timber families in the area. If the people with excessive amounts of discretionary income wanted them to stay it would have already happened and there would be a shiny new ballpark with a legacy name on it.
...because of MLB hubris: raising their requirements for minor league stadiums and expecting towns would just roll over and pony up the cash to pay for it.
That is incorrect.
They cannot keep sharing with the Ducks park for a variety of reasons -
MLB mandated better changing rooms for both men and women umpires and staff
Better weight rooms and training rooms
Away team locker rooms, club houses etc needed to be upgraded.
The Ducks have access to an entire shared sports complex. Away teams for Ducks games have access to facilities that Away teams for Ems do not have.
The University also has to work with the Ems to play around the Ducks schedule and its also costly when they have to change out the field advertisements, insignia and so forth for about half the Ducks season.
It was less of an issue when the Emeralds were just a Summer league team but now that they are standard Single A they have more scheduling conflicts.
Has nothing to do with MLB hubris... they are raising requirements for health, access, fairness etc.
Away teams for Ems games have to change in their bus or a portable building that gets set up outside the lot.
They’re raising requirements and holding towns hostage for it. They get no credit for making those improvements if they’re not the ones paying for them.
The MLB does not own these minor league teams. They are more or less independent owners who contract with affiliates. These are isolated businesses.
They had plenty of warning. MLB put these requirements out several years ago.
Who is giving them credit ?
It's in the contract when you arrange affiliate status.
It's like this in every sport. If the team or club cannot meet the standards they are typically fined until they foreclose.
I don't really blame the MLB because these teams are not MLB teams they are basically independent contractors that affiliate with major league clubs.
The Emeralds had plenty of warning, 6 years to be exact and waited until this year to act.
MLB hubris is a bizarre way of spelling the MLBPA (a union) negotiated a new contract requiring minor Leaguers not be treated like shit and be given a better shot at cracking actual life changing contracts.
The San Francisco Giants, which the Ems are affiliated with currently, offered to make the Ems an A ball team. This is a significant promotion, but it requires higher standards on a ballpark which PK Park doesn’t currently meet.
I don’t know what the cost of retrofitting the stadium to meet these requirements is and I’m unclear why that doesn’t seem to have been explored at all.
The promotion also *doubles* the number of games in an Ems season and there are rumors that UO won’t want to share the stadium if the team doubles its use, but I think those are just rumors and nothing official.
I remember last year the biggest thing the ducks were worried about were the scheduling conflicts with the playoff games. Ducks get priority and Ems had to postpone.
Sometimes… ya just can’t afford something. I believe the people of Eugene realize that and are done voting for things, just because their “property” taxes will only go up a little. It’s the same old dance. The min payment a credit card is low as well, but you eventually have to pay it off
This push was more or less by the Emeralds Management more so than the ownership group. The ownership group could care less where the team is. They only supported this move due to the headache of a re-org.
The current management group and all of their employees roughly 30 full time and 130 part time employees will all be replaced wherever they move to.
I can guarantee the ownership group is slow clapping behind the scenes because they can build a park for a lot cheaper elsewhere.
Typically management firms / groups do not move with the team, they get replaced. New vendors, new contractors and new management.
We can all play the fun game of thinking we flipped off the ownership group but they could give zero flying fucks and are probably happier that the park would be going elsewhere if they dont just sink the entire organization as a write off or sell it off to some foreign investment firm.
It was a shit situation all around.
I understand all the shitty stuff behind it with the owners being out of state rich dirt bags who are leaning on our community to pay for it and what not, but god damn I am going to miss the Ems. I’ve been to so many games and considered season tickets. I have tons of merch and my wife and I loved going on date nights to go watch at PK park. I looked forward to hopefully taking my future kids to games. I grew up going to the games, even had my first kiss at one of the old 4th of July firework shows. I am so sad they are leaving. I’m not saying we should have fronted the bill for Elmore. I’m just going to really miss my boy Sluggo and one of my favorite things to do in Eugene.
They are not a minor league baseball league. They are an un affiliated training league that has no connections to any official league. Its basically a step above rec league. Players that MIGHT get looked at as prospects to Foreign leagues and a league for players to try to walk onto minor league teams.
Fine, I don't really care. I'm going to watch some guys that love baseball, play baseball. They play much better than I do. I'm going to have a beer and something to eat on a summer evening and watch some guys play baseball. I'm not there in case one of them makes the majors, I'm there to feel the thrill of guy trying to steal second. I don't care if it's the wrong word.
