Flying Squirrels it is!

React in the comments section below...

To be fair, it did also win the unofficial poll here

Today's the day

Just under 1 hour from now (2:30 PM) we'll get the announcement of the team nickname for club. Not sure if we'll get a release of the logo today as well but that shouldn't be too far off. Look for merchandise to start popping up after that.

It'll be nice to be able to refer to the team by name instead the new team coming to Richmond.

Real life has gotten in the way of updates over the last week so here's a quick recap.

CNBC contest added Hush Puppies for a 6th contestant. Hambones was booted for being culturally insensitive. Flatheads has also drawn controversy. We'll se in a bit how all this affected the decision.

My personal opinion is that Flying Squirrels or Rock Hoppers will be our winner. Rhinos is too generic. Hush Puppies doesn't do anything for me and Flatheads is now supposedly controversial as well.

Squirrels make for a much easier logo design, I'd be interested to see what they come up with for Rock Hoppers.

You can watch the announcement live here:
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/live_video/

Hush Puppies?! ugh

CNBC's contest has added Hush Puppies to the mix. While a cross promotion between food and shoes is an enticing venture, I'm still not impressed.

CNBC throws its hat in the Name Game

Darren Rovell and CNBC get involved in the naming process. Looks like the club has given CNBC readers/watchers a "wild card" entry into the name game. There's still hope that we don't end up with one of our existing 5 underwhelming choices.

We also get more detailed arguments than we saw in the RTD for our existing 5 choices.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33206550

Check it out and submit your names to CNBC and maybe we can pull an upset W.

Team explains their choices

Reading this doesn't make me feel much better about our prospective names. Looks like we're in the majority here since I've yet to hear from anyone who actually likes one of our 5 possibilities.

VP/COO Todd Parnell explains the choices here:

The franchise's front office liked the five finalists for these reasons, according to Parnell:

Flatheads: a kind of catfish commonly found in the James River.

Flying Squirrels: soar in Virginia.

Hambones: paying homage to Virginia ham.

Rock Hoppers: people or animals on river rocks.

Rhinos: alliteration featuring a powerful image.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/BASE06_20091005-215802/297659/

I'd like to assume that some better names were nixed in that process and that they truly didn't think these 5 names were the best of the bunch.

Like I said, yesterday... pray for a talented graphic design team to be working on the logo.

Just for the record...

My submission was

The Richmond Boulevards

Not sure how a logo could've been incorporated out of that... maybe some sort of symbol like the autobahn signs overseas. But I still like it better than the 5 we got.

Busy post day...

Drop some of your submissions in the comments!

Not so fast...

Here are the 5 finalists:

Rock Hoppers
Rhinos
Flatheads
Flying Squirrels
Hambones

Color me unimpressed, these all pretty much suck. Let's hope they get an uber talented graphic design team that can work miracles and come up with a decent looking logo.

Vote in my unofficial poll in the right column

False Alarm

Well, it looks like someone had a long weekend. According to this RTD article, the names will now be released for public vote tomorrow instead of today like originally planned.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/baseball/name-the-team/

The Name Game...

We're still waiting for the 5 finalist names to be released. I'll post them here as soon as I see them.

The Name Game, Phase 2

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/professional/article/BASE02_20091001-221206/296900/

6,000+ submissions later, we'll get to see a list that's been trimmed down to 5 on Monday. I think it'll be interesting to see where ownership puts their preference. From Parnell's comments, it seems like they'll be looking for something unique.

Ticketpalooza Tomorrow at 9 AM

For those of you interested in season tickets for the 2010, tomorrow is your day! Get out to The Diamond between 9 AM and 1 PM.

Additional Info here:
http://www.richmondprobaseball.com/news092909.html

New Team Website Up and Running

Looks like the owners have set up a new website for the team. I assume they will continue to post news and events on this site until their official site at milb.com is available for use.

The new site is: http://www.richmondprobaseball.com/

Go check it out

2010 Schedule Released

The 2010 schedule has been released!

Opening Night at The Diamond will be April 15 at 7:05 vs. the Reading Phillies.

Richmond's 2010 home schedule

April: 15, Reading, 7:05; 16, Reading, 7:05; 17, Reading, 6:35; 18, Reading, 2:05; 19, New Britain, 7:05; 20, New Britain, 7:05; 21, New Britain, 7:05; 30, Bowie, 7:05

May: 1, Bowie, 6:35; 2, Bowie, 2:05; 3, Altoona, 7:05; 4, Altoona, 7:05; 5, Altoona, 7:05; 6, Altoona, 11:35; 13, Altoona, 7:05; 14, Altoona, 7:05; 15, Altoona, 6:35; 16, Altoona, 2:05; 18, Erie, 7:05; 19, Erie, 7:05; 20, Erie, 11:35; 28, Bowie, 7:05; 29, Bowie, 6:35; 30, Bowie, 6:35; 31, Bowie, 7:05

