Shame my wife doesn't like baseball otherwise I'd put more of an effort in to get up to Ottawa this summer for a game. No shock that hockey has taken over though. In any town if one team is major league and playing for the title while a minor league team is fighting to be at 500 it is hard to picture people going to the minor league teams games regardless of the sports involved.

Ottawa can support a team (as shown in the early 90's when they started up) but it needs to do something to be an 'in' thing ala how it was when it first arrived. Being the Jays AAA team would help, as would having owners like the ones in Buffalo who found ways to keep fan interest high even when the Sabres are doing well. Not easy and it is probably easier to just move the team but it could be done.

Picking up on one of the themes in the article - Ottawa definitely isn't a warm place.  There are a couple of things about that situation that make me wonder about whether or not Ottawa would be an ideal spot. 

First, early season numbers in cold places are always taken with a grain of salt as some players just don't know how to play in cold weather, it has an impact on how the ball travels, and can effect pitcher's grips on the ball.  Also, since the Jays play indoors on cold days, they don't really need their players to be used to this sort of weather like they would have in the Ex days, so that takes away one of the positives. 

Also, while I can see the Chiefs being in Ottawa perhaps drumming up some fan interest in that region, I think there'd be more cannibalization of fans than there would be elsewhere (i.e. some fans from Ottawa probably make a trip a year or something like that to Toronto for a Jays game, but if the Chiefs were that, they might spend their money in Ottawa instead - in Syracuse, that's probably not much of a problem).  If they're moving the Chiefs, I think they should look to somewhere south, maybe even trying to get another Florida location, since at least there are a lot of former Ontario residents there.

As far as I am concerned, it is a business imperative for the Jays in the medium term to have as many franchises north of the border as possible.  The cable market for the big club is Canada.  Minor league franchises are an excellent way to market the product outside the GTA.

I assume that frigid weather isn't good for pitchers' arms. Can't keep the muscles loose, right?

Anyway, some places just aren't cut out for baseball. The Lynx may have drawn well back in the day, but in 2006 the Orioles' *low* A farm club in dinky Salisbury Maryland (Delmarva) had better attendance - 217,980 to 122,574. Delmarva was only 9th in attendance in the 16-team Sally League.

Do AAA teams bus or fly? 

I will apologize in advance if this comment is harsh, but that article in the post really rubbed me the wrong way.

I interned with the Lynx in 2005 and absolutely loved both the organization and the city. I'm so sick of the entirely negative media surrounding the franchise, especially when there are so many positive things present. First off, Lynx Stadium is beautiful -- a great Triple-A facility. No matter how few or how many people are in the stands, this fact doesn't change.

Another thing that bothers me is the talk of how cold and brutal the weather is in the spring. Last time I checked, you get this everywhere in the East during April and parts of May. The summers are warm (sometimes hot) and beautiful in Ottawa. It's not like it stays cold throughout the season.

I guess the thing that really bothered me about the article was that it painted the entire Lynx experience as an awful time -- which is simply ridiculous. The unfortunate reality is that Ottawa is not a town that shows a lot of support for its sports teams (hockey is an exception, but the Sens have nowhere near the following that the Leafs do -- especially if Toronto were in the Cup Finals). Sure, the Lynx were a novelty in 1993 (when the Blue Jays were winning World Series'), but it didn't last. The fans were gone even before the team switched affiliates from the Expos to the Orioles (and now the Phillies). This is why I highly doubt attendance would change much even if the Lynx were a Blue Jays affiliate.

Yes, the team WILL move after this season. But anyone who says going to a Lynx game isn't enjoyable and that Triple-A baseball isn't a great experience, simply has no idea what they're talking about.

At SABR in Toronto in 2005, the former GM of the Calgary Cannons (whose name I forget) was talking about baseball in Canada, and mentioned that it's a tough sell for cold weather teams.  AAA teams have something like 72 home games.  How many really nice weeknights do we get in Canada, 150?  Do you want to spend half of them at the ballpark?  I think that's a legitimate challenge.

Personally, i'd like to see the return of the NY Penn league.  Places like London, Welland and St. Catharines seem natural to me, although I guess it didn't work out the last time they tried it.

At SABR in Toronto in 2005, the former GM of the Calgary Cannons (whose name I forget) was talking about baseball in Canada, and mentioned that it's a tough sell for cold weather teams.

Well his experience is an exception.  The weather here in Calgary in May and June is unpredicatable at best and pretty brutal for baseball.  It can be 20 degrees and sunny and then a cloud comes over and it starts to snow.  The mountains play havoc with the air masses that emerge from them.  Also, even in July, the nights can get quite cool.

I moved here from Winnipeg, where the weather is often very hot in May and June.  The air masses are much more homogeneous, temperature-wise.  The nights are on average six or seven degrees warmer.  Calgary's weather is an anomoly.  We get two seasons - swinter and stampede.

I'm about to point out the obvious, but what did the author expect in terms of baseball excitement when the hockey team has a playoff game that same night? If the Leafs actually made the playoffs and O'Connor checked out the Rogers Centre attendance at a Wednesday night game when there's Leafs-Bruins or something going on, what would he expect?

