March 29, 2024

Can-Am May Be First League to Add Teams for ’11

September 30, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

While October always means autumn leaves, cooler temperatures, pumpkins and major league baseball postseason excitement to many people, it also is the month when Independent Baseball leagues seriously shake the trees to see if all their franchises are ready for the next season.  Rumors begin to become fact.

This certainly will be true starting as early as the first of next week when Can-Am League owners hold their annual huddle, this time in Lenox, MA.  The American Association follows the next week at Grand Prairie, TX, the Atlantic League gets together later in the month.  Well, you get the picture.

The Golden League seems almost certain to have changes at some point because of various struggling franchises and the United League needs an answer for cash-strapped Amarillo, TX and the likely eventual loss of Laredo, TX, but the first league where news seems all but certain is the Can-Am.

“I don’t know what is going to happen,” Commissioner Miles Wolff said Thursday, but the good news is the league that stretches from New Jersey to Eastern Canada seems to have some real possibilities as it strives to return to an eight-team lineup.

Ramapo, NY has an ownership group the league likes and has appeared all but certain to join, but now financing issues for the new $30 million stadium have reappeared.  Ken Lehner and his fellow investors will need to convince the other owners when they meet at the Cranwell Resort Monday and Tuesday.  Two other possibilities, various sources say, are Trois Rivieres, which would give the league a second Quebec province entry (in addition to Quebec City), and even Newark, NJ, which has been in the Atlantic League since it formed in 1998 but has had a major attendance struggle for some time.

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Former Indy Hurlers Have 48 Major League Wins in ‘10

Former Independent pitchers are not going to match up to last season’s 59 regular-season wins in the majors, but the 48 they have so far still seems impressive.  Max Scherzer has led the way for a second consecutive year despite needing a mid-year tune-up in the minors, with the 2007 Fort Worth, TX (American Association) hurler winning 12 times for Detroit.

Can-Am League Gets Attention From Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame is the next stop for the Brockton (MA) Rox cap Bill (Spaceman) Lee wore when the 63-year-old stunned most everyone by pitching into the sixth inning of a recent Can-Am League game.  The cap is likely to go into the Records Room when it opens next year, the Rox believe, although it will be on display elsewhere in the Cooperstown, NY shrine earlier since Lee is the oldest pitcher ever to get credit for a victory in a professional game.

(This is an excerpt from the column Bob Wirz writes year round on Independent Baseball.  Fans may subscribe at www.WirzandAssociates.com, enjoy his blogs, www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com and www.IndyBaseballChatter.com, or comment to RWirz@aol.com.  The author has 16 years of major league baseball public relations experience with Kansas City and as spokesman for two Commissioners and lives in Stratford, CT.)

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