Fans Will Decide Whether Triple-A Baseball Returns

Does anyone in Spokane still mourn the passing of Triple-A baseball?

It’s been 13 years since our divorce from the Pacific Coast League, so it’s reasonable to ask.

Was baseball a baby step from the big leagues the lure then that 50-cent hot dogs are now?

What’s the more vivid of your Triple-A memories - Luis Tiant throwing a no-hitter at the Fairgrounds or shivering through extra innings on a 40-degree April night?

Just what - or who - have we missed? Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Matt Williams, Jack McDowell and Tino Martinez would have passed through our city on one team or another. But as a consolation prize Edgar Martinez, Dante Bichette, Mike Piazza and Tim Salmon did.

So if the Spokane Indians were able to offer you twice as many games of a caliber at least twice as good, would you pay twice the price for a season ticket?

For owner Bobby Brett, it’s the $6 million question.

That was the tab for a Class AAA expansion team in 1990 “and I don’t think the price is going down,” said Brett, who has once again declared Spokane an entry for the derby that will add two Triple-A franchises to the minor-league lineup in 1998.

Brett jumped through the expansion hoops five years ago, but Spokane didn’t make the final four. That seems like a more reasonable goal this time around.

“I think we have an excellent shot at making the short list,” said Indians general manager Andy Billig, “based on the success we’ve had the last five years with attendance and the improvements that have been made to the stadium.”

But Brett seems less concerned with the guidelines set down by the Triple-A expansion committee - which cover season ticket sales, seating capacity and stadium amenities - than he is with any economic indicators he might get from the city.

“I think our fans will pretty much make the decision for us,” said Brett.

“If we get to the short list, that’s when we have to go to our advertisers, our sponsors and our ticket holders and find out if their level of support can make the jump from 38 games to 72.

“We have a faction of supporters who love what we have now, and Triple-A may price those people out of the ballpark. What you don’t know is how many dormant accounts and people might come out of the woodwork for Triple-A. I really don’t have a feel for it. I know that when opening day is June 16, there’s a real hunger for baseball to return. School’s out and the weather has turned. I also know a higher level of ball is appealing, but the downside is that 30 games are going to be played in April and May.”

There has been one major discovery during the renaissance of the minor leagues this past decade: the baseball doesn’t have to be that good.

Spokane won four consecutive Northwest League championships from 1987-90 - then suffered through four pretty dismal teams that actually drew better. Improvements to the stadium, the hustle of the staff and the accessibility of players have a lot more to do with a franchise’s success than whether the right fielder consistently hits the cutoff man. Weather, of course, is the most important ingredient of all.

Taking on Spokane’s unpredictable springs and the increased costs - notably air travel - of Triple-A baseball might seem to be a fool’s errand if, like Brett and Co., you have the short-season product down to a science.

But then, Northwest League clubs aren’t going for $6 million, either.

It’s also, Brett pointed out, “been a stated goal of Momentum and the Chamber (of Commerce) to bring Triple-A back, and one reason we’ve been working together with the county to improve our facility to that level.”

Billig said Seafirst Stadium meets all but a few minor Triple-A specs - except for an obvious one: it doesn’t have 10,000 seats. The addition of skyboxes and more chairbacks over the years has trimmed Seafirst’s capacity back to about 7,500 - smaller than all but three current Triple-A stadiums.

“We could put another set of bleachers in beyond the outfield fence,” Billig said, “but we don’t need a 10,000-seat stadium - and having one for the sake of having 10,000 seats is waste. There’s maybe three times a season we need more and if you look back at the Triple-A years, that was true then. It’s more important to have the kind of stadium we have than one with more seats.”

The other major Triple-A guideline: selling 2,500 season tickets. The Indians this summer hit an all-time high of 1,700.

What the Indians can’t control is politics and geography.

“The last time, we were the only city in the West of the final seven,” Brett recalled. “Obviously, there was no way the PCL was going to expand by one.”

So franchises went East, to Ottawa and Charlotte. With the application deadline approaching, Portland and Sacramento have joined Spokane with bids. Other applicants are San Juan, Puerto Rico; Birmingham, Ala.; Bowie, Md.; Canton-Akron, Ohio, and Winston-Salem, Durham and Greensboro in North Carolina. Finalists will be announced in November and the franchises awarded next summer.

“One thing I’ve heard is that expansion will be in the East,” Billig said, “because the American Association has only eight teams while the PCL and International League have 10 each.”

Billig has no complaints about being a GM in short-season A ball but he’s naturally intrigued by Triple-A’s possibilities, including the chance to promote players who might be around more than a year - “a tool we don’t have right now.”

His boss, however, is the picture of caution when asked to rate his interest in moving up.

“Only if it would be successful,” Brett said. “Triple A has left here twice and I wouldn’t want to be known as the guy responsible for it leaving a third time.”

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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