{"id":4210,"date":"2010-04-15T17:36:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T00:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=4210"},"modified":"2010-04-15T19:08:20","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T02:08:20","slug":"yes-considerable-similarity-as-64-teams-get-ready-to-open-the-18th-independent-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/15\/yes-considerable-similarity-as-64-teams-get-ready-to-open-the-18th-independent-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Considerable Similarity as 64 Teams Get Ready to Open the 18th Independent Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any new baseball season brings excitement, and while some of it has to do with the hope brought on by spring flowers and warmer days there also is the optimism that last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stinky bullpen will be better this time and that the hits will come at the most opportune time.<\/p>\n

We finally get to start tasting the reality in Independent Baseball circles next week when the\u00c2\u00a0Atlantic League <\/strong>rings up the curtain on the 18th<\/sup> summer since this phenomenon of non-affiliated professional leagues started. \u00c2\u00a0The Atlantic League as well as some of the other established circuits opening in May will have a very similar look except for the inevitable changes on rosters because their teams remain unchanged, but that is not the case for the\u00c2\u00a0Golden, Northern <\/strong>and\u00c2\u00a0Continental Leagues, <\/strong>all of whom will reveal significant alterations in their lineup of teams.<\/p>\n

The Golden League has the most drastic changes, including new franchises in\u00c2\u00a0Mexico<\/strong> <\/strong>and\u00c2\u00a0Hawaii<\/strong>. <\/strong>Long Beach<\/strong>, <\/strong>CA<\/strong> <\/strong>has departed, but the new team across the\u00c2\u00a0United States<\/strong> <\/strong>border into\u00c2\u00a0Tijuana<\/strong> <\/strong>and\u00c2\u00a0Na Ikaika Koa <\/strong>on the island of\u00c2\u00a0Maui<\/strong> <\/strong>get this six-year-old operation back to the easier schedule of a 10-team league.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Northern League fans should be excited to get more diversion with the addition of two more\u00c2\u00a0Illinois<\/strong> <\/strong>teams,\u00c2\u00a0Rockford<\/strong>, which steps up its level of player experience after eight years in the\u00c2\u00a0Frontier League,<\/strong> and a brand new operation north of\u00c2\u00a0Chicago<\/strong> <\/strong>where the\u00c2\u00a0Lake County Fielders<\/strong> will appear in\u00c2\u00a0Zion<\/strong>. <\/strong>The Northern had been limited to six teams the last two summers.<\/p>\n

Long term forecasts for the Continental League remain difficult because the league has dropped from six franchises to four and two of those will be road teams.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Las Cruces, NM <\/strong>is new, and teams elsewhere in\u00c2\u00a0New Mexico<\/strong> and\u00c2\u00a0Colorado<\/strong> are being talked about for 2011.<\/p>\n

Lineup Unchanged in Some Leagues<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00c2\u00a0Atlantic League, American Association <\/strong>and\u00c2\u00a0United League <\/strong>are made up of exactly the same teams as one year ago while the\u00c2\u00a0Can-Am League <\/strong>has added\u00c2\u00a0Pittsfield<\/strong>, <\/strong>MA<\/strong> <\/strong>(to replace the\u00c2\u00a0American Defenders of New Hampshire, <\/strong>who played in\u00c2\u00a0Nashua<\/strong>)<\/strong> and the\u00c2\u00a0Frontier League <\/strong>added\u00c2\u00a0Oakland (MI) County <\/strong>of\u00c2\u00a0Ypsilanti<\/strong> <\/strong>to replace\u00c2\u00a0Rockford<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>The final head count is 64 teams compared to 61 one year ago when Independent Baseball missed by less than 35,000 fans of its third consecutive regular season of 8,000,000 fans.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chasing Sparky Lyle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Patriots, Again<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the field, it appears everyone will be trying to find the magic the\u00c2\u00a0Somerset (NJ) Patriots <\/strong>have had in winning five of the last nine Atlantic League championships including the last two.\u00c2\u00a0 Manager\u00c2\u00a0Sparky Lyle, <\/strong>the onetime standout major league closer, does not go for the big names as much as some clubs do although he made an exception recently by adding hustling\u00c2\u00a0Ryan Freel <\/strong>to an offense that already returns such potent producers as\u00c2\u00a0Jeff Nettles, Matt Hagen <\/strong>and\u00c2\u00a0Josh Pressley<\/strong>, who combined to drive in 240 runs last season.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It sounds like he (Freel) is the type of guy I want,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lyle told\u00c2\u00a0MyCentralJersey.com.<\/em> Freel, 34, was a multi-position player who averaged 113 games for\u00c2\u00a0Cincinnati<\/strong> <\/strong>from 2004-07 but was limited to 89 major league games total the last two years because of a variety of injuries.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I enjoy playing the game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Freel told writer\u00c2\u00a0Ryan Dunleavy. <\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the situation (Atlantic League) that I really wanted to be in, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to make the best of it.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to go out there and Cadillac it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Freel said he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t play cautiously for fear of further injuries, either.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t plan on changing who I am,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Major League Camp \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcA Really Nice Experience\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pete Parise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/strong>ascent from starting in Independent Baseball a mere three years ago to closing for Triple-A\u00c2\u00a0Memphis <\/strong>late last season to his first major league spring training invitation\u00c2\u00a0(St. Louis) <\/strong>was pretty rapid.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though the 25-year-old\u00c2\u00a0Bronx<\/strong>-born right-hander, who first donned a professional uniform at\u00c2\u00a0Slippery Rock, PA (Frontier League),<\/strong> did not show a mastery of big league hitters with the Cardinals, his spirit seems far from broken.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a little bit nerve-racking at first, but once you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a little bit comfortable and see what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re about and get into a routine, it was a really nice experience,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Parise told\u00c2\u00a0The Memphis Commercial Appeal <\/em>when he returned to that city for another\u00c2\u00a0Pacific Coast League <\/strong>season.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where you want to be.\u00c2\u00a0 I enjoyed it a lot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any new baseball season brings excitement, and while some of it has to do with the hope brought on by spring flowers and warmer days there also is the optimism that last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stinky bullpen will be better this time and that the hits will come at the most opportune time. We finally get to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}