The professional independent baseball season is about to wrap up the July 2014 month, so this post will touch on the recent developments across the industry. Most of this post will focus on the business end and how it may affect you, the fan or industry insider, and how you experience games in the future. Players being signed to affiliate contracts will be a focus down the road, as that is part of the intended overhaul for this website. The overhaul will take place during the off-season as we have had to change directions on how to offer you value and not just re-hashed information you can find elsewhere.
Here are the big pieces of news across independent baseball in recent weeks:
- The big one is the Atlantic League’s ratification for measures to speed up the pace of play. These involve many measures, some of which have been met with disapproval by others across the independent leagues, such as pitchers only having six warm up throws instead of eight between innings and the substitute runner for the catcher rule. The latter will affect defensive strategy and even the statistics you see on a site like Pointstreak, as a runner may enter the game for a catcher (so long as it is not a pinch runner or pinch hitter). Obviously this can create more runs scored due to a designated runner having higher odds of advancing an extra base more frequently than the catcher would in the same situation. This means an increase in the chances of more runs scored and a potentially prolonged inning, and this is in opposition to the intent to reduce game times. It also screws up the catcher’s odds of being evaluated on his baserunning acumen by MLB scouts. Feel free to leave your thoughts:
- The Pecos League will drop the Raton Osos and the new Douglas Diablos from the schedule next year (the first-year Bisbee Blue team will return):
- Pecos League has its championship teams set: Alpine Cowboys and Santa Fe Fuego:
- Struggles for the fledgling Independent Baseball League (IBL) in Ohio:
- Baseball America did a nice recap on Midway Stadium as the St. Paul Saints look to move to the new stadium next season:
- The American Association (and Can-Am players) drew nearly 7000 fans for its 2014 All-Star Game. The South team defeated the North team 7-0:
- Some of the Frontier League teams have had fun promotions such as Sherlock Holmes caps, unique jerseys, and Biker Night
- The United League’s Brownsville Charros are trying to change some of the business model of minor league sports by introducing new revenue streams through its website. They are creating a local business directory with several hundred business categories, with the hopes of giving away sub-pages with favorable search engine rankings to entice sponsors to advertise with the team. The team also is importing local area jobs listings and has imported a database of baseball equipment which has equipment descriptions, product images and more:
- Borrowing from the Charleston Riverdogs, the Camden Riversharks hosted a Home Run Derby on a battleship:
- The Camden Riversharks partnered with SyFy to have an advance screeing of the “Sharknado” movie. These are possibly solid business ideas as people in local markets tend to enjoy advance movie screenings and will go out to watch them regardless of other entertainment options. Hopefully more teams do this, especially on mid-week nights which tend to be lower-attended than weekend nights:
- The United League’s summer development circuit, the Texas Summer League, is now underway:
Feel free to leave your thoughts on other important business and player-related news that has affected the independent baseball industry in recent weeks. If you leave a suggestion, please include a link to an authoritative source for confirmation. Thank you for your understanding.
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After reading the Pecos League report today, maybe the Train Robbers need to schedule at least half of its home games in Santa Rosa next season, and see if that continues to grow. One game outdrawing the whole short season in Las Vegas might not be tell tale, as folks probably saved up their pennies for the one visit. But even spread out to more games it might double its intake there, especially if the games can actually be played without inclement weather always interrupting things. Saw no mention of lights in Santa Rosa or whether that was a Sunday day game…all of that might make a difference. But if Dunn and the transplanted city manager plan it wisely, things might set down a “beachhead” in SR. Keep the unis and just change the Vegas to Train, and they will slide into both venues very nicely. But the play of the field needs to go back to more of the way it was when last year’s Robbers made it to the finals.
I hope Sierra Vista in Arizona is more interested than Douglas was at having a team. But I don’t want to see a repeat of that “league of their own” scheduling among those two teams only. They need to play the rest of the league to be a more viable franchise! Santa Fe adding turquoise unis? Must be an influence of nearby Indian tribes. But certainly they cannot be worn when playing Bisbee, who only seemed to wear turquoise. At home that is good, but they need a different road jersey. Probably black again, now that Raton is out. No chance for the Osos to return to Ruidoso? If SV works out in the south div, then another northern franchise would be in order. If Pueblo still doesn’t bite, the Osos could be a travel team.