Spokane’s Field Of Dreams Awaits
Remember Mariner fever?
For a while this fall, Spokane became a baseball town. During the Mariners’ first trip to the Major League baseball playoffs, Spokane fans streamed across the state for games, crammed into sports bars, plugged into headphones night after night.
Baseball will do that to you. Just when you’ve sworn off the game for its arrogance and greed, it pulls you back in with its mystery and grace.
Spokane can have a little bit of that magic, if it wants. It’s simply a matter of commitment. And money.
Spokane Indians president Bobby Brett wants to bring Triple-A baseball back to the Lilac City. For the second time since Spokane lost its Triple-A franchise in 1982, Spokane is on the short list of a dozen cities for two expansion teams that will begin playing in 1998.
Many factors will go into the expansion committee’s decision on who gets the coveted teams, not the least of which is weather. But baseball fans could mean the difference in a tight race.
That’s where the money comes in. The best way to show Spokane will support Triple-A baseball is to sell a lot of season tickets. Brett is banking on it. He wants people to make $100 deposits on season tickets now for the 1998 season. If he gets the 2,500 he needs, he’ll submit a $15,000 non-refundable application by Jan. 1. Without those commitments, though, he won’t waste the money.
The Indians have provided great entertainment and sport in past years, but we have a chance to go from an amateur ballet troupe to the Bolshoi. At one time, Spokane watched baseball players who all had a great shot at making the major leagues. Now, a fraction of the players will ever hit the bigs.
It would be nice to return a brand of baseball where the teams tally more home runs than errors.
Single-A play has proved many things for Spokane. The fans will come out; the ball park is well cared for, the owners are stable and successful. Those are things that will work in Spokane’s favor as the expansion committee visits each site from now through September.
Spokane is a great baseball town, and the Bretts have shown themselves to be great managers and the kinds of people who deliver. This is a chance for the town to shake off its provincial attitude, its “we-don’t-want-no-science-center” blues, and prove something to itself.
Just before and after World War II, Spokane was considered the best minor league city in the country. It can be that again.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board