Slippery Elm
06-19-01, 03:37 AM
BTW, the "freak show" has been gone for two years at least!
By Bob Minzesheimer
USA Today
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/134308030_seam19.html
NEW YORK - Brooklyn is back in professional baseball.
Not in the National League, but the New York-Penn League, where prospects earn $880 a month and dream of making millions in the majors. Most won't.
The Brooklyn Cyclones, a short-season Class A affiliate of the New York Mets, open tonight in Jamestown, N.Y., and move on to Burlington, Vt., before opening at home June 25 at KeySpan Park, a new oceanfront stadium.
It may be the bush leagues, the antithesis of New York and a distant echo of the glory days of the Boys of Summer at Ebbets Field. But the team has already sold 180,000 of 247,000 tickets and could sell out all 38 home games.
The Cyclones, named after a nearby roller coaster at Coney Island, are part of the revival of the minor leagues - attendance hit 37.7 million last season, the highest since 1949. They also reflect a shift from small towns to bigger locales that can afford better facilities demanded by the major leagues.
New York City taxpayers are spending $109 million on minor-league stadiums opening this month in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Cyclones team executive Jeffrey Wilpon says, "We're not trying to replace the Brooklyn Dodgers," but the team hopes to cash in on Brooklyn nostalgia or what Roger Kahn, author of the baseball memoir "The Boys of Summer," disdainfully calls the newfound sense of "Brooklyn Chic."
Later this season, the Cyclones plan to add a small Brooklyn Dodgers museum and a dual statue of Jackie Robinson, the major leagues' first black player, and Pee Wee Reese, his white, southern teammate. An ad on the outfield fence urges "Hit sign, win suit," just like the legendary sign at Ebbets Field. Surviving members of the Brooklyn Dodger Sym-Phony will perform Opening Night. And the team's navy blue hat interlaces a C with the old Brooklyn B (selling for $22 at www.brooklyncyclones.com).
"There's something magical about Brooklyn and baseball," says Wilpon, who along with his father, Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon, and seven partners bought the franchise two years ago from St. Catharines, Ontario. (It operated last season as the Queens Kings playing at St. John's University while the Coney Island stadium was built).
For now, the setting of KeySpan Park is as storied as Brooklyn's baseball past.
An island in name only, Coney Island once was "the World's Largest Playground," the working class' Riviera, with more than a mile of amusement parks, home to innovations like the hot dog, roller coaster and co-ed public bathing.
There's still a ferris wheel, arcades and a live "freak show" (advertising "nature's mistakes"), but the biggest attractions - Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park - are long gone.
The city spent $39.5 million on the stadium to spur local economic development. "It should help some, but how much, who knows?" says Nick Georgiou, whose Nick's Greasy Spoon Restaurant is two blocks away on Surf Avenue.
"It will improve the image of Coney Island," says Judi Orlando, director of the neighborhood's nonprofit Astella Development Corp. The only complaints she's heard are about increased traffic, "but I tell them, `You live in New York. If you don't want traffic, I hear Montana is good for that.' "
KeySpan Park, which seats 6,500, is a modern, utilitarian stadium with views of the ocean, colored neon lights and awnings that resemble beach umbrellas. The outfield entrance is linked to the boardwalk. Tickets range from $6 to $10, compared to $12 to $43 for the Mets at Shea Stadium.
The Cyclones' manager is Venezuelan-born Edgar Alfonzo, 33, who played 12 seasons in the minors and is the brother of Mets second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo. He says "it's like a dream" to manage in Brooklyn, "where Jackie Robinson played."
Among the season-ticket buyers are Lisa Safier, 37, an NYU graduate student who's attracted by "the best of summer: minor-league baseball and the beach."
Too young to have seen Ebbets Field, she says "It's like seeing a myth come to life."
By Bob Minzesheimer
USA Today
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/134308030_seam19.html
NEW YORK - Brooklyn is back in professional baseball.
Not in the National League, but the New York-Penn League, where prospects earn $880 a month and dream of making millions in the majors. Most won't.
The Brooklyn Cyclones, a short-season Class A affiliate of the New York Mets, open tonight in Jamestown, N.Y., and move on to Burlington, Vt., before opening at home June 25 at KeySpan Park, a new oceanfront stadium.
It may be the bush leagues, the antithesis of New York and a distant echo of the glory days of the Boys of Summer at Ebbets Field. But the team has already sold 180,000 of 247,000 tickets and could sell out all 38 home games.
The Cyclones, named after a nearby roller coaster at Coney Island, are part of the revival of the minor leagues - attendance hit 37.7 million last season, the highest since 1949. They also reflect a shift from small towns to bigger locales that can afford better facilities demanded by the major leagues.
New York City taxpayers are spending $109 million on minor-league stadiums opening this month in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Cyclones team executive Jeffrey Wilpon says, "We're not trying to replace the Brooklyn Dodgers," but the team hopes to cash in on Brooklyn nostalgia or what Roger Kahn, author of the baseball memoir "The Boys of Summer," disdainfully calls the newfound sense of "Brooklyn Chic."
Later this season, the Cyclones plan to add a small Brooklyn Dodgers museum and a dual statue of Jackie Robinson, the major leagues' first black player, and Pee Wee Reese, his white, southern teammate. An ad on the outfield fence urges "Hit sign, win suit," just like the legendary sign at Ebbets Field. Surviving members of the Brooklyn Dodger Sym-Phony will perform Opening Night. And the team's navy blue hat interlaces a C with the old Brooklyn B (selling for $22 at www.brooklyncyclones.com).
"There's something magical about Brooklyn and baseball," says Wilpon, who along with his father, Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon, and seven partners bought the franchise two years ago from St. Catharines, Ontario. (It operated last season as the Queens Kings playing at St. John's University while the Coney Island stadium was built).
For now, the setting of KeySpan Park is as storied as Brooklyn's baseball past.
An island in name only, Coney Island once was "the World's Largest Playground," the working class' Riviera, with more than a mile of amusement parks, home to innovations like the hot dog, roller coaster and co-ed public bathing.
There's still a ferris wheel, arcades and a live "freak show" (advertising "nature's mistakes"), but the biggest attractions - Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park - are long gone.
The city spent $39.5 million on the stadium to spur local economic development. "It should help some, but how much, who knows?" says Nick Georgiou, whose Nick's Greasy Spoon Restaurant is two blocks away on Surf Avenue.
"It will improve the image of Coney Island," says Judi Orlando, director of the neighborhood's nonprofit Astella Development Corp. The only complaints she's heard are about increased traffic, "but I tell them, `You live in New York. If you don't want traffic, I hear Montana is good for that.' "
KeySpan Park, which seats 6,500, is a modern, utilitarian stadium with views of the ocean, colored neon lights and awnings that resemble beach umbrellas. The outfield entrance is linked to the boardwalk. Tickets range from $6 to $10, compared to $12 to $43 for the Mets at Shea Stadium.
The Cyclones' manager is Venezuelan-born Edgar Alfonzo, 33, who played 12 seasons in the minors and is the brother of Mets second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo. He says "it's like a dream" to manage in Brooklyn, "where Jackie Robinson played."
Among the season-ticket buyers are Lisa Safier, 37, an NYU graduate student who's attracted by "the best of summer: minor-league baseball and the beach."
Too young to have seen Ebbets Field, she says "It's like seeing a myth come to life."