Sand Gnats: In with the old, and the new
Link (Savannah Morning News)

“Jason Freier took out his iPhone and displayed photographs of his baseball team’s sparkling new ballpark in Fort Wayne, Ind. The proud papa was understandably excited, and modern convenience allowed him to go without a wallet full of baby pictures.

Parkview Field will be home to the Class A Midwest League’s Fort Wayne TinCaps – the nickname an homage to the folk hero who lived there, Johnny Appleseed. The city-owned ballpark’s construction costs about $30.6 million, Freier said, of which his ownership group, Hardball Capital, chipped in $5.6 million cash. The ballpark, with fixed seating of about 6,400 and close to 8,000 capacity, is part of a bigger, $100 million-plus Fort Wayne development project, Harrison Square.

Freier was holding the multitasking electronic device in a very low-tech environment. He was standing next to the home team’s concrete dugout at Grayson Stadium. A few minutes earlier, Freier, as chief executive officer, had announced that Hardball Capital’s other minor-league team, the Savannah Sand Gnats, had extended its lease at Grayson for another two years.

Not that the owners had a choice, or were looking for options. Hardball Capital had bought the team last March and only officially took the reins in November. One aim of the news conference last week was to let everyone know that the Gnats, a New York Mets affiliate in the Class A South Atlantic League, still called Grayson home.

The contrast couldn’t be much greater between a showplace, Parkview Field, and venerable Grayson Stadium, originally built in 1926 and reconstructed in 1941. Though the winds of time have swept through the place, and there are a few noticeable updates like the video scoreboard to complement the hand-operated one, it’s pretty much the same facility where legends (i.e. Hank Aaron) and All-Stars (i.e. Hank Blalock) played before they were famous.

So, the question was asked about the future beyond two years of Grayson and its main tenant.

“Nothing is forever, but this has been here for 80 years, so it’s getting close,” Freier said. “We assess every situation not just on a year-to-year basis. We understand there’s a lot we need to know before we make big decisions.”"

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“A brief look at how Hardball Capital approached similar scenarios could be instructive. Freier said that in Fort Wayne, the existing stadium – despite being 15 years old – had so many problems that instead of throwing money at repairs, “the smarter investment was the new ballpark.”

When Hardball owned a ballclub in Salem, Va., the ballpark needed improvement, but it was “much more efficient, much more bang for your buck, building on what was a great foundation.

“Grayson is so much harder to assess than any of those others because you have the history factor, which is important. You also have a lot of difficulties here that are not things we have not encountered in other ballparks.”"

[...]

“The questions then are, if you built it (a new stadium with luxury suites), will they come? Or, with both Savannahians’ and baseball fans’ reverence for tradition and a bent toward preservation, is it better to keep the historic in “historic Grayson Stadium.” Would the ghosts of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson and others who added to Grayson’s legacy now haunt chances for a new ballpark?

Freier said the owners want to do the right thing. It can be a delicate balance.

“The trick is to try to retain the same intimacy and ambiance of something like this while also trying to provide the kinds of experiences people want,” he said. “There are an awful lot of considerations. In the grand scheme of things, the trick is to try, whether it is taking something old and finding ways to provide some of those amenities that make it like new; or building something new while still trying to respect the intimacy of the old stadiums.”"