Minor League Baseball: Boom Or Bust To Communities? :: essays research papers

Minor League Baseball Boom or Bust to Communities?Despite the occasional disappointment, insignifi rottert conference baseball raisesmany communities with economic development and an improved quality of life.Communities as small as Elizabethtown, Tennessee or as large as Phoenix, genus Arizonahave sh ared the common bond of being the homes of major league farm teams. Thisis referred to as the National Association of Professional Baseball, or morenormally known as the pip-squeak leagues. As the popularity of major leaguebaseball seems to be decreasing due to the recent player strike, free agency,and anti-trust labor laws, minor league baseball has generated excitement thatcan only be associated with baseball in the good old days. This excitement is apurity of spirit which the majors no longer possess. It is baseball in itssimplest form-- just ball, bats, gloves, and lifelong dreams. The parks aregenerally small, the players, hardworking young men whom local fans are probablyto run into the next day at the mall or maybe the corner bar. A family of fourcan see a game, eat dinner--maybe level pick up a souvenir or two--without havingto consider a second mortgage. No lockouts, no holdouts, no five-dollar beers,and the umpire is the only one who can call a strike. Just the nationalpastime, played the game it is, says one editor of The Minor League BaseballBook.There are currently 156 teams that are part of the National Associationof Professional Baseball. This number will grow in the next few years with theaddition of two expansion teams at the major league level. There have also beena number of independent leagues formed which are said to be the future of minorleague baseball. The success of these teams have shown how the value of thesefranchises have braggart(a) over the past ten years. In the past, class AAA teamswould sell for three hundred super C dollars while a smaller class A team wentfor fifty thousand. Today the class AAA teams are being sold for as eminent asfive million dollars while class A teams are going for around one million. Thebest example of the fact that franchises have grown in value over the years isthe Reading Phillies. Joe Buzas, a minor league baseball entrepreneur, hasowned and operated twelve minor league teams in seventeen cities since 1956. In1976, Buzas bought the Reading Phillies franchise for $1. Ten years later in1986 he sold it for $1,000,000.The addition of minor league baseball to communities can provide manybenefits. The greatest benefit is the overall economic lift that minor league