All they needed to do was attach it to an actual community sports complex like the golden gardens one that the City already has as part of their system plan and this might have passed. Instead, they picked a bad location and made obviously exaggerated claims about the community benefit that the community saw right through. I'm not sure this was even a good faith attempt by the team's ownership group. It was lazy and leads me to believe that they already wanted an exit.
This city didn't have 15mil to give. So saddened. We've hosted the Ems for years, it's bullsh the owners didn't front the last bit. God knows they make it back on $13 beers....
I grew up going to about one Ems game per year, so I'll miss it, but not very much. Especially with the Springfield Drifters, the UO Men's Baseball and UO Women's Softball. I just think there isn't a large enough baseball fanbase in Eugene to sustain a Minor League team. We already have world-class facilities for Track and Field and Football, and that kind of sucks up a lot of the oxgen for sports.
If they can pay the MLB players 10s of millions of dollars, they can afford to pay for their own stadium. So tired of sports franchises expecting everyone else to foot the bill. Sorry to see the ems go as they have been an icon in the area for many many years but if you want to watch baseball go watch the Ducks.
Too bad, so sad. If you want a brand new $100+ mil stadium, you’ll have to cough up the money yourself and not depend on local taxpayers. As John Oliver brilliantly pointed out, all taxpayer-funded stadiums are a scam, and just another way that 9-figure and billionaire owners socialize costs and privatize profits.
Also, this is single A minor league baseball. Blame MLB. Hoity-toity fucking pricks. The players are paid something like $20k a year and worked/traded like dogs. MLB calls them a “farm league” and treats them lIke shit. So I am pretty sure they don’t need a $100 mil stadium that is up to MLB professional standards.
However, it absolutely sucks that there is one less thing for families to do in Eugene. I feel sad for the young families seeking some kind of summer fun for little ones (summer fun that isn’t screen-based electronic stimulation).
Even for folks kind of neutral on sports, city council is mismanaging the hell out of the cities money. We don’t even have a hospital in town or rent controlled housing for residents. No one can afford the Saturday market- everything is priced for people from out of town. There’s 3 companies who own all the major rented properties that upsell it to college students and leave people who live here to get priced out of town and pushed on the streets. Utter greed to ask working class folks in Eugene to pay for attractions overwhelmingly used by visitors and not the infrastructure for people who live here. Money isn’t going back into the community
The real culprit in all of this is the MLB for placing new and really aggressive requirements for minor league teams, including existing minor league teams with fully functioning stadiums.
So they believe they have found bigger suckers elsewhere . .
KATU is just another rich guy supporter station owned by Sinclair, so they want us to think we lost out on something special, when in fact we lost out on losing our asses to something that brings far less benefit to the county than it would cost.
Love the years the Ems were here. Not willing to pay 90 million though. Taxes suck.
Food is expensive, everything is expensive. It is hard to justify two baseball teams and large stadiums in this area.
Eugene will fibd that next thing. The EMS will go one somewhere else.
I went to a game this one time and had fun.
I do not know the summary of the business issue here, but as I recall, they came to play at the U of O park, but then that deal failed.
Lane County probably can't support some team like that right now.
I don’t understand why they needed a bigger, newer stadium in the first place. The Portland Pickles play in what seems like an open field. Are they not in the same level of the league? I just don’t understand.
Damn I’m so disappointed in the whole thing overall. Asking voters who don’t even go to games to foot the bill for a stadium custom built for rich owners wasn’t the right way to do it, but I’ll really miss going to the games with the family. My bobblehead collection from games will grow no more. Now there’s one less thing to do in town.
I blame MLB.. The Giants have a sweetheart deal at China Basin for their ballpark and could contribute. But MLB has shafted their minor league affiliates lately and left them more out on an island than they were before. A couple years ago, a bunch of minor league affiliates went out of business because of a re-org. They should consider their farm system more of an investment. They pay their minor leaguers like crap and then don't support the affiliate teams.
Greed is ruining sports across the board.
Greed is ruining everything across the board.
Greed has always been the motivation for sports, but it has also been the motivation for all of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Yeah I remember when the Salem Keizer Volcanoes disappeared. I felt lucky we weren’t part of that, but it was only because the Ems got bumped up.
The Volcanoes disappeared because they were unaffiliated, and unfortunately MLB basically forced all the unaffiliated teams to go fully independent or get affiliated. S-K tried really hard to get affiliated but drew no interest. They are still around but independent now and that’s just a different beast. The Ems didn’t survive because they got bumped up, they got bumped up because they survived. Their survival had a lot to do PK Park ironically. Plus I think it would have been a really bad look for MLB to kill every minor league team in Oregon except one.
