Minor-league baseball set for Washington County in '02
A baseball team that called Canton, Ohio, home for five seasons will take the field as the home team next year in Washington County.
The Canton Crocodiles of the Frontier League have been purchased by a local ownership group and will begin next season in a new ballpark under construction in North Franklin Township. The ballpark will open for the college baseball season next spring, but the Frontier League season will begin around the end of May.
The Crocodiles, who won the league championship in 1997 in their first year in existence, have had a slow going since, competing with an affiliated minor league team in a new stadium just up Interstate 77 in downtown Akron.
But the new owners - all residents of the south and west suburbs of Pittsburgh - look forward to the opportunity to present independent baseball to a market that hasn't seen a minor league team since the days before World War II.
John Swiatek of Upper St. Clair, one of the new owners of the team, said that western Pennsylvania hasn't been introduced properly or recently to minor league baseball.
Although minor league ball flourished in the area in the first half of the 20th century, with entire leagues around the Pittsburgh area, there have been no minor league teams in the six-county Pittsburgh regional area since the days when there were 16 major league teams and black ballplayers were still a rarity in the major leagues.
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| Play ball (397K) Map and information on the team and stadium. |
Swiatek said the location of the new park - behind Washington Crown Center Mall and abutting I-70 - is easily accessible from Wheeling, W.Va., or the Mon Valley, and could create a large untapped market.
"Talk about location, location, location," Swiatek said, referring to the old rule of real estate. "My God, we have it!"
One of the potential draws for the team is cost. Ticket prices will likely top out at about $8, which wouldn't even purchase a cheap seat at PNC Park, but would offer a more affordable family evening out at the ballpark. Swiatek also said the ballpark could become a hub not just for baseball games but for concerts, sports clinics and other activities.
"Our goal is not just the baseball team," he said. "Our goal is to make this ballpark a community asset."
Commissioner Bill Lee of the Frontier League, based in Zanesville, Ohio, is equally enthused about the team's move.
"The Frontier League is excited to be part of the sports scene of southwestern Pennsylvania," Lee said.
League owners voted Monday evening to allow the sale of the team and its move to Washington. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
It was another team's move that led to the birth of the Crocodiles.
The previous tenants of Thurman Munson Stadium in Canton, named for the late New York Yankees catcher, were the Canton-Akron Indians, a team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians. However, the "little Indians" moved to a new stadium in downtown Akron and were renamed the Aeros, and the Frontier League was expanded to include a team in Canton.
The Crocodiles won the league championship its first year - "big jinx," Lee says - but since then have been on the short end of a competition with the Akron Aeros, a team whose parent club has been one of the top teams in the American League for the past seven years.
The most notable name on the Crocodiles was the hitting coach, "Super Joe" Charboneau, a former American League Rookie of the Year for the Cleveland Indians. It is not known if Charboneau, who also stepped up to the plate last year for the Crocs, will move with the team, Swiatek said.
There will be between five and seven full-time, year-round positions, and in the summer when the ballpark is open, it could have as many as 150 employees.
Lee said internal issues within the team led to its sale and move, and now only one team is in Ohio - in the small town of Chillicothe. However, the move to Washington makes it the second team in Pennsylvania, joining the Johnstown Johnnies.
Currently, there are teams in Ontario, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Michigan as well as the ones in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The North Franklin ballpark is the centerpiece of a $10 million athletic complex, including soccer and lacrosse fields and new offices for PONY Baseball.
The ballpark accounts for about half of the total cost of the complex, with a $1.75 million state grant covering some of the expenses.
The soccer and lacrosse fields will be used by Washington & Jefferson College, and the ballpark will be a home field for California University of Pennsylvania and Point Park College.
The complex and minor league team were the ideas of state Rep. Leo Trich. The North Franklin Democrat originally wanted to see an affiliated minor league team call the ballpark home, but that deal was not meant to be.
The ballpark will be operated by a group called Ballpark Scholarships Inc., a nonprofit group that will turn any money made into scholarships for area youths.