June: 1, Harrisburg, 7:05; 2, Harrisburg, 7:05; 3, Harrisburg, 7:05; 8, New Britain, 7:05; 9, New Britain, 7:05; 10, New Britain, 7:05; 15, Binghamton, 7:05; 16, Binghamton, 7:05; 17, Binghamton, 7:05; 18, Altoona, 7:05; 19, Altoona, 6:35; 20, Altoona, 5:05; 28, Akron, 7:05; 29, Akron, 7:05; 30, Akron, 7:05

July: 1, Erie, 7:05; 2, Erie, 7:05; 3, Erie, 6:35; 4, Erie, 6:35; 15, Bowie, 7:05; 16, Bowie, 7:05; 17, Bowie, 6:35; 18, Bowie, 5:05; 19, Trenton, 7:05; 20, Trenton, 7:05; 21, Trenton, 12:05; 26, Reading, 7:05; 27, Reading, 7:05; 28, Reading, 7:05; 29, Altoona, 7:05; 30, Altoona, 7:05; 31, Altoona, 6:35

August: 1, Altoona, 5:05; 10, New Hampshire, 7:05; 11, New Hampshire, 7:05; 12, New Hampshire, 7:05; 13, Portland, 7:05; 14, Portland, 6:35; 15, Portland, 5:05; 23, Reading, 7:05; 24, Reading, 7:05; 25, Reading, 7:05

September: 3, Bowie, 7:05; 4, Bowie, 6:35; 5, Bowie, 5:05; 6, Bowie, 12:05

Name the Team Contest

Great opportunity to have some input in the new team name and win some cool prizes at the same time.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/baseball/name-the-team/

Season Ticket Info

Here's your info... I would expect packages for partial season tickets will also be available at some point.

Team Name Announcement on October 15th

October 15th is when we'll find out the new name for Richmond's incoming AA team.

Anyone have any good suggestions? Speculation could be fun

The Diamond Renovations

As nice as a new stadium would be, its not in the cards for the near future. Plans for renovations at The Diamond are coming out.

Some things we'll see:

1. Approximately 3,200 New Flip Up Seats with Cup Holders in the Lower Level
2. New Video Board
3. Suite and Press Box fixes
4. New Team Store
5. Clubhouse Improvements

New owners are dropping about $1.5M into the improvements by spring. RMA will contribute around $75k.

The new club is set to play at The Diamond for at least 2 seasons.

"For the time being, this is our home," said Lou DiBella, the team's
president and managing general partner. "We're going to treat it like your home. We're going to do what's necessary to bring it up to the appropriate grade."

Corresponding RTD article: http://tinyurl.com/yat39mm

RTD: Minor League Baseball returns to Richmond

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/professional/professional_baseball/article/BASEGAT23_20090923-103201/294910/

The Richmond Metropolitan Authority and the Eastern League announced today that the Class AA franchise that has been based in Norwich, Conn., since 1995 will
relocate to Richmond for next season.

That franchise is contractually bound to be the San Francisco Giants' Class AA affiliate through 2010.

The club will play at The Diamond until further notice. Atlanta's Class AAA franchise
relocated from Richmond to Gwinnett County, Ga., following the 2008 season due
to the Braves' dissatisfaction with The Diamond and the lack of a firm plan to
replace it.

The RMA owns and operates The Diamond. Lou DiBella is expected to remain with the franchise as managing partner. Chuck Domino, who this season was
president of the Class AAA Lehigh Valley franchise and the Class AA Reading
franchise, is expected to be in charge of operations. Also expected to be
involved is former Class AA Altoona General Manager Todd Parnell.

It's Official: Baseball is BACK in Richmond

More to come later in the day

As long speculated, the Connecticut Defenders franchise is moving to Richmond next spring. The 2010 season will be played at The Diamond while other alternatives are still floating around for the long term.

For now, the team is affiliated with the San Francisco Giants organization.

Tomorrow is the day!

10:30 AM Press Conference scheduled at the Diamond... more info to come tomorrow

Norwich Community still expects team to leave

From this article here in the Norwich (CT) bulletin, it sure seems like the Connecticut Defenders AA team is set to leave and play in Richmond next season.

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x560178089/Attendance-strong-as-fans-ponder-Defenders-future

Maybe we'll start seeing some news trickle in now that the minor league season is wrapping up.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

Well, I created this blog in August in anticipation of the team announcement that was delayed but that would be made within a timely manner. Since then, we've heard nothing more than a few whispers about the delay and any potential cause for it. Bear with me here, this place will eventually be the place to come for information regarding a new minor league team in Richmond.

I was hoping to have a flood of info and perspectives to post by this time and have some great ideas on the table. Of course, all of these things actually depend on knowing 1) that we will definitely have MiLB in Richmond in 2010 and 2) Knowing exactly which team will make its way to The Diamond.

Anyway, I'm still lurking around the blog and didn't want my slowly growing reader base to give up on this little venture.

My advice would be to RSS the site or follow me on Twitter at richmondbasebal. I always tweet when I put up some new thoughts.

Thanks to all

Sports Business Journal Rankings... Dead Last

Well, Sports Business Journal conducted a study on the Best and Worst Minor League Cities. Of course, Richmond was rated dead last, 239th.

