Jordan,

A question. For how long are the Jays committed to Syracuse for their Triple A team?

I ask because it is clearly in the Jays' interest to have minor league clubs in Canada, and it would be nice if their Triple A affiliate was located in Ontario (Kingston?) and played Ottawa more often. A Kingston-Ottawa rivalry as a surrogate for a Montreal-Toronto rivalry. It would also benefit those of us who would like to see prospects without taking the 5-6 hour trip to Syracuse.

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I ask because it is clearly in the Jays' interest to have minor league clubs in Canada

Why? (I'm serious)

Secondly, it seems suicidal to move the Skychiefs out of a county with nearly 500,000 people to Kingston that has, what, 150,000 people including surrounding burgs like Cataraqui. Plus Kingston is pretty poor compared to Syracuse.

I don't see how it's any benefit to the Jays at all. I see how it might benefit you, though. :)

Mike

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Although the writing was on the wall when Minnesota (one of the closest MLB teams) dumped us for Rochester.

I'm just curious what will happen to Telus Field. We plugged a fair amount of Jean Chretien's infrastructure bonanza into the park.

Mike M,

It is in the Blue Jays' interest to have viable minor league franchises in Canada because of brand loyalty arising from local and national media coverage of the Jays.

Let me give an example. The Jays had a double A franchise in New Haven this year, with some wonderful prospects playing there. The New Haven newspaper covered the Ravens well, and covered the Yankees and Red Sox. Will those New Haven fans of the Ravens ever support the Blue Jays by going to a game or even watching a game on TV? Not likely. Now if the club was in Kingston, or if they had a double A club somewhere in southwestern Ontario, that would not be the case.
Even without a minor league club, the Blue Jays are reported on in the local papers...

This is true as far afield as the prairies and even in Vancouver, where Seattle is a stone's throw away in relative terms.

The real problem is, as you say, whether you could get 5,000 fans from the Kingston area population. But, the double A franchise in New Haven, just moved to Manchester, drew 1,000 fans per game, and this surely could be bettered somewhere in Southern Ontario.

Will those New Haven fans of the Ravens ever support the Blue Jays by going to a game or even watching a game on TV?

This point is valid but Kingston is, frankly, a horrible choice. The only city I could see this working in is London. Yeah, yeah, we all know about London's track record with pro ball but they've never had a Blue Jays affiliate and have never had the quality of ball that AAA would provide.

There are several Canadian teams in the independent minor leagues (no, I'm not talking about the CBL). The most prosperous of these is the Winnipeg Goldeyes, who have been among the leaders in attendance in the strongest independent league - the Northern League for several years.

I think there's a chance that Edmonton and Calgary will eventually get teams in that league.

I think London or Kitchener/Waterloo would be good choices for a DOUBLE A affiliate for the Jays. K-W is a really good university town that is fairly prosperous. It's not far from a lot of other cities.

Thunder Bay draws 1,200 a game in an independent league (the Northwoods League). Formerly, Thunder Bay was in the Northern League, where Winnipeg draws 6,000 per game. Surely, somewhere in Southern Ontario, there is someplace where 3,000-5,000 fans could be lured to watch double A or triple A baseball.

Incidentally, if I'm a Blue Jay fan and I live significantly east of Toronto, the option of driving to Kingston to watch a minor league game, rather than into Toronto, would be a pleasant option. In the case of minor league baseball, it's not only population base that matters, as one can tell from the above figures, but also interest levels in the community.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Ottawa lost it's team ? All the teams in the International League would be American.

Robert,

I too wondered about K-W, which seems to have grown by leaps and bounds from the sleepy community that I remember from my youth.

"All the teams in the International League would be American". Sounds more ominous than ironic to me.

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The big problem is travel costs. What would the closest AA team to London be? Binghamton? Erie?

I don't see it being feasible given travel expenses and crossing the border post-9/11. There's a lot of associated costs along with that, along with currency costs, etc.

I don't think the counterargument: "Look how well the Jays did in New Haven!" is much of one, given the fact that they're *leaving*.

If we're really interested in keeping minor league ball in Canada, having a short-season A ball league might make more sense.

Mike

Erie isn't far from K-W at all. One would think the New York-Penn League would have greater difficulty covering travel expenses than the Eastern League.

Alas for Edmonton, Austin (well, Round Rock) was bound to steal someone's AAA franchise in the near future. The AA team has been ridiculously successful.

Austin is only about 260km from Houston, so the affiliation is obvious, but it'll be interesting to see how it affects New Orleans.
The park in New Orleans is only six years old and the Zephyrs have drawn well (about 5,500 per game, though that's well below the AA Round Rock Express). Will they accept a deal with Montreal for 2005? Will there even be a Montreal in 2005?

And to answer the question no one is asking: Why is the team in suburban Round Rock and not Austin itself? Well, Austin was primed to become the new home of the Phoenix Firebirds, who had to depart to make way for the ML franchise. The city council passed an emergency $10 million bond measure to build a stadium, but public pressure led to a referendum. The bond issue failed by a whopping 70-30 margin. (Yours truly, baseball fanatic that I am, also voted against it.) A few years later, Round Rock agreed to pony up the dough to house the unlamented Jackson Generals.

Oh, you meant an entire A-ball league in Canada? You'd have to have at least 8 teams and they'd have to be close together. That means it would have to be Southern Ontario/Quebec.

