September 04, 2007
No AAA, Eh?
MLB FanHouse notes the end of the last AAA franchise in Canada. In an era when MLB is trying to expand international participation in the sport, interest keeps waning in one of the earliest countries to play the game.
So will the International League now be renamed the Not-so-international League.
I have no idea how the Lynx are doing boxofficewise, but I think this has less to do with ticket sales and more to do with MLB teams wanting their AAA affiliates close at hand for short-notice call-ups: Boston/Pawtucket, Detroit/Toledo. The Yankees dropped a longtime affiliation with Columbus OH, so they could have their AAA team in nearby Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Baltimore shifted from Rochester to Norfolk, presumably for the same reason.
Baseball is that thing on tv when there's no hockey... by the way, hockey season starts soon, eh.
For a while the Calgary Cannons were affiliated with the Florida Marlins ... that had to have been the longest distance to a top farm club since the end of the Hawaii Islanders.
In Baltimore's case, Rochester dropped them due to years of poor quality players and losses.
"I have no idea how the Lynx are doing boxofficewise..."
Really, really poorly...lower than 2,000 per game, and their staidum holds about 10,000. I suspect that if the games had been well-attended, or even if anyone in this city had cared about the Lynx, they would've been able to find an owner willing to keep them here.