{"id":8450,"date":"2010-10-07T13:28:52","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T20:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=8450"},"modified":"2010-10-07T21:08:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T04:08:02","slug":"major-shakeup-taking-place-in-independent-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/07\/major-shakeup-taking-place-in-independent-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Shakeup Taking Place in Independent Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This may be the most important period for Independent Baseball since it started in 1993.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it the most important ever since not all that much was really expected when the first two professional leagues of non-major league-affiliation formed 18 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/indylogo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2992\" title=\"indylogo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/indylogo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"165\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bold statement, to be sure, but this is what seems to be happening, with much of it still not announced:<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>American Association<\/strong> expands to 14 teams, stretching from <strong>Winnipeg, CA <\/strong>to the <strong>Florida Panhandle, <\/strong>and could well be up to 17 teams a year from now.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Frontier League <\/strong>likely jumps from 12 teams to 16 immediately.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Northern League<\/strong>, which along with the Frontier jump-started the Independent game, disappears, with half of its teams going into the Association and probably half to the Frontier.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Can-Am League <\/strong>has increased by one club to seven with the addition of <strong>Newark, NJ, <\/strong>previously in the <strong>Atlantic League,<\/strong> and soon will be at eight.<\/li>\n<li>The Atlantic brings its traveling <strong>Road Warriors <\/strong>back to keep at a balanced eight teams although it will be only a one-year move until new franchises in <strong>Loudoun, VA <\/strong>and <strong>Sugar Land, TX <\/strong>are ready.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>United League <\/strong>becomes more unsteady with two of its six teams appearing to be lost.<\/li>\n<li>The makeup of the 10-team <strong>Golden League<\/strong> for \u00e2\u20ac\u212211 remains uncertain, but change clearly is in the wind with at least two franchises appearing to be in serious jeopardy and its creator, <strong>David Kaval<\/strong>, moving from baseball to soccer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The only announcement of a franchise move so far is that of <strong>Newark <\/strong>moving to the <strong>Can-Am League<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><strong> <\/strong>The remaining dominos are expected to officially tumble in ongoing <strong>Frontier League <\/strong>meetings plus a <strong>Northern League <\/strong>confab in <strong>Chicago <\/strong>Sunday and<strong> <\/strong>Monday, and an <strong>American Association<\/strong> ownership gathering in <strong>Grand Prairie, TX <\/strong>Tuesday and Wednesday, but the shuffle of teams is real.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Northern League Demise Surprising<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The shocker that is going to be the most difficult for some to digest is that there does not seem to be any future for the Northern League unless someone gets creative with inter-league play to maintain the name of the operation that really gave Independent Baseball its first credibility.<\/p>\n<p>Unless some governor steps in with a last minute reprieve, the Northern League is going \u00e2\u20ac\u0153poof\u00e2\u20ac\u009d although its eight teams of 2010 all will land on their feet.\u00c2\u00a0 It will be the final jolt to this proud circuit which lost St. Paul plus <strong>Sioux City, IA, Sioux Falls, SD <\/strong>and <strong>Lincoln, NE <\/strong>in one sudden move to join with some former <strong>Central League <\/strong>franchises and form the American Association a mere five seasons ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, how feathers got ruffled.<\/p>\n<p>Now as much of the healing process has gradually taken place, the league\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top three drawing teams, <strong>Winnipeg, CA, Kansas City, KS <\/strong>and<strong> Fargo, ND <\/strong>plus <strong>Gary, IN <\/strong>are moving to the American Association.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not quite as certain, but most likely the other four\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe <strong>Chicago<\/strong>-area\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <strong>Joliet, Schaumburg, Rockford <\/strong>and <strong>Lake County<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwill join the Frontier League.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.atlanticleaguebaseball.com\/\">www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> ADDED TO <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indybaseballchatter.com\/\">www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>FOR ADDITIONAL INDEPENDENT BASEBALL COVERAGE?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ramapo Could Be Next for Can-Am<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Newark, Ramapo, NY <\/strong>and the <strong>Quebec Province <\/strong>town of <strong>Trois Rivieres <\/strong>all are believed to have been discussed during <strong>Can-Am League <\/strong>meetings this week, and my sources believe Ramapo is likely to become the eighth member of the league in coming weeks with Trois Rivieres a possibility for 2012.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Bob Wirz also writes about Independent Baseball on two other sites, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indybaseballchatter.blogspot.com\/\"><em>www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/em><\/a><em> and <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.atlanticleaguebaseball.com\/\"><em>www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/em><\/a><em>. Fans may subscribe from now through 2011 to this Independent Baseball Insider column at bonus rates at <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/\/\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wirzandassociates.com\/\"><em>www.WirzandAssociates.com<\/em><\/a><em> or comment to <\/em><a href=\"mailto:RWirz@aol.com\"><em>RWirz@aol.com<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He<strong> <\/strong>has 16 years of major league baseball experience with Kansas City and as spokesman for two Commissioners, and lives in Stratford, CT.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This may be the most important period for Independent Baseball since it started in 1993.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it the most important ever since not all that much was really expected when the first two professional leagues of non-major league-affiliation formed 18 years ago. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bold statement, to be sure, but this is what seems to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4746],"tags":[11523,542,11524,8690,11525,9164,508,11520,493,6458,11526,11519,11522,11518,5210,11532,4505,7905,2489,11521,5569],"class_list":["post-8450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-indy-baseball-insider","tag-bold-statement","tag-can-am-league","tag-confab","tag-demise","tag-dominos","tag-florida-panhandle","tag-frontier-league","tag-grand-prairie-tx","tag-independent-baseball","tag-independent-game","tag-jeopardy","tag-league-affiliation","tag-league-meetings","tag-major-shakeup","tag-newark-nj","tag-nort","tag-professional-leagues","tag-road-warriors","tag-shocker","tag-sugar-land-tx","tag-united-league"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450","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=8450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}