Dan to Theo to Ben said:There should be plenty of street parking with a 10-15 minute walk.
Bring cones. (Or chairs.)
Dan to Theo to Ben said:There should be plenty of street parking with a 10-15 minute walk.
Hank Scorpio said:For what it's worth, it's about a 15 minute walk from the Commuter Rail to the proposed new park site.
Current commuter rail resources and schedules don't really make it feasible for people to utilize it en masse to head down to RI to catch a ball game. I wonder if something could be worked out. Seems too complicated.
Worse than that, you need 10,000 seats for AAA. (McCoy has 10,031 seats plus the berm). The Hartford stadium currently calls for 6,000 seats plus a berm.Carmen Fanzone said:You mean like building a 9,000 seat stadium when 10,000 is the accepted minimum for AAA teams?
"No thanks, we really see ourselves as a THIRD tier city."
I think the current state of CT is summed up perfectly by seeing a city that 17 years ago housed a team in one of the four major sports now building a ballpark for a AA team that is being stolen from a city 12 miles away.Brohamer of the Gods said:Worse than that, you need 10,000 seats for AAA. (McCoy has 10,031 seats plus the berm). The Hartford stadium currently calls for 6,000 seats plus a berm.
Just the finishing inning for me as well. My brother got us tickets when he found out when the game was being continued.TomTerrific said:
Did either of you get the lifetime pass that I heard was awarded to the fans who stuck it out to the bitter end? Or were you just there for the finishing inning (which was played on a later date, right?)
Bone Chips said:To understand just how inept the political leaders in Hartford are, read this article. http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-pawtucket-red-sox-moving-0224-20150223-story.html
I just sent Thomas Deller an email imploring him to open negotiations with the PawSox. Screw the Rock Cats. Nobody wants to see the double-A team for the Colorado Rockies.
Hartfordites - let your voice be heard!!! Send Tom Deller an email - tdeller@hartford.gov. Let's reverse what Kraft did to us in 1998.
norm from cheers said:
Pete Abraham @PeteAbe 3m3 minutes ago
Henry wants Pawtucket to be a model AAA franchise.
0 replies 1 retweet 2 favorites
Candidly, I thought it already was.
Zomp said:
Not that it matters much, but I think 15 minutes is a little generous. I'd say more like 25.
Could they work something out with JWU and utilize their parking lots at night? Could be a nice stream of revenue for the school as well...
To me, they'd ideally work something out with Pawtucket and keep McCoy. Maybe add a small shopping center with restaurants or something. Its a great little ballpark with cheap prices and free parking. They are talking about moving the stadium less than 5 miles to an area that doesn't really need it. Take half of the money required and make McCoy the gem of minor league ballparks.
OilCanShotTupac said:
Refurbishment/rehab of an old building can be much more expensive than building from scratch, and I suspect it would be here.
McCoy itslef was built in 1943. As Bro mentioned above, the ground is not really conducive to much more in the way of additions. The current footprint of the coincourse area really couldn't be widened without either significantly reducing seating capacity or blowing out the "back" wall and taking over some of the (precious little) on-site parkingLeon Trotsky said:
It can also be much much less. Gut adaptive reuse rehabs (granted, multi-family residential) are 30-40% less than new construction in MA. Considering the good condition and relative modernity of McCoy, refurbishment there would likely be much cheaper than building new in PVD.
Brohamer of the Gods said:Worse than that, you need 10,000 seats for AAA. (McCoy has 10,031 seats plus the berm). The Hartford stadium currently calls for 6,000 seats plus a berm.
Ranked by population, metro Hartford -- comprising Hartford, Tolland and Middlesex counties -- is larger than all but 13 of the 28 Triple-A markets that do not also have a major league franchise. And ranked by economic size, or share of gross domestic product, this region is larger than all but 10 of those 28 markets.
But Hartford officials say the city was never an option for that team. Despite the considerable Red Sox fan base in Connecticut, Thomas Deller, Hartford's director of development services, said the city never pursued talks with the franchise. "We never talked with them," he said Monday."We were in discussions with [another] team. [The Rock Cats] approached us. They were talking to us. Why pursue someone else? As far as we knew at the time, the [Pawtucket Red Sox] were not looking to move."