That could work, but it's tough to build such a thing out of scratch; it's much easier to tack a team onto an existing league.

Another factor is that there wouldn't be enough major league clubs to create 8 new teams (since they have a self-imposed limit of 6 minor league teams per major league franchise). You'd have to convince teams to move 8 affiliates out of their existing homes.

Of course if you're talking about an independant league, there are plenty of those around.

This is the map of the Eastern League in 2003:



A team Kitchener-Waterloo would have to travel the most of any team in the league (Portland will be helped next year by the Ravens moving to Manchester). With so many teams being clustered along the Atlantic, there would be some pretty long bus rides. It's certainly doable, but I'm not sure if it's desirable.

If someone has the time and owns Microsoft Streets and Trips, you could find out what kind of mileage a hypothetical team in Kitchener-Waterloo would rack up. It would be interesting to see how it compares to Portland or Akron.

Took me only ten minutes to check the mileage myself using Microsoft Streets and Trips. Here's what I came up with for a few cities in the Eastern League. All figures in kilometres.

Kitchener-Waterloo to:
Erie - 327.4
Akron - 541.1
Altoona - 557.9
Trenton - 860.7
Norwich - 870.5
Bowie - 949.8
Portland - 1081.1

Akron to:
Erie - 200
Altoona - 334.5
Kitchener-Waterloo - 541.1
Bowie - 590.7
Trenton - 701.1
Norwich - 918
Portland - 1192.1

Portland to:
Manchester - 150.9
Norwich - 318.1
Trenton - 616.5
Altoona - 926.4
Erie - 1038.2
Kitchener-Waterloo - 1081.1
Akron - 1192.1

This isn't a complete list. For teams that are in clusters, I just picked one to represent that region. Portland also has New Britain within a 3-4 hour driving distance, while Kitchener-Waterloo only has Erie.

When we Bauxites were submitting questions for the JP Ricciardi interview, one of my questions that didn't make the cut was "When will you move the Skychiefs to Edmonton?"

I hope the question makes the cut the next time JP grants us an interview. Seriously though, it's a shame that Edmonton will lose the Trappers. Besides Edmonton, I've lived in Vancouver and in SW Ontario (another UWO grad here) and none of these places compares to Edmonton as a sports town. The Eskimos are community owned and the Oilers may as well be (37 owners at last count). Both of these teams enjoy tremendous support. When Edmonton was winning Stanley Cups, Grey Cups, and PCL Championships we had the nerve to give ourselves the nickname 'City of Champions.' I know that other towns make fun of the moniker now--I'm looking at you Calgary--but I've always felt that with the tremendous support we give our teams, we deserve to keep the name.

To lose the Trappers solely because we are too remote is a punch in the face. Every time Edmonton has been asked to pony up cash to upgrade a facililty, we've done so. Every time we've been asked to flood the turnstiles, we've done so. Now we are being asked the impossible--to move the city to the border if we want a team. With the team moving all the way to Texas I'm not even sure that a move to the Canada/U.S. border would be sufficient.

I guess I'll go cheer for the Oilers twice as hard. Who knows when they'll skip town? Oh well, I'll look on the bright side. At least I don't have to cheer for the Maple Leafs.

If the Jays really want a Canadian AAA team, there's one available for the asking -- Ottawa. The Orioles certainly have no real ties to Ottawa, and I'm sure they'd like to move someplace that is closer to Baltimore and actually draws fans. I can't imagine that Angelos will keep the team in Ottawa for more than one more season. Just about any city or town in the mid-Atlantic region would draw better, be warmer and be closer to the Os dwindling fanbase.

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Oh, you meant an entire A-ball league in Canada? You'd have to have at least 8 teams and they'd have to be close together. That means it would have to be Southern Ontario/Quebec.

I think you could make it work with just 6 teams.

How about this:

Windsor (Detroit)
London (Cleveland)
Kitchener (Minnesota)
Somewhere in the 905 [lots to choose from] (Milwaukee)
Oshawa (Toronto)
Kingston (Montreal)

Even with the dollar at 75 cents, the cost of living is much, much lower in Southern Ontario than it is in Florida, or say, Rochester, New York. So there could be a significant cost savings for the teams. Now all the teams are closer to their parent cities.

Yes, all the teams would have to leave their current affiliations. So there is definately a coordination problem to overcome. If we're really interested in keeping baseball in Canada, a small league in Ontario would be a good way to start.

Mike

Mike M

Interesting idea. Milwaukee's A ball team would have to be in Barrie to get the kids acclimated, if you know what I mean.

Why would anyone (but a few devoted fans) want a pro league in Ontario? It's a pipe dream. You aren't going to find investors in those cities; the ill-advised Canadian Baseball League fiasco won't soon be forgotten. If someone with deep pockets wants to try relocating an existing NYPL or Eastern League franchise, and somehow makes it a financial success, maybe then the Jays would consider changing affiliations. Don't hold your breath.

Greg's point about Ottawa being a better fit for the Jays than the Orioles is a good one, but there's no evidence that Ottawa would be better than Syracuse from the Jays' perspective. It's not like the capital city flocked to support the Lynx when they were an Expos farm team.

There may be "musical chairs" played as a result of relocating the Edmonton franchise, or Montreal may have no choice but to work out a deal with New Orleans, and vice versa. I can't imagine that any AAA club wants to be affiliated with the Expos right now.