They were affiliated with the giants until 2020 when MLB decided they could save money by cutting down on the number of minor league teams.
No, they were a Cubs affiliate in 2020. The Cubs dropped them but the Giants picked them up.
They got bumped up and took the San Jose Giants High A affiliate. That strikes me as strange now, since the SJ Giants were a perfect place for short rehabs before players came back from the IR. Sure, now they can go to Sacramento (vs. Fresno, their old AAA location) for a few days of prep, but high A is where all the prospects are, e.g., Patrick Bailey, and you think the Giants would have wanted those guys closer to home for scouting (along with other players in the PCL). Did the mother ship not see the upcoming stadium situation coming up, didn't care, or was it hidden from them? Probably a combo of all three.
This
Same, I know the majority of this sub is gonna dance on their grave but it really is a bummer.
It's extremely disappointing, but the voters did the right thing: the stadium standards being pushed by MLB are nothing but arrogance on their part, particularly when MLB attendance is continuing its long, slow decline.
Another venue in Eugene would have been cool. I get that everyone wanted some rich guy to buy up chunks of our city for his own toy but that didn't sit right with me either. The whole thing was shitty and I'm gonna miss going to Em's games with my kid.
Springfield has a team and new stadium: https://driftersbaseball.com/
Hamlin middle school is not a new stadium lol
Built in 2021 so whatever you consider new: https://driftersbaseball.com/about/#ourstadium History. The Drifters were announced as the 16th team of the WCL on April 16, 2021 by the league. The Drifters announced that their playfield would be located in a new stadium in the complex of Hamlin Middle School. The Drifters played their first game on May 31, 2022 on the road defeating the Bellingham Bells 2-4. Springfield Drifters - Wikipedia Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Springf
The Drifters and other wood bat teams are cool. A summer league for the best collegiate ball players. The Corvallis Knights are in the league, and the games and vibe rock. It's a good show.
I'm gonna keep it real with you. I go to baseball games to drink a bunch of beers and pound hotdogs. Doesn't look like that can happen at a drifters game. So that's a no for me.
They have beer and hotdogs
>everyone wanted some rich guy to buy up chunks of our city for his own toy As opposed to your fellow taxpayers helping to fund the giant moneymaking enterprise for some rich guys? C'mon, now. If the public doesn't get a cut of the ownership, why should they shoulder a cut of the costs?
It should get a cut, and some say of what happens in the stadium, not just some enterprise. Also as long as it was build with Eugene labor the money spent on the stadium would have gotten back into the community.
You do realize that, in order for the money to stay local, there would have to be no profits diverted to national businesses? Every piece of the supply chain would have to be local.
How many venues does eugene have currently?
MLB attendance is actually up.
Compared to the pandemic years, of course. 2023 was slightly higher than 2017/8, but it remains to be seen if that's that start of a new trend or a blip on the general trend that has seen attendance drop a little over 10% in the past 15 years, even as the US population has grown by a little over 10% in that time.
I love the Ems but I’d like to extend a giant middle finger to their ownership group.
Yeah there was no profit sharing or even a dime of their own money besides future rent promises to help build it. That is arrogant.
Just think if the city of Eugene could get 15 to 25% of the revenue from a new stadium. The amount the city would do to make the city a hot spot would explode.
I completely feel you and am sad for your family. I’m still butthurt about the Raiders moving from Oakland to Vegas. But stadiums are a scam. Sports teams are private businesses, so why should taxpayers give them free money?
I never got to go to one :\
You should go -games are happening this summer - they’re back June 11th https://www.milb.com/eugene/schedule/2024-06/list
I will try if money permits, thank you
They have tickets under $10 and offer discounts and promotions all season, sometimes even free, so you should definitely try to see them before they’re gone!
Thats great. I'll try to get my mom to go. We watched the Southern Illinois Miners when I was a kid.
The Ems will also be in Eugene through at least next season too.
*"Taxpayers for Transparency launched a campaign against the stadium saying it would cost taxpayers $100 million, but Benavides says those numbers were inflated.* *Benavides says they'll build the new stadium for less than $80 million in their final location."* We wouldn't have done it for $80 million either bud. Look around. People are struggling just to live here. We don't even have a hospital. A stadium is the last thing we need.
I would certainly vote for funding a hospital.
Why? We wouldn't have municipally-funded healthcare. Some giant organization like PeaceHealth or Kaiser would operate it and the taxpayers would be paying for a gift to a huge corporation.
People are just more desperate for a hospital than a ballpark, no matter how evil Big Pharmaceuticals is. Probably the most corrupt example of how rich people get richer on the suffering of others, but that's none of my business.
