Area losing Spirit baseball

The North Shore Spirit could play its final baseball game tonight, when the Lynn team hosts the Nashua Pride in Game 3 of the best-of-five Can-Am League Championship Series.

After five seasons, the independent baseball team will be folding once the series is over, unable to attract a big enough fan base to make team owner Nick Lopardo's multimillion-dollar investment pay off, a top league official said.

"He simply didn't draw enough people," Miles Wolff, the league's commissioner, said in a telephone interview from Canada. "He gave it everything he had for five years, but it just didn't work out."

Parking was also an issue at Fraser Field, packed into a tight neighborhood off Western Avenue.

Wolff does not expect Lopardo to keep the team going, here or elsewhere. A league meeting is planned for Oct. 7, when the teams are to share their letters of credit and other documentation for next season.

"I was just talking to Nick last week, " Wolff said. "He indicated he will not continue in the league."

Lopardo, a former manager at State Street Global Advisors, declined to comment.

Team general manager Brent Connolly said the Spirit, which could also have games at 6:05 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday if the series runs five games, is focused on giving fans one last memory.

"We're going to have a nice time," Connolly said. "This is playoff baseball, so we won't be doing as many on-field activities, but there will be a lot of music and fun."

The Spirit's departure has Lynn officials wondering whether the team will literally pack up and leave Fraser Field, a city-owned stadium leased to the team for $1 per year in exchange for an estimated $2 million to $3 million in capital improvements to it.

According to the lease, the Spirit owns the modular clubhouse, team offices, concession stands, and restrooms that it put up to accommodate the team and staff. The team also owns 1,200 field box seats installed about 60 feet from the dugouts and the video scoreboard in the outfield.

Whether the Spirit can dismantle the items from the field and pack them up is open to question, the city's lawyer said.

Real estate law states that any "fixture" added to real estate remains with the property owner. "He put new box seats in there, and it's now our position that those now are part of the real estate, which the city owns," said City Solicitor Michael J. Barry.

It's less clear, however, whether the scoreboard or modular clubhouse can be considered fixtures.

"There are some gray areas," Barry said. "But, really, our position is, if it's attached to the real estate, then it's ours."

The city solicitor said he sent a letter in July asking Lopardo to contact the city regarding the five-year lease, which expires on Oct. 31, but he has yet to hear back.

"We hope to sit down with the Spirit and interpret things," Barry said. ". . . We are willing to negotiate in good faith."

Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. praised Lopardo and the Spirit's five-year tenure at Fraser. "They've run a first-class operation," Clancy said. "It's not his fault. He poured his heart and soul into it. Unfortunately, they just couldn't get attendance up."

The team, whose motto was "Catch the Spirit," had an average attendance of 2,299 per game this season, the third-highest in the league, with Fraser Field's capacity listed as 3,673. The total attendance for the season was 110,336, fourth in the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball, as it is formally known.

By comparison, the Brockton Rox led the league in attendance statistics, drawing an average of 3,333 fans and 169,999 for the season, while finishing well out of the playoffs.

The Lynn team's marketing strategy included plastering the Spirit's red-white-and-blue logo on billboards across the region. Slugger, the team's eagle mascot, was a regular visitor to civic events. Scout troops posted the colors at games, and corporate outings were welcome on the party deck.

Still, attendance never grew to the point where it could justify the investment, Wolff said.

"It's a pure business decision," he said. "But it is also very emotional. You live and die with your team. You spend money on it, and, in the end, you want it to be successful."

Connolly would not comment on attendance or any other factors that led to the decision to fold the team.

The Spirit is focused on going out in style, he said.

"We're in a battle for the championship. That's what we're thinking about."

Kathy McCabe can be reached at kmccabe@globe.com.

NorthTalk
With the North Shore's history of failed semipro baseball teams, do you think the area will ever support a franchise? Log on to boston.com/northtalk. You can also e-mail globenorth@globe.com or write to Globe North, Suite 200, 1 Corporate Place, 55 Ferncroft Road, Danvers, MA 01923.