Take me out to the (abandoned) ballpark: Whats next for languishing stadiums? – AL.com

Long before Hank Aaron slammed 755 career home runs, he was a teenage Negro League shortstop earning $200 a month, playing at places like Bush Stadium in Indianapolis.

And before he was a Milwaukee Brave, much less an Atlanta Brave, he was a Jacksonville Brave in Florida, starring at ball parks like the Capital City Stadium in Columbia, S.C.

These days, 30s-era Bush Stadium is still around, serving as a thriving residential complex. The 92-year-old Capital Stadium faces the wrecking ball.

Such are the varied fates of abandoned minor league stadiums. The latest such uncertainty is playing out in Aarons native Mobile, at a relatively young ballpark with Hammerin Hanks name attached to it.

The Hank has a long life left, said Danny Corte, executive director of the Mobile Sports Authority. We have to rethink what were doing with it.

Hank Aaron Stadium, which housed the Class AA-affiliated BayBears of the Southern League for 22 years, was abandoned at the end of the 2019 season. The BayBears have since been relocated to Madison where theyve been rebranded as the Rocket City Trash Pandas.

The Mobile City Council will decide Tuesday whether to go ahead with a temporary two-year solution of allowing a Mobile-based group to proceed with operating the stadium for a mix of high school and collegiate baseball games as well as entertainment such as holiday light shows, cooking competitions and concerts.

A competing proposal, pitched by a group in Mississippi headed up by Biloxi Shuckers co-owner Timothy Bennett, promises to lure a non-affiliated professional baseball team form the Atlantic League by 2021. That plan, however, is not on the councils agenda Tuesday.

Regardless of which direction the council goes, questions swirl about the long-term prospects for The Hank. What comes next is as big of a mystery as guessing who might win the World Series in 2020.

For starters, the city doesnt even own the land upon which the stadium sits. A complicated land-use agreement signed in 1996 requires that a Class AA or higher-affiliated team play at the stadium, or that it be given over to public entertainment.

Huntsvilles approach

Joe Davis Stadium, home to the Class AA-affiliated Huntsville Stars from 1985-2014, is an abandoned ballpark in 2019. Efforts are underway to repurpose the stadium into a mixed-use sports development. (file photo).

Sports economists say that, for all practical purposes, empty baseball stadiums have very limited reuses. And the uses currently pitched for Hank Aaron Stadium typically are not long-term solutions, they say.

The problem facing Mobile is that baseball stadiums are not really good for much except watching baseball, said Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of Holy Cross in Worchester, Mass. They are a very odd shape, which means its not great for concerts. Its terrible for every other sporting event except for baseball.

The conversations in Mobile are not dissimilar to what has occurred in Huntsville for the past five years as city officials grappled over what to do with deteriorating Joe Davis Stadium. The stadium once was the home to the Class AA-affiliated Huntsville Stars before they were relocated to Biloxi to become the Shuckers in 2014.

Huntsville officials believe they finally have a plan that will prevent the city from having to fork out $800,000 to demolish the stadium. Under the plan, Huntsville is moving forward with repurposing Joe Davis Stadium into a multi-use football, soccer and lacrosse venue.

Huntsville City Administrator John Hamilton said idea of the project is to develop a stadium that can accommodate high school football games. Right now, five Huntsville city high schools utilize two stadiums Milton Frank Stadium and Louis Crews Stadium at Alabama A&M University.

If all five teams have a home game during the same week, scheduling is really a challenge, said Hamilton.

Renderings of Joe Davis Stadium improvements.

The reconfigured stadium, Hamilton said, will allow the city to attract other sporting events that otherwise could not play inside a minor league ballpark. He said the renovated stadium could put the city in place to attract minor league soccer.

The project is estimated to cost $8 million to $10 million, which would be paid with capital funds. The costs could go up, Hamilton said, if more extensive renovations are needed. An engineers estimate is expected within the next three months.

The challenge with a baseball stadium, and particularly a baseball field, is that its a single-use facility, said Hamilton. Baseball is used for 70 home games a year. The rest of the year, it sits dark. With football, soccer and lacrosse, its used a lot more days out of the year. Our community will be using that facility and getting a quality of life value out of it.