Much has been made of Toronto being a Leafs town to the exclusion of all other sports, but Ottawa is worse. It's not a hockey town or a Sens town, it's just a "Leafs suck" town. It's annoying and immature, and this comes from a guy who doesn't like the Leafs at all.

I'm about to point out the obvious, but what did the author expect in terms of baseball excitement when the hockey team has a playoff game that same night?

It may be obvious, Rob, but it still needs to be said. So thank you. The ironic thing is this: If O'Connor insists no one cares about baseball in Ottawa, who does the National Post expect will read that article?  

I'd love to have AAA baseball back in Calgary, but if we had a game tomorrow?  It would likely be snowed out. 

No way is anyone even going to think of investing in a dome stadium.

But in the mean time, northern league baseball?  No thank you.

On the theme of ''notes from nowhere'', Hardball Times has an interesting, though lengthy, study on infield defence.

While I haven't had a chance to really break it down, it does confirm one thing we've long suspected, the Jays are one of the best teams in the majors at converting grounders to the right side of the infield into outs and closer to the bottom on the other side of the infield.

One of the themes of the article is that LHBs have a greater success on grounders to the left side of the infield than RHBs, where we might suspect the opposite were true.

But in the mean time, northern league baseball?  No thank you.

I'm not too sure why you're down on the Northern League, but here in Winnipeg the Goldeyes are the only option if one wants to watch live baseball.  The quality is probably AA level (or so), but I have greatly enjoyed the dozen or times I have been able to get out to the ballparkl; it helps that Winnipeg's stadium is a joy to attend a game at.

/defense of NL

One of the themes of the article is that LHBs have a greater success on grounders to the left side of the infield than RHBs, where we might suspect the opposite were true.


I would have thought  lefties would always have an advantage - they're closer to first base and they have momentum taking them there as well.

I'm not too sure why you're down on the Northern League..........., but I have greatly enjoyed the dozen or times I have been able to get out to the ballpark.

I have to admit, I've never seen an independent ball game and I can't say I've had the burning desire to see one until now as I'll be moving to Edmonton in just over a month.  The closest I've have been to an independent park is the one in Gary, Indiana (which looks to be the jewel in a very depressing, run down, and less than safe city) and I did visit the one in Kalamazoo.  Still, when I move to Edmonton, I'll be giving the Cracker Cats a chance.  I think they need more brawls with Calgary like this one a couple of years ago to stir up more interest.  :)

I do worry about the future of the Edmonton and Calgary franchises in the Northern League.  They were easily 1-2 as far as the lowest attendance went in the circuit.  From what I've read on ballparkwatch.com, there are rumours about the Frontier League and Northern League possibly merging in the future.  Just reading between the lines, I wonder if that merger would happen if Edmonton and Calgary are out of the picture.

I found it somewhat amusing that they've cancelled tonight's Ottawa Lynx home game because of "rain".

It's not the cancellation itself, but the circumstances involved.  I don't know when, exactly, they made the announcement, but it was definitely before 11 AM, which is when I first heard it mentioned on the radio.

True, it did rain last night, and has been raining lightly off-and-on all day today, but I seriously doubt they'd have made such an early "call" to cancel the game if there didn't "happen" to be a Stanley Cup Final game tonight...

The Lynx set attendance record when they started.  The crowd loved F. P. Santangelo.

When they switched their affiliation to Baltimore, all interest died. 
There were more than a few Expos fans in Ottawa. Especially in Outaouais.

Homeboy Erik Bedard didn't even get to pitch here. They got him rehabing in AA instead.

I don't even know who's on the roster now. If I go to even one game this year, it would have to be to see some of the Jays prospect.

I don't buy how having the Jays's farm here would eat into the fan base.  Ottawa residents aren't season tickets holder.
I don't think it would work unless the Jays really make the playoff this year and sparks some interest.

Costanza,

Yesterday was a getaway day and the game was scheduled for 11:05. That's why they cancelled it before 11 AM. It was raining pretty hard all morning (at least here in the west end).

Didn't know this, thanks.  I do suspect, though, that if it had been a night game, they'd have been very willing to call it, and would've done it early. - "Oops... did we forget to put the tarp over the infield last night?" :)

As to the point below about the change of affiliation hurting the team, I don't get the impression that it was a big factor.  By the time I moved to Ottawa in '97, the majority of the fanbase had long since disappeared.  The only time I saw any real interest in the team in the last 10 years was late in the year they actually made the playoffs ('03?), and that wasn't going to be happening if they'd kept the Expos affiliation -- year after year, the Expos left the AAA with little to no talent, which resulted in uninteresting teams losing more than their share of games.

Besides, moving to an AL affiliate meant that we no longer had to be subjected to the sight of pitchers flailing away in the Batter's Box.  Now that the franchise is the Phillies' affiliate, I'm really uninterested in seeing them play another NL team's affiliate for just that reason...

(Actually, the "last chance" the team had was the '05 season -- with the NHL locked out, they had a unique opportunity for a few months -- there was even a good-sized opening-day crowd.  But, the team just couldn't build on the momentum... the Lynx were "unlucky" that the Ottawa 67's happened to be headed to the Memorial Cup that year... and that Mem Cup was the biggest Cup in recent memory, with both Sidney Crosby and Corey Perry's record-setting London Knights being big attractions...)