Hank Steinbrenner: No "Socialism"

[Splendid Splinter]

Indianapolis would be a great city for a team. Not a "huge" city but should be enough of a following and would pull from OH, KY, IL and MI. They support the hell out of their AAA team. Lucas Oil is already there with retractable roof..... hmmm

 

Yes, but Lucas Oil is a football-only stadium, isn't it? I have no knowledge of the dimensions of the place or anything, but I do know that when the Dodgers played in the LA Colosseum for a few years there were some crazy dimensions (something like 270 down each line and 510 to CF or something like that) so that probably wouldn't be the best idea.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a team in Indy, however, if they could get a new stadium for it.

 

I am really not sure of dimensions but when I was there it looked absolutely huge on the field level... I could be wrong though.

 

It probably wouldn't work at the moment. Like Erik said, the dimensions would be weird, plus Lucas Oil also holds so many events every year that it would be tough to add a baseball team on top of that. I'm not sure if there would be enough of a following (Dan) to support a MLB yet... For example, NW Indiana got White Sox/Cubs/Brewers, SW got Cardinals, S (around Jeffersonville/Louisville area)/SE got Reds, NE got Tigers/Indians. That's 7 teams in one state. Is there another state that follows that many teams and doesn't have a MLB team? Also a lot of these teams are driveable in their area. Heck Indianapolis to St. Louis is under 4 hours (probably closer to 3 hours). A lot of these teams have been around for a long time and it's been passed down from generation to generation in the family. Like I'm 4th generation of Cubs fan (Great-Grandpa was a Cubs fan and was alive when they won their World Series) and pretty much my whole family is Cubs fan (except for like 3 people). That's gonna be tough to overcome. But again, Central Indiana is a mish-mash of fans of different teams (at least from people I know that lives there) and it's why it support the AAA team. Pacers are having a heck of a time trying to draw fans to their arena right now. Another reason why I don't see enough of a following, unless they start off the first year winning. Now if you ask me 5 years from now (I believe it's still growing at a great pace) about having a MLB team there, I think it'll be very possible to do it then. Right now, I'm just not sure.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I would love to see a MLB team in Indianapolis. Actually, if it happens, I will probably move there (I grew up 100 miles NW of Indianapolis). It's a great city and has tons of things to do there.

 

Say MLB wants to put a team in Indianpolis within the next 2 years (due to like relocation of the Rays team or something), but not enough time to build a stadium. Realistically I can see it 2 ways until they get the stadium built. First is to add on more seats to Victory Field (from like 12,500 seats to like 20,000 if possible) or probably the better way is to renovate Bush Stadium to hold a MLB team while a stadium being built.

 

Another question to ask is where would you build the stadium? I'm not sure if there's any places/lots in or around downtown that's big enough. The area for the RCA Dome would've done it, but they made that for a huge convention center already. I'm trying to think of a place in that area that would be suited for a MLB stadium, but I'm drawing blanks. You could put it in one of the suburbs, but again, which suburb? Also... will the taxpayers be willing to pay for another stadium (I believe Colts only paid $100 mil out of $720 mil for Lucas Oil)???

 

Plus if Indianapolis do get a team, they're gonna have to do some serious realignments in the their NL/AL divisions... Hopefully it would be in the AL so it'll become the AL team to root for for me...

 

There's a lot more that I can talk about, but I'll stop there...

[mookie]

Sure as hell would be better than Tampa.

 

+1000

[erik316wttn]

Indianapolis would be a great city for a team. Not a "huge" city but should be enough of a following and would pull from OH, KY, IL and MI. They support the hell out of their AAA team. Lucas Oil is already there with retractable roof..... hmmm

 

Yes, but Lucas Oil is a football-only stadium, isn't it? I have no knowledge of the dimensions of the place or anything, but I do know that when the Dodgers played in the LA Colosseum for a few years there were some crazy dimensions (something like 270 down each line and 510 to CF or something like that) so that probably wouldn't be the best idea.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a team in Indy, however, if they could get a new stadium for it.

 

I am really not sure of dimensions but when I was there it looked absolutely huge on the field level... I could be wrong though.

