SP: How did the first season go, in your opinion?
JH: Well,
I guess I can speak for the league at this point: I think that given
the short time frame that we had to put it (the league) together, we’d have
to be pretty pleased over all. We were forced to drop a couple sites (Americus
and Ozark) because of a combination of a short time frame for promotion
and not having enough people in those areas working early on. With Americus,
we were dealing with a smaller fan base, and with the Ozark / Dothan thing,
I think if we’d had a couple more weeks it might have survived. The upside
to all of that was when you start pulling some of the players off those two
teams and adding them to the other four existing teams, I think the league got
stronger over all, in terms of caliber of play. So, we finished the league
with four teams.
SP: Is the league looking to add new
franchises?
JH: As a matter of fact, I’m going to Hattiesburg
(Mississippi) tomorrow to talk with the Parks and Recreation folks there about
their stadium. Macon and Columbus (Georgia) are losing their Single A teams
next season (the Macon Braves and Columbus Redstixx of the South Atlantic League
have relocated) so we’re talking to them about those stadiums.
SP:
I was kind of surprised to hear about Columbus and Macon.
I used to go see the Redstixx a lot. The Cleveland Indians decided to move
that franchise to Eastlake, Ohio.
JH: Well, I heard
there was some question about Savannah too. The Shreveport team is also leaving.
We’ve already added a team for next season (2003) in Houma,
Louisiana. There going to be the Houma Hawks. I tried to convince
them to be the Houma Runners but they’d already gone ahead with the Hawks.
There in the league as we speak. So, at this point, we’re sitting at five
teams. I’m not at all sure about what’s going to happen in Montgomery:
The city just passed a tax that will allow them to build a new stadium downtown.
SP:
I’m surprised they did pass it. When I lived
there, it seemed impossible.
JH: They did pass it and that park
should be ready in 2004. Given the status of the Wings, I’m not sure
they want to come back for a one-year deal.
SP: The assumption
is that Montgomery will be looking for a Single A or Double A franchise to put
in the park, right?
JH: Yeah. So that being said, we’re
in the process of trying to have six solid teams for next year. We’d like
to have eight, but we’d rather should have six franchises with good ownership,
instead of six strong ones and two weak ones. It all depends on what
kind of ownership we can attract and what parks we can get.
SP:
Pensacola plays at a junior college right now. I assume they’d like
to have a park of their own.
JH: I think they’ll build a stadium
down there. The ownership down there has money and the city seems to
be interested in helping at this point. They’re meeting this week to talk
about building a stadium.
SP: Do you feel that a lot of these
towns take the league seriously or are they skeptical of an independent league?
JH:
It depends on the town. The cities that haven’t had
pro ball in a long time are obviously more receptive. It’s hard to tell
about Montgomery. I think Montgomery is still a good baseball town, even
with all the hassle I had with them (not paying moneys owed) and a lot of
negative press. I think the ownership didn’t know the extent of what it
was going to take to make that franchise work….
SP: When I
lived there, there was a long history of just a negative attitude about pro baseball,
mostly due to (former Mayor) Emory Follmar and his personal vendetta again
pro teams using Paterson Field. He personified the negative attitude towards
any kind of progress that the city has. Montgomery is still generally
afraid of change of any kind. Even after they finally got him out of
office, potential deals would always fall apart.
JH: Montgomery
is a little bit of an odd town. It’s heavy on high school sports and it
seems the core Montgomerian doesn’t really support much of anything. The
Shakespeare Festival there is one of the finest facilities in the country and
it doesn’t get supported the way it should. So, I don’t know what will happen
there. The new Mayor is trying to get some progressive things done there,
so you never know, things might change.
SP:
What about the other remaining cities?
JH: Pensacola was fantastic.
Baton Rouge is in the process of trying to boost their attendance.
L. J. Dupuy is the owner down there, and he just didn’t have a lot of time
or help getting started. Of course, you’re also fighting LSU baseball
down there, so I think the thing to do is partner with LSU baseball and work out
some promotions like discounts if you bring an LSU ticket stub to the game and
visa-versa for their games. Some kind of partnership would be great.