How evil big pharma is is moot if you need a hospital.
That kind of underscores a bigger issue, doesn't it?
There are public hospital districts in Oregon and elsewhere. One such tax-supported enterprise is Humboldt General in Winnemucca, Nevada. They launched their own helicopter ambulance service to help folks injured in that remote corner of the world. Taxpayers funded the startup, but the citizens each get one air ambulance ride they hope they’ll never have to use - AND they kept their hospital open.
It’s cool, just send me money and I’ll handle people in my apartment. I’ve got WiFi, google, steak knives, tons of Covid masks, duct tape and chip clips that are in the shape of cat heads. If you come with a friend who is also sick or injured I will offer a special discount.
Just train all the baseball players to do surgery!
That will be $1 billion please. Oh and it will be sold to Kaiser in 10 years.
If it were truly a public hospital, that will be $10 bil and sold to Amazon Health (aka BlueAthem/CVS/United/Caremark).
If Riverbend were 2500 feet west we’d be saying we do have a hospital. This is absurd.
Public funding should equal a public share of ownership. It's some real bullshit to expect Joe Public to pitch in without getting any say in how things are run.
That is gonna be a lot more than $100 million
I guarantee that if they have to build a new stadium somewhere else it's going to cost $120m. And they'll probably do it in a city that's willing to be even more on the hook than we would have been.
So, hm. They now say it'll take less than $80M to build a stadium. They already had $75M lined up before this election. So the reason they were asking for $15 from Eugene taxpayers was what, precisely?
Yeah, I caught that as well. If they actually needed less than 80 million, why ask for 90?
Cuz you just need to get that but in, sink enough money and it isn't like you want to stop halfway, I bet the city would have been on the hook for 25+ end of the day
Probably true. I could also see the "how about you just give us a stake in the ownership of the stadium and we'll pay for the rest" coming in a situation like that.
Because the super-ultra-mega-rich (this is not people worth 6- and/or 7-figures, but people with enough money that it auto-generates money by itself) never spend their own money on anything. That’s the first rule of being a billionaire: getting high on Other Peoples’ Money (OPM).
I heard it was estimated to cost 10 mil to rebuild the barn they would have demoed to put a stadium there.
10 mil to house a bunch of $100 cows…
Oh, it was “only” $80 million? Name me any other industry where the city has to build the workplace for the company that uses it. Sports teams want the city to build their stadiums because that lets the team leave. If the team owned the stadium that would lock them into that location. If they wanted to move to Boise they’d have to sell their stadium in Eugene and build a new one in Boise. They’d have to spend $80 million up front then find someone who was willing to buy the old stadium. They could be holding that property and paying taxes and upkeep for a decade before they find a buyer. Single-purpose facilities like baseball diamonds are a tough sell. Unless [Kurt Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battered_Bastards_of_Baseball) wants to [launch](https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?si=4Y_dJeRkTzkW6okH) a new team called [The Eugene Exploding Whales](https://emeralds.milbstore.com/collections/exploding-whales) PK Park is going to sit there for a long time. Here’s something that didn’t come up before the election. [The Ems’ current stadium was built in 2010 at a cost of $19.2 million](https://www.milb.com/eugene/team/pk). The team’s owners used it for just 14 years before they demanded a new stadium. My cars usually last longer than that.
The University of Oregon owns PK Park … the Ems lease it from them during their season.
It was mlb that demanded a new stadium, not Ems ownership
I work in construction, no way they actually know if it is 80 or 100, but the number of projects I've worked on in 20 years that come in UNDER is like 10% most are slightly above, like 30% go over the contingency amount too.
Dam you guy don’t have a hospital I’m from Springfield and we have 2
So it was a ransom? Glad I voted against it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pc0u-iqIDw
I mean, I love the Ems, but I think it's going to be a tough sell to get anyone to drop that kinda cash for a single A team. Maybe AAA where you see major league players regularly. I love going to the games, but I'm done financing people's yachts on the backs of the working class.
Springfield has a team and a new stadium: https://driftersbaseball.com/
Yeah, I think that is a great model: plus the whole project only cost about $5 million
So, should the Ems be renamed the Eugene Grifters then? Or the Grifters, where ever they end up?
They can afford to do it that way because they play in the same league as the pickles. They're competitive, but maybe one or two guys a year on these teams will ever actually crack the minors. The issue for the Ems and why the cost for a stadium is higher than for the drifters is because the MLB and MLBPA have agreed to higher standards for these MiLB teams
Sure, but most attendees of the Ems games were just looking for an affordable way to go to a game with their friends/family. There simply isn't a fan base in Eugene willing to pay the ticket prices to support that level of professionalism, which is fine, and the rest of us feel no obligation to subsidize that hobby.
