June 13, 2011 "The principal owner of the Pittsfield Colonials said Friday that he might have to fold the independent-league baseball franchise or move it out of the city by the end of the month unless he receives additional funds to pay the team's expenses. Leslie Lewis said he hasn’t set a deadline for either folding or moving the Can-Am League franchise, which came to Pittsfield from Nashua, N.H. last year. Lewis said the Colonials have lost close to $100,000 this year and are on track to lose the $600,000 that the franchise lost during the entire 2010 season" This news from The Berkshire Eagle.

The Colonials were the second best team in the entire Can-Am League last year, winning the second half of the season and ending up second to Quebec in the playoffs. They were recently forced to move out of their Nashua stadium and into new digs at Wahconah Park. The team has had an economically tortured past, and Wikipedia chronicles the most recent stops and starts: "The Colonials, previously known as the American Defenders and the Nashua Pride, played in Nashua, New Hampshire from their debut as part of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball in 1998 until the end of the 2009 season, and called Holman Stadium in Nashua home until the summer of 2009 when the team was evicted from the venue because of non-payment of rent. The team will play at Wahconah Park, the former home of the Berskhire Black Bears of the Northeast League (the Can-Am League's predecessor), in 2010; the Colonials will be the first Can-Am or Northeast League team to call the park home since the Black Bears moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 2004."

Now, two weeks into the 2011 Can-Am season, Lewis has told the Berkshire Eagle, "We can’t continue to lose this kind of money. Either we have to fold the team or we’re going to have to move."

There are eight teams in the Can-Am League, and the loss of the Colonials would impact the entire schedule. One of the teams, the New York State League team, described as a traveling team with no home stadium, would be the seventh in an unbalanced number of franchises. It would seem that the elimination of the New York team might be necessary if the Colonials do go belly up.

So, once again, the Can-Am League is looking at a major disruption during the season. Not an unusual circumstance for this league, but still, it is kind of early for an economic implosion of this sort. If the league does shrink down to six teams in this first month, a lot of attention will turn to the Newark Bears. They are new to the Can-Am league, having joined after serious economic issues in their own ballpark.

Back in the fall of 2008, Jeffry Mays reported on the hammer the team dropped on local taxpayers in an article on NJ.com. Mays wrote: "The Newark Bears minor league baseball team filed for bankruptcy, saying they owe their biggest creditors more than $4.6 million, including $3.4 million to its mortgage company and more than $800,000 to Essex County."

"The team's stadium opened in 1999 with great fanfare and marked the return of professional baseball to Newark after a five decade absence. But after a packed opening night, attendance at the stadium never took off."

"Newark and Essex County financed the construction of the $30 million Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium with the sale of bonds. Later, remaining bond funds were used to build a parking deck that is leased out to surrounding businesses during the day. The city and the county now share a more than $1 million annual debt payment."

To save the team, the owners decided to move the franchise from the Atlantic League to the Can-Am League. BallparkDigest.com explained the reasons for the move this year. "The idea is that the Can-Am Association's shorter schedule -- 94 games, as opposed to the 140-game schedule favored by the Atlantic League -- and lower overhead would better suit the Newark market. There's also the chance for some decent intra-Jersey rivalries, with two other Can-Am Association teams already playing in New Jersey. History, however, might argue otherwise: It wouldn't be the first time a team moved from the Atlantic League to the Can-Am Association, as both the Nashua Pride and Atlantic City Surf made the move. At the end of the day, the shorter season and lower overhead wasn't enough to save either team."

So, just two weeks in and the questions emerging already are:

1. How many teams will there be in the Can-Am League at the end of 2011?
2. Are the Colonials history?
3. Are the New York Federals history?
4. Will the Newark Bears survive in lower level league with fewer games?

Funny how none of this unending uncertainty in this league made it into Supervisor St. Lawrence’s risk analysis of the "business plan."

Michael Castelluccio
Preserve Ramapo
www.PreserveRamapo.org

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