Ravens ponder move to Springfield, Mass. next year

JULIA TIERNAN/YH

Just under five months from now, the Alex Rodriguezes and Ken Griffey Jr.s of the future will gather at Yale field to begin another baseball season. On Mon., Apr. 10, 2000 the New Haven Ravens—the Seattle Mariners' AA minor league affiliate—will begin their sixth season as co-tenants of one of the oldest ballparks in the nation and one of the few professional athletics teams in the area. But amidst the standard off-season talk of trades and transactions, there is another rumor swirling now: come the start of next season, the Ravens might fly the coop.

As the city of Springfield, Mass. begins preparations to fund the construction of a new downtown ballpark, Ravens' president W. Edward Massey has received permission from the organization that oversees minor league baseball to explore taking the Ravens to Springfield. Springfield, which has already paid to have an independent baseball team begin play in the future, has expressed interest in acquiring an affiliated team like the Ravens in the interim.

But according to the Ravens' director of public relations, Bill Berger, those rumors are just that. "This coming season, we will definitely be in New Haven," Berger said. Instead of moving the team and the players, who are signed and paid by the Seattle Mariners, the Ravens as a business organization would expand to Springfield. "The Ravens as a baseball business would expand to include two teams, one in New Haven and one in Springfield," Berger said.

The Ravens would create a new team in Springfield and then attempt to affiliate the new team with a major league organization. While the owner and managing board would still control both teams, there otherwise would be no connection. Rather, the new team would simply be expanding the business. "This type of organizational arrangement is not at all uncommon in minor league baseball," Berger said.

Nevertheless, with more direction focused on expanding to Springfield, the New Haven team may change affiliations and even levels in the next few years. As with most minor league teams, the Ravens have signed a two-year contract with the Mariners. But as New Haven fans learned when the Ravens and the Colorado Rockies parted company several years ago, those contracts aren't necessarily renewed. As a result, the current AA franchise may downgrade to A or even join the New York Penn League (NYPL), a shortened-season A league. As Ravens general manager Chris Canetti told the New Haven Register [11/11/99], "We think [New Haven] can support minor league baseball at some level. However, the stadium and the market is probably more suitable for a single-A team." An NYPL squad would play a 76-game season schedule, with 38 of those games being played at Yale Field compared to the marathon 142-game season the Ravens currently play.

But diehard diamond fans, have no fear. The magic of minor league baseball, at least at some level, is here to stay. "As far as the future, the Ravens are committed to staying in New Haven," Berger promised.

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