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This month’s updates for The List are the remaining baseball leagues that begin their season. While there are no changes in affiliated baseball’s short-season leagues, there were a few franchise moves in the world of collegiate wood-bat. These leagues continue to become more popular with players, fans and stadium aficionados as they often save old, historic ballparks from falling by the waste side. One of the most famous that stayed around was Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. The Hawkeyes of the PGCBL have been playing there for several years. Seemingly out of nowhere, the team’s website says they “are negotiating to build a new stadium for 2015 that is likely to be in Cooperstown“. Say what??? There is absolutely no news of the team not playing this season and I scoured the internet to find out what happened and why the Hawkeyes are not playing, but to no avail. Even the league has nothing on the departure. What a shame as one of the nation’s historic parks will just go back (I assume) to hosting some local rec teams this season. It seems so long ago that MLB would play an exhibition game on Hall of Fame weekend as that ended in 2008.
The Northwoods League continues to develop into the pre-eminent summer collegiate league and it is there that we turn and welcome back Homer Stryker Field to The List. Kalamazoo’s ballpark becomes home to the Growlers with the city resetting for baseball. Also entering the league is Kenosha. The rest of the changes do not impact this site, but are worth mentioning…Worcester follows the same route taken by Kalamazoo as that Central Mass city enters the FCBL, not long after failing in the Can-Am League. Saratoga is out of the NECBL, while Cortland and Genesee enter the NYCBL. Finally the Prospect League swaps Slippery Rock for Champion City (Springfield, OH).
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Stadium and Arena Visits 