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/63374

How exactly was the study conducted? Find out here:

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/63375

A market’s total score is the result of three category-specific scores: tenure rank, attendance rank and economic rank.

Richmond's Score Breakdown

239 Richmond, Va. -136.18
239th - Tenure
239th - Attendance
235th - Economic

Teams Lost - AIFA Richmond Bandits, IL Richmond Braves, SPHL Richmond Renegades, USL Richmond Kickers

Let's give each part of the score a thorough run down:

Tenure Rank

This score accounted for two-thirds of each market’s grade. It came from a formula that included such support measurements as each team’s length of presence in its market and the total number of team-years for a market in the past five seasons.

Attendance rank

This score, which accounted for one-fifth of each market’s grade, was based on the total attendance of all a market’s teams and the overall percentage of seats filled at the teams’ venues over the five-year period. Both measurements were indexed against the market’s total five-year population to create a single score.

Economic rank

Three economic factors went into this ranking: fluctuations in unemployment, population and each market’s Total Personal Income (TPI). For each, a measure of standard deviation was set, and markets gained or lost credit based on their attendance behavior.

Score adjustments

Hershey-Harrisburg, Pa., had the highest point total, and all markets were indexed against that total. Points could be deducted from a market’s total for five reasons: losing a franchise, failing to pass a voter referendum that would have helped fund construction of a new stadium or arena, and for failing to keep attendance in line with fluctuations in area unemployment, population or TPI. Because of the indexing, a total of 73 markets finished with negative scores.

Maybe I'm crazy but Richmond hasn't lost the Richmond Kickers, at least not yet. Now without specific details of how all these numbers were broken down, I feel like we got the shaft a bit. Richmond's tenure rank seems skewed terribly to the bottom for missing 1 year of MiLB baseball. No offense to you Bandit fans out there, but when I think "minor league," I think of leagues that service the professional clubs. No one playing AIFA football has an NFL future. This study may in fact be too overly comprehensive. I'll admit, many leagues conducted in the study were news to me and many shut down under their own power, thereby "penalizing" the cities in the study.

Just a lot of petty musings right now. I've attempted to contact SBJ in an effort to get a better feel of how Richmond ranked dead last in tenure and attendance and nearly last in economic rank. I'm not saying Richmond is one of the top minor league cities, or even top 100... that's clearly not the case. The numbers do seem to be skewed to the downside, let alone the error regarding the Kickers. I would like to see Richmond's ranking before the arbitrary score adjustments that sunk us to the bottom. The study will definitely give anti-baseball residents some fuel to add to their fire which is disappointing.

Sports Business Journal Rankings... not pretty

Working on a post based on Richmond's ranking as the Worst Minor League town

Check back, I hope to have something up tonight.

No News is... Good News?

Still nothing to report on any type of impending official announcement anytime soon. No reason to think its in jeopardy and won't get done, but it still doesn't mean I can't get antsy.

I'm really looking forward to getting this blog rolling once we get some concrete news and can start talking about The Diamond and our new team.

We can speculate, for now, as most firmly believe that we will inherit the current Connecticut Eastern League team. They are currently affiliated with the San Francisco Giants organization. This should lead to some good stars to keep an eye on and enjoy watching day in and day out. SF has drafted extremely well in recent years and that bodes well for putting talent on the field. Unfortunately, we'll probably miss out on their top prospects, Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey in 2010.

Shockoe Bottom Moving on

Plans for the Shockoe Bottom baseball complex have been seemingly dead for awhile but I was never ready to stick a fork in them. That time appears to be now however.

From CBS6
http://www.wtvr.com/wtvr-shockoe-bottom-medical-center,0,5491495.story

I'm still on the fence on where I'd like to see future baseball played in Richmond. I'd love a new facility to be built, but The Diamond certainly has its charms if necessary updates are made. Bottom line is really to me it doesn't matter where they play, just having a team in Richmond is enough for me.

No Weekend News

Slow weekend for news on the baseball front... really looking forward to putting this blog into high gear when the official announcement is made.

CBS Report on the Delay

I'll attempt to do some recap posts in the near future but let's get started with this fresh segment of news from CBS6 WTVR.

"When Will Baseball Return to Richmond?"
http://www.wtvr.com/wtvr-baseball-at-the-diamond,0,4240351.story

Not much new info here, Eastern League officials are giving no explanation for the delay in the announcement that was originally planned for August 1. My guess is there's a lot of paper pushing going on causing the delays. I'm sure all parties involved are keeping tabs on the work being done at The Diamond.

If this thing continues to drag out, it won't make it easy to get everything fully prepared to start the 2010 season. No need to be alarmed yet.

Welcome!

First post on my newly created blog. I plan on this being a place for you readers to catch all the information you want and need about baseball returning to Richmond, Virginia. Hopefully, we get our official announcement soon and can start looking forward to having baseball back in 2010.

I'll be covering all the news on the impending move, our new team, the league our team will be playing in, the players to look out for, and of course coverage on the potential of building of a new stadium.