Carmen Fanzone said:Why not just get the Scranton AAA team to move? Call them Connecticut Yankees, for the Twain connection. Build a rivalry with the RI Red Sox?
But do the new owners understand Pawtucket tradition? Do they know why free parking matters, and having boy and girl scouts camp overnight on the outfield grass, and being able to take a family of six to a ballgame without stopping first to pawn an heirloom?
FelixMantilla said:
FelixMantilla said:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/sports/baseball/through-years-of-change-pawtucket-ri-always-had-mccoy-stadium.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
But do the new owners understand Pawtucket tradition? Do they know why free parking matters, and having boy and girl scouts camp overnight on the outfield grass, and being able to take a family of six to a ballgame without stopping first to pawn an heirloom?
Damn, I'm going to miss the place.
JimD said:
This is silly. Someone please show me the minor-league teams that can get away with charging 20 or 30 bucks a ticket. I've never paid more than ten bucks to attend a MiLB game, and often have taken advantage of freebie tickets, 2-for-1 deals, etc. when bringing my kids. The new owners can still do the overnight sleepovers in the new stadium. McCoy has always been a nice little place to catch a game, but it's not some sort of hallowed ground.
Well, the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL sell tix $20-$30, while the Syracuse Chiefs are priced similar to the PawSox. The Hershey Bears sell for $17-27 while the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs are priced....similar to the PawSox. I think minor league hockey just costs more than minor league baseball. I'll be very surprised if there's a big price increase, that would be a PR disaster.RIFan said:The Providence Bruins are able to average 8000 fans a night with tickets priced starting at $27 each. The average paid price is probably about $20 when you account for all the discounts. It's unrealistic to think that the new owners won't drive towards that number. I'm sure they'll be more creative with marketing and come up with promotions and other ways to keep the price lower, but it will drive away the spur of the moment family experience to take in a game on a nice night. You can't base expected ticket prices based on minor league prices. Using other markets as a comparison would make the current Fenway prices unrealistic.
JimD said:So, let's pretend that the Pawtucket Red Sox never existed and the greater Providence area had just landed a AAA team. The stadium location options have been narrowed down to two choice:
a.) A location near downtown with good access to the city's transit network and the MBTA commuter rail, and the possibility of the city skyline and/or the bay as an outfield backdrop
or
b.), A location in a struggling adjacent older community that would cost less to build and feature free parking, but had poor highway access, terrible transit access and a backdrop of truck terminals and industrial buildings
Would anyone choose option
dynomite said:The centerfield "bleachers" are a grassy lawn that families bring beach blankets and sit on for something like $6/ticket.
dynomite said:The model to my mind is the AAA Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals) stadium, which sits in the middle of downtown Memphis and is an incredible place to watch a game. The centerfield "bleachers" are a grassy lawn that families bring beach blankets and sit on for something like $6/ticket....
The new owners of the Pawtucket Red Sox face a possible roadblock in their plan to build a new stadium for the Triple-A franchise in Providence.
That 4.8-acre plot along the Providence River mentioned as a possible site for the new ballpark is designated for use as a public park in a plan the Federal Highway Administration approved in 1997 as part of the relocation of a section of Interstate 195.
Relax. They're going to replace the "kids run the bases" feature with "millennial kickball games" after Sunday afternoon games.FelixMantilla said:
+1 And in addition to the practical benefits, I suspect for some players at least, the are psychological benefits to having the playing field be familiar surroundings.Papelbon's Poutine said:How does dignity fit in here? They are there to best prepare for being a Boston Red Sox. The way pitchers approach hitters, hitters approach pitchers, baserunners proceed, OFs play the wall or the RF corner, relays and back ups set up.... A lot is different about playing in Fenway and a lot of advantage can be gained by having your call ups be ready for that from day one. I could care less if the players find it undignified. If they're building a new park that will presumably be the home of Boston's AAA affiliate for a long long time, I'd rather see a Fenway replica than some generic cookie cutter. Quite frankly I think they should buy all their minor league affiliates and make all the ballparks as close as a replica to Fenway as they can fiscally justify.