 

It probably wouldn't work at the moment. Like Erik said, the dimensions would be weird, plus Lucas Oil also holds so many events every year that it would be tough to add a baseball team on top of that. I'm not sure if there would be enough of a following (Dan) to support a MLB yet... For example, NW Indiana got White Sox/Cubs/Brewers, SW got Cardinals, S (around Jeffersonville/Louisville area)/SE got Reds, NE got Tigers/Indians. That's 7 teams in one state. Is there another state that follows that many teams and doesn't have a MLB team? Also a lot of these teams are driveable in their area. Heck Indianapolis to St. Louis is under 4 hours (probably closer to 3 hours). A lot of these teams have been around for a long time and it's been passed down from generation to generation in the family. Like I'm 4th generation of Cubs fan (Great-Grandpa was a Cubs fan and was alive when they won their World Series) and pretty much my whole family is Cubs fan (except for like 3 people). That's gonna be tough to overcome. But again, Central Indiana is a mish-mash of fans of different teams (at least from people I know that lives there) and it's why it support the AAA team. Pacers are having a heck of a time trying to draw fans to their arena right now. Another reason why I don't see enough of a following, unless they start off the first year winning. Now if you ask me 5 years from now (I believe it's still growing at a great pace) about having a MLB team there, I think it'll be very possible to do it then. Right now, I'm just not sure.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I would love to see a MLB team in Indianapolis. Actually, if it happens, I will probably move there (I grew up 100 miles NW of Indianapolis). It's a great city and has tons of things to do there.

 

Say MLB wants to put a team in Indianpolis within the next 2 years (due to like relocation of the Rays team or something), but not enough time to build a stadium. Realistically I can see it 2 ways until they get the stadium built. First is to add on more seats to Victory Field (from like 12,500 seats to like 20,000 if possible) or probably the better way is to renovate Bush Stadium to hold a MLB team while a stadium being built.

 

Another question to ask is where would you build the stadium? I'm not sure if there's any places/lots in or around downtown that's big enough. The area for the RCA Dome would've done it, but they made that for a huge convention center already. I'm trying to think of a place in that area that would be suited for a MLB stadium, but I'm drawing blanks. You could put it in one of the suburbs, but again, which suburb? Also... will the taxpayers be willing to pay for another stadium (I believe Colts only paid $100 mil out of $720 mil for Lucas Oil)???

 

Plus if Indianapolis do get a team, they're gonna have to do some serious realignments in the their NL/AL divisions... Hopefully it would be in the AL so it'll become the AL team to root for for me...

 

There's a lot more that I can talk about, but I'll stop there...

 

This is getting way ahead of ourselves here, but if you move Tampa to Indy, you put them in the Central, and move the Tigers to the East. Geographically I think it makes the most sense. However Detroit might not want to do it because of their built-in division rivalries (Cleveland, White Sox, etc).

[TruffleShuffle]

(a) detroit is barely east of indianapolis

(b) cleveland is east of detroit

© if a team moved and there was realignment, the first order or business should be to have an equal number of teams in each division, not a four-team AL west and a six-team NL central.

[Splendid Splinter]

© if a team moved and there was realignment, the first order or business should be to have an equal number of teams in each division, not a four-team AL west and a six-team NL central.

 

 

Exactly... it needs to be like Indy in the AL Central, KC Royals move to AL West, Cleveland Indians to AL East and a NL Central into the AL Central... Or Houston Astros to AL West/Indy to AL Central/Cleveland Indians to AL East... Or Pittsburgh Pirates to AL East/Indy to AL Central/KC Royals to AL West...

 

That's why I said it needs a big realignment. I can't see Indy being in the NL Central cuz it's already got 6 teams in there and would have to move 2 teams out of that division. It's just needs a serious overhaul if a team moves to Indianapolis.

[erik316wttn]

(a) detroit is barely east of indianapolis

(b) cleveland is east of detroit

© if a team moved and there was realignment, the first order or business should be to have an equal number of teams in each division, not a four-team AL west and a six-team NL central.

 

I'd love for each of the 6 divisions to have 5 teams, but then that leads into having interleague play year round (GOD FORBID) and I know there's a lot of opposition against that for whatever reason. I figure if they can swing it in the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc then baseball could figure it out, too. I just don't see baseball doing it. It's too big of a change, and baseball doesn't seem to like change much.

[davearm2]

(a) detroit is barely east of indianapolis

(b) cleveland is east of detroit

© if a team moved and there was realignment, the first order or business should be to have an equal number of teams in each division, not a four-team AL west and a six-team NL central.

 

I'd love for each of the 6 divisions to have 5 teams, but then that leads into having interleague play year round (GOD FORBID) and I know there's a lot of opposition against that for whatever reason. I figure if they can swing it in the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc then baseball could figure it out, too. I just don't see baseball doing it. It's too big of a change, and baseball doesn't seem to like change much.

This is the issue right here. You can't have 15 NL teams and 15 AL teams without having year-round interleague play.

 

I could see that happening eventually, but not as long as Selig is the commish. You'd need to have a guy in charge that's a) much more progressive, and b) very persuasive, to change the minds of enough of the "old-school" baseball power brokers.

[Prizefight]

Funny. Considering George used 225 million worth of tax exempt bonds to pay for the new stadium in additional to costing NY State tax payers some 70 million in addition to 7 or so million annually.

 

I'm not making the argument that the stadium benefits do not outweigh those costs, just that maybe Hank should watch his use of 'socialism' when his stadium was helped built by the government redistributing public dollars