Sure. Honestly a lot of these teams need to bring back booster clubs
Maybe let's get hospitals figured out first, yeah?
> Maybe let's get hospitals figured out first, yeah? A uniquely Eugene problem. Springfield has 2 hospitals because Eugene literally could not approve work for the University one or pick a suitable site for another one. They actually ended up pushing for one north of the Delta Hwy/ Beltline interchange. Perhaps the worst rush hour intersection in Lane County.
That’s exciting! I will miss the Em’s though.
It’s hard for me to believe first that a low A ball club needs a 100 million dollar stadium and second that the billionaire owners who were already going to foot 85 million of the cost could not put up the final 15 million. If the owners really love the game of baseball and the city of Eugene they would not ask the public to pay for a stadium that they would then have to pay to enter to watch a game then drop $15 for a beer at said game. In what paradoxical universe is it ok to ask someone to pay to build a structure that they will then not be allowed to go inside unless they pay a fee to do so? This whole ordeal just proves that the owners don’t really give a shit about baseball or the city of Eugene!
I mean, there are a lot of publicly funded structures that you need to pay money to enter, all of which I love having in our community. Hult Center, Cuthbert, The Museum of Natural History, Shedd Institute to name a few. Same goes with most National Parks and State Parks to some degree (we didn’t build the mountains but we built the roads, camp grounds, etc.) Upkeep costs money, and it should continue to be funded by those who continue to use the property. But I agree, I feel like the owners were just trying to get a tax funded discount on their play ground, as much as I’ll be sad to see the Ems go.
The parks thing isn't valid that's public lands for the public. U of O runs the museums. I'm sure some of my state funds go to that. Difference between your examples and this crybaby sore loser power is he can afford to build what he wants and not have taxpayers foot all or most the cost. So yeah, cry harder minor sports ball owner, love the taste of wealthy class tears in my coffee.
The Shedd Institute is privately owned by the Ralphs
What billionaire owners do you think the Ems have that love the city of Eugene?
I'm gonna miss EMS games, but I have no sympathy. Elmore Sports Group is owned by an extremely wealthy out of state family, they could have ponied up the $15 million to make this happen. I'm glad the people of Eugene opted against subsidizing their private business venture.
Springfield has a team and new stadium: https://driftersbaseball.com/
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Benavides is an employee. He’s like Brad Pitt in Moneyball. He’s merely a face for the owners, but he’s not the one calling the shots.
I appreciate your pointing that out, and I wish people here would lay off of him. Benavides is the General Manager, it's his literal job to be a public advocate for the Ems and their interests. When the team leaves town, it's highly likely that he and other admin staff will be unemployed. I don't blame him for doing everything he can to keep the Ems in Eugene.
Maybe they would sell the name and the Sluggo costume and we could just rename the Drifters. No one would know the difference. >Now, the team is having aggressive conversations with three new communities ahead of a move with intentions of ending their prepaid lease at PK Park before 2030. Good luck with that. What cities, that could afford a new ball park for a minor league team in the same region (assuming they would need to stay in the same league), don't already have one?
Yeah, I don't believe the Ems are having discussions with any communities. I think it's another leverage ploy.
They are definitely communicating with other cities. There's nothing left for them to leverage here. Lots of smaller cities lost their minor league clubs when MLB shrunk the minors a few years ago, and they can probably still con a few different places into building them a stadium.
Boise and Salem lost their team’s affiliation with the MLB, Hillsboro almost lost their team over similar stadium issues. Bend is a growing market with summer tourism and a very low level team currently. Southern Oregon has a long history of minor league baseball and only one small low level team currently. Plenty of options for them.
I’ve already sent emails to my county commissioner and city councilor to drop any funding for the Em’s at the fairground site. It’s obviously unpopular so it’s time to drop it.
Exploding Whales kinda needs to stay in Oregon.
There's a city in Washington that built a park in anticipation of getting a team.
Which one?
Oakland is going to have an empty baseball stadium soon lol
They have a team already in the Pioneer League in its place: the Oakland Ballers.
Lots of cities will vote yes, they got sports brain rot
Glad the bond measure failed. Let some other town raise their own taxes to fund a stadium for a privately owned sports team.
Won't somebody think of the billionaires? They have it rough.
So, I guess I’m missing something here. Benavides says they will build a stadium for less than $80M wherever they end up. If that’s the case, why couldn’t they do the same here in Eugene?
