I’ll admit to sitting in the peanut gallery these days while events swirl around Amarillo City Hall.

Thus, I am not privy to many of the details to all that is happening in our city in transition.

The news out of San Antonio, though, has piqued my curiosity about the future of Amarillo’s pending downtown project. I refer, of course, to the multipurpose event venue, aka the MPEV and/or The Ballpark.

I understand the San Antonio Missions are departing that city, which is going to welcome a little better grade of minor-league baseball. The Missions play AA ball; San Antonio is recruiting a AAA team to relocate to South Texas.

Now, as I’ve read in the local media, Amarillo is the only place the Missions are considering as a new home. Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole has said something about the “stars lining up” to lure the Missions here.

The prize being dangled in front of that franchise? The prospect of the team playing in a shiny new ballpark downtown, next to City Hall, across the street from a new convention hotel, and just blocks from Polk Street, which is being reconfigured into an urban entertainment district.

The price tag on the MPEV/ballpark has escalated past the $32 million price tag hung on it when it went to the voters this past May in a non-binding citywide referendum. Voters said “yes” to the MPEV and plans are proceeding to develop a firm design and cost for the project.

Yet I keep reading on social media and hearing some gripes around town about the deal.

I’m trying to understand why the lure of a minor-league baseball franchise affiliated with a Major League Baseball organization is somehow a bad thing for Amarillo.

The Thunderheads — the independent team formerly based exclusively in Amarillo — is going to play half of its home games this season here and in Grand Prairie. The games they’ll play in Amarillo will take place at the rat hole/dump formerly known as the Dilla Villa next to the Tri-State Fairgrounds.

The way I see it, if the city can maneuver itself into building a first-class baseball venue downtown and then link it to an arrangement with a AA franchise that will play some good old-fashioned hardball, then it looks to me as though the city has scored a significant victory.

So, again I ask: Why is that a bad thing?