The North Shore Spirit folded after drawing mediocre crowds at Fraser Field.
(WIQAN ANG FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/FILE 2007)
LYNN
For Philip Rosenfield, the nearly three-hour round-trip from his home in Wayland to watch his baseball team play in Holyoke was too taxing.
For Lynn Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr., watching Fraser Field - recently restored to its mid-century grandeur and to its standing as one of Greater Boston's best sporting venues - lie fallow for most of the year after the North Shore Spirit folded was not acceptable.
And so, the agreement struck earlier this month between Rosenfield, the owner of the New England Collegiate Baseball League team that will inhabit Fraser Field for at least the next two seasons, and the city of Lynn will solve both issues.
"Affordable, family entertainment, that is the benefit," Clancy said. "This has nothing to do with trying to make money. And by giving people a place to go and keeping the facility up, when the kids go in there in the spring or if there's fall baseball, if it's kept up and it's used, it's in play. We don't want any mausoleums up there, because it keeps kids busy."
The lease terms given to Rosenfield are similar to those given to Spirit owner Nick Lopardo the past five seasons. For a $1 annual lease, the city pays water, sewer, and electrical costs, while the team is responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the park and will operate the concessions and in-stadium advertising. The city also will have more in-season access to Fraser than with the Spirit.
Having a team in Lynn gives the league a stronger standing in Greater Boston, joining the Lowell All-Americans.
"I think it means a lot, especially this year," said league commissioner Mario Tiani. "The Boston area is a great baseball area, and we're looking for the Lynn entry to be very successful in our league because there's a lot of interest."
Both Rosenfield and Clancy see an NECBL entry - with amateur players who are Major League hopefuls - as a better fit for the area. For Rosenfield, anything above the 500 fans his team averaged in Holyoke this season is "moving in a positive direction." Ticket prices will be $5, $3 for those under age 12 and 65 and over.
"The business model is a very good business model for baseball," said Rosenfield, a Swampscott native and part owner of J.N. Phillips Auto Glass, who was also part of the group that formed the Worcester Tornadoes of the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball.
"We don't pay our players. Our front office and staff is comprised mostly of volunteers, people that really love to be involved in it," Rosenfield said. "And so our overhead is such that we don't have to create the kind of numbers that the previous team had to create."
"I'm not trying to undersell us. We do want crowds, but we're a volunteer group for the most part, and we're working in this milieu of summer wood-bat baseball. College ballplayers, they come up in order to get seen by the scouts and get drafted and get a contract," he said. "The model is that it's a high-quality product, they can be playing as good as the team that was there previous, and at the same time it's not the economic burden to pay your players and coaches and front office staff."
With the league operating only in the summer, the city will not bear the burden of year-round utilities, Clancy said, which cost Lynn $32,000 for electricity and natural gas to heat the team offices, clubhouses, and other areas in the last fiscal year, according to the Public Works Department.
While the 3,804-capacity Fraser will need some improvements, since the Spirit removed several additions it had built during its time in Lynn, the playing surface is intact. The city has bought the seats the Spirit had installed, and will return the old scoreboard in center field. The NECBL team (three nicknames are being considered) will use the Howie Grob Clubhouse for its headquarters.
The New England Collegiate Baseball League began play in 1993 and now has 12 teams in New England. Dan Duquette, former Red Sox general manager, is president of the Pittsfield Dukes. The teams, composed of 25 college players from throughout the country, play an eight-week, 42-game schedule beginning in early June with playoffs wrapping up in mid-August. Each team in the NECBL is responsible for stocking its own roster.
"The incentive [for players] is the New England Collegiate Baseball League," said Tiani, who has been involved in the league since its inception.
"Players now recognize that we are one of the premier leagues in the country and they want to play in the NECBL."
The league is often compared with the more established Cape Cod Baseball League.
"If you want to make a comparison using the Major League Baseball analogy," said John Kosciak, a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, "the Cape league is Major League Baseball to the New England Collegiate League being Triple A. The best amateur players in the country are in the Cape.
"The New England Collegiate League does a good job and it's a good league. But trying to compare it to the Cape isn't fair," he said. "The Cape is the best amateur ball in the country. Then there's a bunch of secondary leagues and the New England Collegiate League is one of those leagues."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
