{"id":5305,"date":"2010-05-21T14:53:30","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T21:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=5305"},"modified":"2010-05-21T14:53:30","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T21:53:30","slug":"houston-suburb-only-first-link-as-atlantic-league-develops-a-western-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/21\/houston-suburb-only-first-link-as-atlantic-league-develops-a-western-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Suburb Only First Link as Atlantic League Develops a Western Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sugar Land, TX <\/strong>city officials called their agreement to place an Atlantic League <\/strong>team in the upscale Houston<\/strong> <\/strong>suburb \u00e2\u20ac\u0153historic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and they might as well have been speaking for the heretofore Eastern-based league itself because this market seems destined to be the first step toward establishing a Western Division <\/strong>for the 13-year-old league.<\/p>\n

Peter Kirk<\/strong>, whose Opening Day Partners<\/strong> already own three Atlantic League teams and have the agreement to develop the Sugar Land franchise, told this corner Friday he expects another \u00e2\u20ac\u0153three to five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d franchises eventually will be added west of the current footprint which only extends to Pennsylvania.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It will really be (the equivalent of) a third Triple-A league,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kirk said, comparing it to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what the Pacific Coast League <\/strong>was 35-40 years ago\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when that circuit was at the top of the minor league scale but most teams were independent of the major leagues.\u00c2\u00a0 (The PCL was called an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153open\u00e2\u20ac\u009d classification league into the 1950s.)\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It will be no different from the Mexican League<\/strong>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added, and that league is considered AAA but independent of major league team affiliation today.<\/p>\n

* * * *WANT MORE INDEPENDENT BASEBALL COVERAGE?\u00c2\u00a0 Check out our blog,\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/a> * * * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yankees Call for Catching Help<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jorge Posada\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/strong>disabling injury induced the New York Yankees <\/strong>to sign Camden<\/strong> <\/strong>catcher Rene Rivera <\/strong>and send him to Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre<\/strong>, and from what I hear several more sales to major league organizations may be finalized any day now.\u00c2\u00a0 Rivera had a league-leading seven home runs in 22 games for the RiverSharks <\/strong>while hitting .280 and driving in 19 runs in his first season in the Atlantic League. <\/strong>The 26-year-old Puerto Rican <\/strong>has 53 major league games to his credit, all with Seattle<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>1B Valentino Pascucci <\/strong>had the long ball on his side in his early games for Buffalo<\/strong> since leaving Camden<\/strong>, pounding three round-trippers in five games although his average has slipped to .179 (5-for-28) overall with five RBI.\u00c2\u00a0 Among other recent sales to major league organizations, 3B Mike Costanzo (Camden) <\/strong>is at .308 (4-for-13, 2 RBI) in four contests with Double-A Carolina, <\/strong>1B Brett Harper (York) <\/strong>has driven in four runs in his first three games (3-for-12) at Sacramento, <\/strong>C J. R. House (Newark) <\/strong>has gone 1-for-9 in three games for Buffalo<\/strong> and LHP Josh Muecke (Somerset) <\/strong>has lost his two decisions in four starts (7.50 ERA) for Colorado Springs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Subscriptions to the <\/em>Atlantic League Notebook <\/em>are available on a monthly or full season basis via www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> or www.WirzandAssociates.com<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Wirz also writes a weekly column, the Independent Baseball Insider<\/em>, as well as a blog, www.IndyBaseballChatter.com. The author <\/strong>has 16 years of major league baseball public relations experience with Kansas City and as chief spokesman for two Commissioners and lives in Stratford, CT.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sugar Land, TX city officials called their agreement to place an Atlantic League team in the upscale Houston suburb \u00e2\u20ac\u0153historic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and they might as well have been speaking for the heretofore Eastern-based league itself because this market seems destined to be the first step toward establishing a Western Division for the 13-year-old league. Peter Kirk, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6254,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atlantic-league-notebook","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305","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=5305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}