I think Houma will do quite well. Selma made it to the end of the season
and I think they have some money coming in there. Obviously, they’re
dealing with a lot smaller market but we knew going in that if they could make
it through the year, they could be viable. I think they’ll be okay.
Besides that, There are already a couple more folks interested in ownership.
There’s interest in Tallahassee.
SP: It’s too bad that Panama
City doesn’t have a stadium.
JH: Well, I think that it’s
a lot better sticking with Pensacola than trying to do something with Panama City.
Panama City is a lot more tourist based that Pensacola. I would
think Tallahassee would work if they could find a place to play in that
wasn’t a college stadium, or work on it early enough that you could sell beer there,
because that’s a major deal: You have to be able to buy a beer and
have a hot dog. I don’t see a problem in Hattiesburg, obviously that’s
not a problem in Columbus or Macon. Things are progressing. Let
me put it this way: I don’t think there’s ever been a league that started
in March and survived the season. I feel pretty good about that!
SP:
Everything really did just picked up on a couple month’s notice?
JH: On March 1st, there was one team in the league.
So, from March 1st to June 1st, we put a six-team league together. Quite
frankly, had they had somebody else running the Americus club, that club would
have been all right. They’ve got a gorgeous old park, it’s incredible.
In Dothan/Ozark, opening night, we had 1500 people there.
SP:
I was kind of surprised about Dothan / Ozark. I was there this summer,
a week after the Patriots folded. I imagine that if Wiregrass
Park (in Dothan) was in some kind of condition to put a team in there, it might
have succeeded there. I get the impression from some of the folks in Dothan
that they wouldn’t make the 20-mile trip to Ozark to watch a game. That
was asking too much.
JH: Dothan and Ozark hate each other.
Dothan keeps holding out hope that someday they’ll get a Single A affiliate,
and I just don’t see it.
SP: I don’t either. Maybe
if they had a facility in place, but even Montgomery couldn’t attract a Single
A team with Paterson Field.
JH: You’ve got two Single A teams
leaving the area (Columbus and Macon). I don’t see them leaving those stadiums
and markets and going to Dothan unless a hell of a lot of money goes into
a stadium. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think the Montgomery franchise
will be around in one or two years. With the new stadium, which
they’re trying to make it into a multi-use stadium, I think they sold it wrong.
SP: Well, I don’t think they would have built a baseball-only
stadium no matter what. Montgomery really doesn’t look at things
realistically with baseball: They see Mobile and Huntsville with Double A
teams and figure they should have one too. You’ve got to average 3500-4000
to make that pay off. I don’t see Montgomery doing that.
JH:
They (Mobile and Huntsville) are different cities. The numbers from
Montgomery last year, as everybody knew, were highly inflated. They
said they were averaging 2000- 2200 a game, and I knew that was baloney, but
despite all the hassles and really horrible press coverage, they did average
around 800-850. With a little more work, they could have averaged maybe 1500,
and they would be okay with those numbers. The team was under-capitalized
and the guy that jumped in and took over didn’t know what he was doing.
I worked from the middle of May to the end of July without getting paid!
That’s when I left. I couldn’t underwrite it any longer.
They were starting to scapegoat me because the attendance wasn’t what it should
have been.
SP: Despite all the pitfalls, the league’s
still here.
JH: Overall, looking at the big picture,
they have to be pleased that, even starting so late, there still is a league.
I think you’ll be looking at six solid, and possibly eight, franchises
by the time we get started next season. We’d hope to nail that down
by mid-November, but there are still some other things that need to be ironed
out.
SP: Last year you worked for the Montgomery
Wings. What’s your position now?
