Minor league cities fighting back against contraction plan

NORWICH, Conn. (AP) — Mayor Peter Nystrom says he plans to fight hard to preserve his town’s little piece of Americana.

For a quarter century on baseball nights at Dodd Stadium, children have played on the hill next to the right field fence while neighbors chat in the stands and watch future major league stars.

But Major League Baseball has proposed a contraction plan that could end those summer nights at Dodd and other parks across the nation by eliminating its affiliation with 42 minor league teams, including the Connecticut Tigers, Norwich’s single-A New York-Penn League team.

The contraction plan is being proposed as Major League Baseball and the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues negotiate a new Professional Baseball Agreement to replace the one that expires after the 2020 season. The 176 minor league teams affiliated with the NAPBL combined to draw 41.5 million fans this year.

Nystrom, a Republican, said he learned of the plan about a month after MLB signed off on a new 10-year lease deal between the Tigers and Norwich. The city already has upgraded the 6,000-seat stadium’s lights and heating and cooling system and has $100,000 in its annual budget for more improvements.

He said minor league clubs are a vital part of the fabric of towns and small cities such as Norwich and he doesn’t believe they will let contraction happen.

“I’m writing to every municipality affected by this,” he said. “These are community centers. Dodd Stadium is a community center. To me, this is a stab in the back.”

Mike Quill, the mayor of Auburn, New York, said his city also was caught by surprise. It owns both the single-A Doubledays, another team on the contraction list, and the park in which they play, which was just upgraded with a new artificial...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Minor-league-cities-fighting-back-against-14864496.php