{"id":6393,"date":"2010-07-06T16:47:22","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T23:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=6393"},"modified":"2010-07-06T16:47:22","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T23:47:22","slug":"atlantic-league-celebrates-its-two-newest-major-leaguers-and-looks-forward-to-an-eventual-three-division-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/06\/atlantic-league-celebrates-its-two-newest-major-leaguers-and-looks-forward-to-an-eventual-three-division-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic League Celebrates Its Two Newest Major Leaguers And Looks Forward to an Eventual Three-Division Setup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlantic League <\/strong>knew it had an upbeat day Tuesday well before the All-Stars <\/strong>were scheduled to swelter their way through near 100-degree temperatures to put on a display of their talent before a number of major league scouts and a sellout crowd of more than 6,000 fans at Citibank Park <\/strong>on Long Island<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mid-year planning sessions of both owners and general managers could be expected to have an extra jolt of pride because two more of the league\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s players had been promoted during the holiday weekend to major league opportunities they had pursued for several years.\u00c2\u00a0 Left-handed-hitting outfielders Cory Aldridge <\/strong>and Matt Watson <\/strong>were promoted, Aldridge to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim <\/strong>and Watson <\/strong>to Oakland<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Watson, alone, was worth boasting about because he was at Lancaster<\/strong> <\/strong>as recently as May 28, so every one of the 44 All-Stars knew their goal of major league gratification was possible.\u00c2\u00a0 He had not been in the majors since 2005, ironically also with the Athletics.<\/strong> Aldridge, who played at Newark<\/strong> <\/strong>two years ago, had only been in the majors back in 2001 when he spent 27 days with Atlanta<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

League Hopes to Establish Four-Team Western Division<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

CEO and Founder Frank Boulton <\/strong>said part of the two-hour ownership meeting was taken up with updates on possible new franchises, and he told this typist \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our desire would be to develop out to four teams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when the league expands west, which would allow for three four-team divisions.\u00c2\u00a0 That type of growth does not seem likely by 2012, the target date multiple team Owner Peter Kirk <\/strong>and his Opening Day Partners<\/strong> hope to be able to launch a team in Sugar Land, TX<\/strong>, in the shadow of Houston<\/strong>, since other markets have not been publicly identified and, presuming they follow the normal pattern, would still need to build stadiums.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other well known possibility in the east is in Northern Virginia<\/strong>. <\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It has a lot of moving parts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because of the scope of the overall (Loudoun County)<\/strong> project, Boulton said, with the next key step a July 12 vote on the real estate developer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposal to construct homes, offices and retail space.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong>* * * *WANT MORE <\/strong>INDEPENDENT BASEBALL COVERAGE?\u00c2\u00a0 Check out\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\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> and www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/a> * * * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sparky Remembers Another All-Star Classic<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first All-Star Game <\/strong>on a rare 100-degree day in the New York<\/strong> <\/strong>area.\u00c2\u00a0 The thermometer hit 102 when the Yankees <\/strong>hosted the 1977 major league classic.<\/p>\n

Asked if he remembered the game in \u00e2\u20ac\u212277, Freedom Division <\/strong>Manager Sparky Lyle<\/strong>, who manages Somerset<\/strong> <\/strong>now, quickly retorted that he was playing for the Yankees at that time. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was the losing pitcher (in the All-Star Game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said with a smile.\u00c2\u00a0 The record book shows he was not actually charged with the American League\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/strong>7-5 defeat although he gave up the last two National League <\/strong>runs during a two-inning stint.<\/p>\n

(Subscriptions to the <\/em>Atlantic League Notebook <\/em>are available on a monthly or full season basis via \u00c2\u00a0www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> or www.WirzandAssociates.com<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Wirz also writes a weekly subscription column, the Independent Baseball Insider<\/em>, which can be found via his 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":"

The Atlantic League knew it had an upbeat day Tuesday well before the All-Stars were scheduled to swelter their way through near 100-degree temperatures to put on a display of their talent before a number of major league scouts and a sellout crowd of more than 6,000 fans at Citibank Park on Long Island. Mid-year […]<\/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-6393","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\/6393","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=6393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}