Obsolete

AP

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2019, file photo, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred speaks to the media at the owners meeting in Arlington, Texas. Major League Baseball is pushing a proposal to whack 42 teams _ and several entire leagues _ from its vast network of minor-league affiliates that bring the game to every corner of country. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The list of abandoned sports parks is growing across the nation. The website Baseball Pilgrimages accounted for 92 abandoned ballparks between 1999-2015, with the overwhelming majority being minor league stadiums. Of those, only 70% were still standing in 2015; the rest had already been demolished.

More stadiums could meet the same fate, and soon. The leagues owners are targeting 42 minor league teams for elimination in order to streamline player development, improve facilities and ease travel burdens and improve working conditions for prospects who are most likely to reach the big leagues.

For every team lost, MLB vows to work with cities in providing college summer leagues, or last-chance independent pro teams.

If they are looking at changing the structure of Minor League Baseball where these small market (stadiums) are used predominately by one team, this could become a bigger and bigger problem, said Amanda Ross, associate professor economics at the University of Alabama. This is something people have to start thinking about nationwide.

The concern has captured the attention of Congress. Last month 104 members of Congress signed a bipartisan letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred urging him to reconsider the radical contraction proposal.

Three Alabama lawmakers Republican Reps. Mike Rogers and Robert Aderholt and Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell all signed the letter. None of the teams slated for contraction are located in Alabama, but two are within the Southern League the Chattanooga Lookouts and Jackson (Tenn.) Generals. Alabama is home to three Class AA-affiliated Southern League Teams: Birmingham Barons, Montgomery Biscuits and the Trash Pandas.

While there are no minor league teams in the 4th district, nearby teams like the Birmingham Barons, Chattanooga Lookouts and the upcoming Rocket City Trash Pandas, all have followings in the district, said Aderholt, in a statement to AL.com. These teams also have an economic impact not only on the city where they are located, but also surrounding communities.

Rogers, in a statement, said that MLBs proposal is concerning.

With the Montgomery Biscuits and the Birmingham Barons both close to the Third District, I was happy to sign a letter supporting Minor League teams as each of these teams provides an economic impact for the area as well as providing entertainment for folks across East Alabama, he said.

AP

FILE - In this April 4, 2019, file photo, fans watch the Chattanooga Lookouts play the Montgomery Biscuits at AT&T Field in Chattanooga, Tenn. Major League Baseball is pushing a proposal to whack 42 teams _ and several entire leagues _ from its vast network of minor-league affiliates that bring the game to every corner of country. That includes Chattanooga, Tennessee, home of the Double-A Lookouts and a city where professional baseball was first played in 1885. (C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP, File)

In Mobile, luring another Minor League Baseball team isnt part of any immediate plans either with a new stadium or major upgrades to Hank Aaron Stadium. In Chattanooga, for instance, the teams co-owner is pitching a plan for a new baseball stadium as a counteroffensive to MLBs contraction plan, according to media reports. The Lookouts currently play baseball inside the 19-year-old AT&T Stadium.

Matheson said he can see existing minor league stadiums many which are far from being considered old -- becoming economically obsolete before they are physically obsolete.

There is a real question whether minor league baseball teams can fill up the stands without (Major League) affiliation, Matheson said. There is a question on whether they can fill up the stands for the next 10 to 30 years even with affiliation. There simply are not many 12 or 13 year olds who say baseball is my favorite thing. If they arent football fans, they are likely to be basketball fans and if they are not basketball fans, they are more likely soccer fans. Somewhere down the line they are baseball fans. How much minor league baseball are we going to have in the future?

Demolition avoidance

Success stories with abandoned stadiums also are rare, said Matheson. Even rarer is the likelihood of an aging stadium luring another minor league team that is affiliated with Major League Baseball.

Reuses have varied among the ballparks abandoned nationwide, according to the Baseball Pilgrimages website: 17 were used by collegiate teams, 14 were vacant, 11 were used by amateur/youth teams, 8 were used by other sports, etc.

The normal, best-case scenario is to turn the stadium over to a local college or summer collegiate team for a nominal or nothing fee, with the tenant taking over the operations and day-to-day upkeep, so that theres still somebody using the stadium (so a community benefit is realized) and the city/state has their financial burden for it lessened, said Graham Knight, who operates the website, and who has visited over 200 ballparks.

