Come On Bradenton!

[beetm]

Announced crowd of 312 for the home-opener:(

What's the deal? No coverage? Alternative attractions? Not a Baseball town?

Any Ideas?:confused:

[heavesrock]

Oh Dear. At least they were honest enough to not inflate it. I least I hope that wasn't inflated. I think this team was a mistake anyway. They should move to Orlando and play at Tinker Field.

[heavesrock]

Another newspaper said only 148.

[LKLDHAWG]

I live in Lakeland Florida only about 60 miles away from Bradenton. When I saw that there was going to be a team in Bradenton I figured it would not be successful. All one needs to do is look at the attendance at most of the teams in the Florida State league. Here in Lakeland last year we averaged close to 564 fans a game at the beautiful Detroit Tigers spring training stadium, Joker Marchant Stadium. The Lakeland Flying Tigers play High A ball.
Sarasota which has the Cincinnati Reds High A team averages about the same and Sarasota is only about 15 miles from Bradenton. If Sarasota can't bring fans in to watch Class A ball, I don't know how the Bradenton owner expected to do better with an independent league team playing at a community college with no beer sales no less. That being said, I am glad to see the league doing well at the other locations and am going to make some weekend trips up to see Macon, Albany, and Akien.

[LKLDHAWG]

In regards to Tinker Field and Orlando, that sadly is undoable. There is a real nice summer collegiate wood league that plays here in Central Florida. There was a team, the Shockers, that attempted to play thier home games at Tinker Field last year. Regretably historic Tinker Field had been left by the city in total shambles. The team could not finish the home games at the field because of poor field conditions and finished on the road. The team nows plays in Leesburg, were one regular game was played last year and over 1000 fans showed up. Impressive for a college summer league game in Florida. Also cannot forget that Orlando recently lost the AA Southern League team to Montgomery (Biscuits) due to fan and city apathy. Whats really sad is that 1 BILLION dollars was just approved by Orlando to build a new arena, new performing arts center and refurbish the Citrus Bowl. If they had any common sense they would have taken 35 million of that and build a class ballpark downtown and promote it correctly. Oh well i guess 3 football games a year does more for your the city leaders than 70 home baseball games!

[heavesrock]

I understand the problems with Tinker. I should have added they would have to renovate it. But they have done that with several other parks in the league. As for the Rays leaving, they did fine before they went to play at Disney. Then people didn't want to make the drive.

[beetm]

.....That being said, I am glad to see the league doing well at the other locations and am going to make some weekend trips up to see Macon, Albany, and Akien.

Hey Hawg, let me know when you're coming to Macon, I'll buy you a Beer!

[BaseballKid3]

Rumor has it that the Juice will be a road team for the rest of the season. This probably means each team will get a few more home games like Port Charlotte did with the Juice being the Home team away from their home.

I wonder what the odds are of them getting into the Pirates spring home might be even if they have to play all day games the rest of the season. I am guessing it can't happen this year.

As for the rest of the league, WOW, things are going great it seems. Crowds in Macon were huge opening weekend, Aiken and South Georgia have drawn well too. Charlotte County and Anderson need help on the field. I have been to 3 games, 1 in Aiken and 2 in Anderson and really enjoyed everything about this league.

[LKLDHAWG]

I just read this article this AM. I was unaware that Bradenton was playing "home" games at Pt Charlotte now. I am going to check out the game tonight.

Sorry i can only paste the story.

http://www.bradenton.com/sports/story/61129.html

Thank you for the Beer offer beetm. I will let you know when I go up to Macon.

[beetm]

Is that for all games or just those against The Redfish? The article doesn't make that too clear. Is the poor turnouts in Bradenton the reason?

Like Baseballkid says the rest of the league seems to be doing really well; good forward planning I think. My biggest gripe so far is the lack of stats/standings on The League website, and if thats my biggest problem they must be doing something right!:p

[heavesrock]

Just those against the REdfish. The question is will they do that for the other teams as well?


I think I'm going to start up a freewebs site just to post SCL stats. But seriously, the league really needs to post those.

[beetm]

Yeah, I'd love to see some stats, see who in the league is doing well, etc.

I'd post some if I knew where (or how) to get them. Right now we're just running blind. All I know is what I've read in the press (For instance Garrison of The Music had two grand slams in one game this week, but that's all I know about him:confused: :confused: :confused: )

"Coming in 2007" (http://southcoastleague.com/statistics/batting/)!!