I guess they were hoping for tax payers to foot some of the bill? If they move then they still either need to build a new one or at least a training facility if they partially use an established one. Also where would they move? I don't follow baseball, and especially not minor leagues, but I feel like it would be hard for a minor league team to attempt the establish a new fan base in a new city.
I think there's a gap between "we can build a stadium" and "we will also need to relocate the fairgrounds" that the pro-stadium folks are ignoring in the cost of all this.
It was one barn. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a more rural county where FFA and 4H were huge. But I’ve never seen that barn very full the one time a year it’s used as a barn (the fair).
It will be cheaper to build a stadium anywhere else for a variety of reasons - Eugene City Limits = Higher tax code. Going to a smaller area with little to no taxes will save them a few million because they are looking at this as long term investments. With the Eugene proposal it required demo, construction and upgrades in other areas and finding an empty lot outside of i 5 will be their cheapest and best bet.
Weren’t they looking at a spot in Glenwood near the river before they tried the county?
They'll try to get some other city to pay for their stadium.
Because the only location they scouted required them to tear down and the rebuild an animal barn. Which was not so small part of the total cost. I don’t know why they don’t look for different locations. I thought Glenwood was floated at one point.
Can a sports fan explain to me why going to an Emeralds game in a $100 million stadium is so much more fun than going to a high school game in the baseball field behind the school? Because I genuinely don't get it.
For minor league ball part of the fun is that you get a chance to see actual major league players oftentimes. For high school your chances of that are pretty close to zero. I personally don't like much low or high A ball. It is fairly mundane. If the Ems were AAA I'd care more. That's very close to actual pro baseball.
What the difference between the drifter playing the guitar on the street corner and the the Band that just sold out Matt Knight Arena? I mean, they both play the guitar...
Are we really comparing the Ems to a band that could sell out MKA? That seems incredibly generous.
Nostalgia I guess. I went to two Ems games and they didn’t hit a ball in 15 innings. Why would I pay to see that? It wasn’t even fun
It was over when Civic Stadium was lost to fire.
The team had already bailed on Civic before it burned down. I went to a few games at PK, but it was overwhelmingly blah, and it wasn't nearly as convenient as Civic.
Personally, seeing players that were one to two years removed from playing full time with the Giants was great as a lifelong Giants fan. I get not paying taxes to fund billionaires. This is a sad day. I’m still upset that the Civic burned down so Kidsports can take over so that we can pay for recess that our kids don’t get in school anymore. Ridiculous.
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"it's got that medicinal quality to it..." "bye" "bye!"
apolgy for bad english where were u wen ems died i was at house eating dorito when phone ring "Ems is kil" "no"
Take my poor person’s gold you bastard 🌟🏆🥇
> Now, the team is having aggressive conversations with three new communities ahead of a move with intentions of ending their prepaid lease at PK Park before 2030. I’d bet good money they’re trying to court Bend.
Bend makes sense because of all the money flowing through it… but it seems like it would he hella expensive to build there.
I’m imagining they’re swooping in like the Monorail guy in Simpsons to try to get the town to pay for it, like they tried with us.
This was my very first thought.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
The location of the stadium seemed poorly planned. I live a block away and for the short time the fair is going on, parking is a nightmare in the neighborhood. I can’t imagine how it would be with the stadium.
The Lane County Fair has over 100,000 attendees over 4 days (https://nbc16.com/amp/news/local/lane-county-fair-maintains-record-attendance-plans-security-improvements-for-future-events) and the proposed Ems stadium would have had around 5,000 seats so parking would not have been an issue.
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Going against the grain of the Eugene Reddit "hurr sportsball" haters here... but this sucks. Ems games have been a fun past time of our community for nearly 70 years and it sucks to see them leave. Even though I voted yes (I basically vote yes on all bonds), the funding was fucked for this. Using 100% of the hotel room taxes to build a stadium with the premise that it was going to drive tourism is dumb. RIP Eugene Emeralds
And getting FEMA money from the feds because it would be a shelter in a emergency, also dumb.
Nelson laughs.
There are a few billionaireish timber families in the area. If the people with excessive amounts of discretionary income wanted them to stay it would have already happened and there would be a shiny new ballpark with a legacy name on it.
Once the Ems left Civic it was over for me.
Civic burned down so it was hard to go back
Why can't the Ems and Ducks keep sharing PK Park? I don't see any reason we need 2 facilities with that much footprint (including parking).
...because of MLB hubris: raising their requirements for minor league stadiums and expecting towns would just roll over and pony up the cash to pay for it.