JH: I’m actually
working as director of operations for the Independent Scouting Bureau, which is
James Gamble’s. James was commissioner last summer. He did the whole
summer for free. He did it to get the league started. Now, he’s put some figures
and parameters in front of them that he would have to have in order to be
the commissioner again, and they’re not very steep parameters. They’re pretty
basic. So, if they sign a contract, he’ll be the commissioner next year.
If they don’t sign a contract, he’s not going to do it. Given that, if
he does sign a contract, I’ll be Director of Public Relations with the league.
I think they’ll go ahead and sign a deal because they won’t find anybody
with his expertise for the minimal amount he’s asking for. If they don’t
they’ll get somebody in there who’ll just kill it. I also think the league
would be better off if the Montgomery franchise was gone. They did
a lot of folks wrong and I think it would be much better if they just took they’re
lumps and left. If another franchise comes in, then it may happen anyway,
then we’re all going to be better off. I think Montgomery is a good
center point for the league, but if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. That’s
just the way it is. So, that’s kind of where we are. I’m
going to Hattiesburg tomorrow, and I’ve been talking to the folks in Columbus.
I’ll probably go there next week, because no one is knocking on their door.
SP:
I can’t believe that. They have a great park (Golden
Park) and they had reasonable attendance in the years I went to see them.
I’d hate to see that park go unused.
JH: I talked to the
folks at Parks & Recreation in Columbus, because I was sure that the team in Albany
would jump over to either Macon or Columbus. I asked them what was
the stadium going to be used for, and they said college and high school games.
I asked if that was by choice or a mandate, or is it because nobody has touched
base with them about putting a team in there. They said they hadn’t
had one single nibble. I told them, « I’m nibbling ». We’d be very
interested in wrapping up a lease with that park.
SP:
I really surprised at the shift in the South Atlantic League. They used
to be concentrated in the south, but now they seem to be moving up the east
coast. I’m really surprised about Macon. They were a Braves farm team.
JH:
Frankly, I’m a little apprehensive about
Macon. I wonder how well an independent team would draw there when the people
who had been going were going to watch the Braves’ rookies. You know, what
I saw with our tournament (the playoff round), having dropped two teams down to
four, was a lot higher quality ball than Single A ball. It was certainly
high A baseball, without a doubt.
SP: A couple guys got
noticed too, didn’t they?
JH: Yes. Actually, we’re
sending six guys to Australia this winter. Steve Raines got signed,
and another guy got picked up by the Yankees. I think next year there
will be more of that because we’ll be able to get younger players. We had
a pretty good mix this season, but in order to keep the competition level
up we want to go after guys who might be on their way down, but are good
Double A or even Triple A ballplayers. The guy I had playing shortstop
(Gaven Jackson) had been with Pawtucket a month before he came to
us. He’s got a pro glove, no doubt about it, but he’s no longer the
prototypical major league shortstop. Pawtucket was going to use him as
a utility guy, then they signed Gary Desarcina to a minor league contract
and kind of screwed Gaven around, so he said screw it and went back home.
Overall, I think the league quality was really strong. It was high A-type
ball. A lot of these guys are high A players. You wouldn’t see them
moving up, but the play was at that level. Gaven has over 3000 professional
at bats and you don’t see that in Single A.
SP:
One key to success in the independent leagues, especially the Northern League,
seems to be the marketing, especially with team logos, hats, and other
merchandising. What are the plans as far as that goes?
JH:
Once again, we didn’t really have the time to do much of that last year.
I was really pleased with what we came up with given the time and a shoestring
budget, so this year we should see a lot more. James (Gamble) and
I were talking about it how we would rank with other leagues, of course the Northern
League has a good population base and has been established for quite some
time, but I’ve seen the what they had in the Central League and I’ve seen a little
bit of the Western League and the Frontier League, but right now, in terms
of quality of play, I’d put us 3rd behind the Atlantic and Northern leagues.
Some of the guys sent to us out of the Central League didn’t perform well
in our league. A couple of our guys that went to the Central League just
tore it up. Granted, they have more teams a the talent level is more spread
out, but I was happy with what we had in terms of caliber of play.