I would form a group of investors to buy out this shopping center:
Then I’d tear it down and build a new minor league baseball stadium in its place in the mold of Poncey:
The following would be outlawed inside the new park:
- Player names on uniforms
- Anything piped over the P.A. system that isn’t either organ music or a game-related announcement. Especially not player entrance music
- Electronic scorekeeping
- Jumbotrons and television monitors
- Hand-held electronic devices, especially cell phones
- Concessions other than beer, Coca Cola, hot dogs, roasted and boiled peanuts, Cracker Jacks, giant pretzels and cotton candy
- Souvenirs other than jerseys (home team only), fitted caps (home team only), and programs. Scorecards and non-branded writing utensils will be provided for free upon request
- Sleeping, unless induced by alcohol consumption
- Sponsor signs that are not hand-painted on a wall or fence
- Anything inflatable or made of foam
That is all.
Photos from the Atlanta Time Machine
Would you also sit on your porch and shake your cane at those meddling kids?
Goddamn straight.
If you haven’t been to Fenway yet, you really need to go. They still do the old school manual scoreboard in the Green Monster, and the seats are still uncomfortable as all hell. And I miss the place terribly.
Wrigley Field.
Did you outlaw people from wearing a hat for the opposing team or selling them?
Like you’d stop twittering from your phone during the game.
Unfortunately, despite the newfound wealth that would come as a result of your winning lotto ticket, it would basically be impossible for you to build a ballpark for a minor league team in downtown ATL, unless you got approval from the Braves, who control the “professional baseball territory” of greater ATL.
In order to bring in a minor league team, the Braves would have to sign off on it, which they wouldn’t do unless the team was one of their minor-league affiliates. There’s a reason why Rome, which is the closest minor league team to ATL, happens to be a Braves affiliate.
A few years back some folks wanted to bring a minor league team to Cherokee County, but the Braves brass blocked it.
The exception would be to build the park for an independent league team. But such a team would not be affiliated with any major league team, and it’s difficult (though not impossible) to market minor league baseball without the benefits of having your club affiliated with a major league team.
After all, one of the major selling points for going to minor league baseball games is “to see the stars of tomorrow before they reach the major leagues”. Most independent league teams are stocked with players who were at one point drafted/signed by big league clubs and spent a few years in the farm system before being released. In other words, they’re basically leftovers/has-beens by the time they reach the independent leagues.
Here in D/FW, there are two minor league teams in addition to the Texas Rangers. One is a AA team in Frisco, which is next to Plano, just north/east of Dallas. But the only reason that team exists and is located so close to the Metroplex is due to the fact that it serves as the Rangers’ AA affiliate, and Rangers owner Tom Hicks is a partner in the ownership group that owns the Frisco team.
The other minor league club is the Fort Worth Cats, which is an independent league club, that has done extremely well on the field and at the box office the past few years (They’ve won three consecutive league championships)
I’m not sure that Atlanta has enough hard-core baseball fans to support an independent league team downtown/midtown when the Braves have been so successful (the last two years notwithstanding) and remain extremely popular.
Just my $.02
Blue, have you never seen Field of Dreams? If you build it they will come?
Damn you and your facts. If people like you ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any wars. And everybody loves a good war. Why do you hate America?
I’ll drink to that. Put me down for all the American cash dollars in my wallet.
Good luck this weekend.
Blue, can’t a guy nostalgicize for a few moments?
Besides, we all know it would get opposed at the NPU level because the parking lot wouldn’t meet minimum parking requirements.
That’s why there’s an ugly shopping center there today. Atlanta loves big, ugly things, and can’t be bothered with anything built to a more human scale.