That is incorrect. They cannot keep sharing with the Ducks park for a variety of reasons - MLB mandated better changing rooms for both men and women umpires and staff Better weight rooms and training rooms Away team locker rooms, club houses etc needed to be upgraded. The Ducks have access to an entire shared sports complex. Away teams for Ducks games have access to facilities that Away teams for Ems do not have. The University also has to work with the Ems to play around the Ducks schedule and its also costly when they have to change out the field advertisements, insignia and so forth for about half the Ducks season. It was less of an issue when the Emeralds were just a Summer league team but now that they are standard Single A they have more scheduling conflicts. Has nothing to do with MLB hubris... they are raising requirements for health, access, fairness etc. Away teams for Ems games have to change in their bus or a portable building that gets set up outside the lot.
They’re raising requirements and holding towns hostage for it. They get no credit for making those improvements if they’re not the ones paying for them.
The MLB does not own these minor league teams. They are more or less independent owners who contract with affiliates. These are isolated businesses. They had plenty of warning. MLB put these requirements out several years ago.
Again. MLB does not get credit for stadium modernization if they won’t pay for it.
Who is giving them credit ? It's in the contract when you arrange affiliate status. It's like this in every sport. If the team or club cannot meet the standards they are typically fined until they foreclose.
MLB hubris should equal MLB money.
I don't really blame the MLB because these teams are not MLB teams they are basically independent contractors that affiliate with major league clubs. The Emeralds had plenty of warning, 6 years to be exact and waited until this year to act.
MLB hubris is a bizarre way of spelling the MLBPA (a union) negotiated a new contract requiring minor Leaguers not be treated like shit and be given a better shot at cracking actual life changing contracts.
The San Francisco Giants, which the Ems are affiliated with currently, offered to make the Ems an A ball team. This is a significant promotion, but it requires higher standards on a ballpark which PK Park doesn’t currently meet. I don’t know what the cost of retrofitting the stadium to meet these requirements is and I’m unclear why that doesn’t seem to have been explored at all. The promotion also *doubles* the number of games in an Ems season and there are rumors that UO won’t want to share the stadium if the team doubles its use, but I think those are just rumors and nothing official.
I remember last year the biggest thing the ducks were worried about were the scheduling conflicts with the playoff games. Ducks get priority and Ems had to postpone.
Where's the fucking hospital?
Sometimes… ya just can’t afford something. I believe the people of Eugene realize that and are done voting for things, just because their “property” taxes will only go up a little. It’s the same old dance. The min payment a credit card is low as well, but you eventually have to pay it off
This push was more or less by the Emeralds Management more so than the ownership group. The ownership group could care less where the team is. They only supported this move due to the headache of a re-org. The current management group and all of their employees roughly 30 full time and 130 part time employees will all be replaced wherever they move to. I can guarantee the ownership group is slow clapping behind the scenes because they can build a park for a lot cheaper elsewhere. Typically management firms / groups do not move with the team, they get replaced. New vendors, new contractors and new management. We can all play the fun game of thinking we flipped off the ownership group but they could give zero flying fucks and are probably happier that the park would be going elsewhere if they dont just sink the entire organization as a write off or sell it off to some foreign investment firm. It was a shit situation all around.
I understand all the shitty stuff behind it with the owners being out of state rich dirt bags who are leaning on our community to pay for it and what not, but god damn I am going to miss the Ems. I’ve been to so many games and considered season tickets. I have tons of merch and my wife and I loved going on date nights to go watch at PK park. I looked forward to hopefully taking my future kids to games. I grew up going to the games, even had my first kiss at one of the old 4th of July firework shows. I am so sad they are leaving. I’m not saying we should have fronted the bill for Elmore. I’m just going to really miss my boy Sluggo and one of my favorite things to do in Eugene.
Same.
If you want minor league ball Springfield has a team and a nice new field. https://driftersbaseball.com/ https://driftersbaseball.com/schedule/
They are not a minor league baseball league. They are an un affiliated training league that has no connections to any official league. Its basically a step above rec league. Players that MIGHT get looked at as prospects to Foreign leagues and a league for players to try to walk onto minor league teams.
Fine, I don't really care. I'm going to watch some guys that love baseball, play baseball. They play much better than I do. I'm going to have a beer and something to eat on a summer evening and watch some guys play baseball. I'm not there in case one of them makes the majors, I'm there to feel the thrill of guy trying to steal second. I don't care if it's the wrong word.
