Woodstock Gives Their Approval

You can now call it official. The Woodstock City Council, after six hours of discussion, have approved of the proposed ballpark for a Frontier League team in the city. The council approved a special use permit for the proposal, 6-1, with 50 conditions, so it was a no brainer according to them. The plan ties an unpopular gravel pit to this popular ballpark proposal. The expected grand opening of this ballpark in Woodstock, Illinois will be for the 2010 FL season.

Tom Merryman and Aggregate Inc. are just part of the collective effort into building up this new ballpark. Merryman hopes to begin work on the ballpark sometime in March of 2009. Stadium construction would ideally begin in June, and the first game for the FL team would start sometime in May 2010, said Tom Zanck, Merryman's attorney. Also, I have noticed that there are alot of acres involved in these negotiations. It's amazing what people will debate about when you talk about 100 acres of land and over.

Here's an interesting tidbit; according to Tom Zanck, if the vote on this new ballpark proposal had been delayed until January of 2009, it would be too late for the new team to begin play in Woodstock for the 2010 season. Plus, if the stadium has not been constructed by May 1, 2014, Merryman would deed the 38-acre parcel for the stadium to the city of Woodstock, according to one of the proposal's 50 conditions. I guess another issue that rises up here is what are the 50 conditions?, and what are they about?

From a competitive standpoint now in the Frontier League, I do wonder alittle. I'm not upset by any means, but I wonder why you would load up on Chicago when there is help needed around Florence and Washington. Of course, Avon, Ohio will help out the Wild Things alittle bit, but that's just replacing the Paints as the lone Ohio team that connects to Washington. There was alot of talk in the past of getting Washington a nearby rival, such as what the FL attempted to do for Butler, Pennsylvania way back when, but that bottom fell out. And for Florence...I don't know what you can say about their traveling situation. The Freedom seem to be on an island all by themselves now, and the closest they could possibly be would be to Evansville and Avon. I see a big gap there.

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2008/12/17/56249429/index.xml

Stats updates finished

I have just finished uploading the completed stat pages for all current Frontier League teams. That means the 2008 update is nearly complete- all that remains are the writeups for the 2008 season and updating the individual team pages. Also note that the player database has not yet been updated.

More Info On The Prospect League

Thankfully for Wikipedia, I have gotten some more information on the upcoming Prospect League. As said before, there will be eleven teams in the league, making it an unbalanced schedule for the time being. There will be six teams in the West Division, while there will be five teams in the East Division. The names of the names will go as listed: Danville Dans, Dubois Bombers, Dupage Dragons, Hannibal Cavemen, Quincy Gems, Springfield Sliders, Butler BlueSox, Chillicothe Paints, NorthCoast Knights (Lorain), Richmond (to be named later, but I'd have to think it's the Roosters), Slippery Rock Sldiers.

The one team that sticks out to me would be the Quincy Gems. I have seen pictures of the ballpark in Quincy Stadium, and it's surrounded by old fashioned stone, similar to that of probably castle-like structures. That stadium caught my eye as being one of the most interesting ballparks in the entire country. The Gems have a good history in the CICL. I have checked on their website before, and they have a solid foundation in place as far as this level of baseball goes. I will be interested in hearing the stories future Paints teams will have when they go into Quincy Stadium.

The CICL was formed in 1963 as a charter member of the NCAA's certified summer baseball program. Among the 175 almuni of the CICL, certain names include Kirby Puckett, Mike Schmidt, Jonathan Papelbon, and Ryan Howard. The goal of the people who run the Prospect League is to create and maintain the best collegiate wooden bat summer league in the country, as said by Frank Pergolizzi, the Commissioner of the CICL.

I know that this league has good people running it. This is for the entertainment of the fans, giving them a good time when they come to the ballpark. I do think it is kind of odd how there are just 11 teams in the first season of the rebranded Prospect League. Of course, you would have to work your way around things in the schedule.

I also think it's kind of odd how two teams have the same name in "Sliders." I do hope that the Richmond team gets called the Roosters. I couldn't really imagine the team being called anything else. I did ask Tom Arnett, a Roosters fan, about whether the Traverse City Beach Bums of the FL held the rights to the Roosters name or not. He said that shouldn't be the case. It will also be interesting to hear stories about Richmond again. It will be just like old times in the early days of the Frontier League.

Crusher's uniform

Lake Erie Crushers

That's the name of the club in Avon, Ohio. I've uodate the website with a Lake Erie Crushers page.