In Mobile, the Mobile Sports & Entertainment Group (MSEG) is proposing to pay for all the maintenance and utility costs associated with Hank Aaron Stadium for the next two years. That proposal appeals to Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpsons administration, which has endorsed MSEGs plan over the proposal pitched by Bennetts group.

Ari Rosenbaum, president of Mobile Sports & Entertainment Group, speaks before Mobile city council members on Monday, Dec. 2, 2019, at Government Plaza in downtown Mobile, Ala. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).

Ari Rosenbaum, president of MSEG, has said that Hank Aaron Stadium will be used for high school games starting in February. Hes also said that his group is committed to bringing professional baseball back to Mobile, but admits there is no timetable for that.

Some council members, such as Councilwoman Bess Rich, believe MSEGs plan is more community focused. But sports economists like Matheson, said the reality of a minor league stadium is that its simply too big to be a community events center. Hank Aaron Stadium, for example, has a capacity to hold up to 6,000 people.

These things do go back to the community, but the community generally doesnt find it useful and maybe sometime down the road, someone says, Lets reclaim this land for another purpose, said Matheson.

Demolition projects are often avoided. Tearing down a stadium can be costly and emotional:

In Mobile, demolishing Hank Aaron Stadium is considered a non-starter for some council members. As Councilman Fred Richardson said on Tuesday, If we destroy the stadium, we are destroying the legacy of Hank Aaron and I am not for that.

Matheson said that emotional attachment and/or nostalgia, is a powerful force, and has led to some redevelopment projects in Dyersville, Iowa, for instance, Major League Baseball is developing an 8,000-seat stadium near the popular filming site for the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams.

Historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. (Josh Bean | jbean@al.com)

In Birmingham, the 109-year-old city-owned Rickwood Field has been upgraded and featured in movies such as Cobb in 1994, and 42 in 2013. A 40-member board Friends of Rickwood Field are in charge of maintaining the day-to-day operations of an ancient field billed as Americas Oldest Ballpark that is now used for high school and college games.

Outside Hank Aaron Stadium is Aarons childhood home that has served as a museum since 2010. Both proposals for the stadium include continued use of the stadium, and the MSEG plan wants to host a 10-year anniversary celebration of the homes relocation to the ballpark site next spring.

Stadium Lofts

But nostalgia over a ballpark doesnt have to include baseball.

Ross, the associate professor at the University of Alabama, said the historical elements of a stadium can be integrated into alternative designs.

There are ways a happy medium can be met, said Ross, pointing out the example in Indianapolis where Bush Stadium was redeveloped into more than 138-loft apartments in 2013.

There is a situation where you are holding onto the emotional attachment but are still making it profitable, said Ross. (Indianapolis) was one of the more successful remodels in the U.S. in how they take a stadium and repurpose it into apartments or something useable.

The project in Indianapolis almost didnt happen, said Marsh Davis, the longtime president of Indiana Landmarks.

The stadium had been vacant since 1996, and was in disrepair by 2010. Between 2008 to 2011, the stadium was a storage site for cars as part of the federal governments Cash for Clunkers program, in what Davis called a low chapter for the stadium.

Bush was vacant, and there was no plan for it, said Davis, who assisted the developer John Watson of Core Construction -- in pitching the loft project to a committee. It was a last-ditch effort to save the stadium.

Davis recalled, I asked the committee, Would you allow us to give a presentation? They allowed us. I talked about the history of the ballpark and John dusted off old plans to convert it into residential property. John looked at me and said, This is a waste of time. They have their minds made up. They hadnt. They liked the plan. And now its Stadium Lofts apartments.

The city funded $5 million of a $13 million renovation project that incorporates ticket windows as closets and 1960s-era stadium seating is in the lobby. Much of the complex faces the stadiums infield.

Ive had people criticize me for supporting the project, said Davis. The (baseball) purists are those who say that a ballpark needs to be a ballpark. But it aint a ballpark anymore. This has been a creative solution that has revitalized that part of the city and brought people living there. Its had a huge, positive impact.

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Take me out to the (abandoned) ballpark: Whats next for languishing stadiums? - AL.com