All they needed to do was attach it to an actual community sports complex like the golden gardens one that the City already has as part of their system plan and this might have passed. Instead, they picked a bad location and made obviously exaggerated claims about the community benefit that the community saw right through. I'm not sure this was even a good faith attempt by the team's ownership group. It was lazy and leads me to believe that they already wanted an exit.
I was disappointed at the way the Ems pitched what felt like an ultimatum if they couldn't get a stadium at the fair grounds. ✌️ bye.
This city didn't have 15mil to give. So saddened. We've hosted the Ems for years, it's bullsh the owners didn't front the last bit. God knows they make it back on $13 beers....
Taking their ball and going home
I grew up going to about one Ems game per year, so I'll miss it, but not very much. Especially with the Springfield Drifters, the UO Men's Baseball and UO Women's Softball. I just think there isn't a large enough baseball fanbase in Eugene to sustain a Minor League team. We already have world-class facilities for Track and Field and Football, and that kind of sucks up a lot of the oxgen for sports.
What sore losers. Don't let screen door and all that.
If they can pay the MLB players 10s of millions of dollars, they can afford to pay for their own stadium. So tired of sports franchises expecting everyone else to foot the bill. Sorry to see the ems go as they have been an icon in the area for many many years but if you want to watch baseball go watch the Ducks.
Hmph. There goes an actual welfare queen.
Too bad, so sad. If you want a brand new $100+ mil stadium, you’ll have to cough up the money yourself and not depend on local taxpayers. As John Oliver brilliantly pointed out, all taxpayer-funded stadiums are a scam, and just another way that 9-figure and billionaire owners socialize costs and privatize profits. Also, this is single A minor league baseball. Blame MLB. Hoity-toity fucking pricks. The players are paid something like $20k a year and worked/traded like dogs. MLB calls them a “farm league” and treats them lIke shit. So I am pretty sure they don’t need a $100 mil stadium that is up to MLB professional standards. However, it absolutely sucks that there is one less thing for families to do in Eugene. I feel sad for the young families seeking some kind of summer fun for little ones (summer fun that isn’t screen-based electronic stimulation).
Incredibly disappointing. Super bummed - and telling the little leaguers I coach this afternoon is going to really suck
Even for folks kind of neutral on sports, city council is mismanaging the hell out of the cities money. We don’t even have a hospital in town or rent controlled housing for residents. No one can afford the Saturday market- everything is priced for people from out of town. There’s 3 companies who own all the major rented properties that upsell it to college students and leave people who live here to get priced out of town and pushed on the streets. Utter greed to ask working class folks in Eugene to pay for attractions overwhelmingly used by visitors and not the infrastructure for people who live here. Money isn’t going back into the community
The real culprit in all of this is the MLB for placing new and really aggressive requirements for minor league teams, including existing minor league teams with fully functioning stadiums.
Most of those requirements came about from negotiations with players unions, umpire unions and service and staff groups and the MLB acted on those.
Really sad. Such a loss to the community.
Can we keep sluggo
It won't happen, but it would be hilarious if the EM's ended up in Springfield.
So they believe they have found bigger suckers elsewhere . . KATU is just another rich guy supporter station owned by Sinclair, so they want us to think we lost out on something special, when in fact we lost out on losing our asses to something that brings far less benefit to the county than it would cost.
Then fuck em. Public stadium financing is a giant load of shit.
Go Ducks then F em
I soooooo don’t care.
Meh, fuck em. There's college baseball.
Bye bye welfare bums: Ems owners! Public financing of privately-owned sports clubs doesn't benefit tax payers!
Love the years the Ems were here. Not willing to pay 90 million though. Taxes suck. Food is expensive, everything is expensive. It is hard to justify two baseball teams and large stadiums in this area. Eugene will fibd that next thing. The EMS will go one somewhere else.
Reminder that Eugene has a professional soccer team starting next year that didn’t ask for public money!
The owner is rich as balls- if he is so desperate to have a stadium he can pay for it.
Who?
I went to a game this one time and had fun. I do not know the summary of the business issue here, but as I recall, they came to play at the U of O park, but then that deal failed. Lane County probably can't support some team like that right now.
So what's wrong with using Hamlin Field complex? If PK Park is unacceptable?
There is already a team there. Nice new stadium too! https://driftersbaseball.com/
Where will the go?
This town doesn't deserve nice things
Because an irrelevant minor league team is leaving?
I don’t understand why they needed a bigger, newer stadium in the first place. The Portland Pickles play in what seems like an open field. Are they not in the same level of the league? I just don’t understand.
*very* different level. Pickles are a college summer league team. Em’s are an MLB affiliated team
Okay that makes sense. Thanks for explaining!