{"id":11685,"date":"2015-11-20T02:45:02","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T02:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11685"},"modified":"2015-11-20T02:45:02","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T02:45:02","slug":"play-ball-in-two-cities-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11685","title":{"rendered":"Play ball … in two cities next year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"ama<\/a><\/p>\n

Amarillo’s minor-league baseball fortunes have taken a bizarre turn.<\/p>\n

I cannot yet tell if it’s for the better or the worse. Let’s just call it bizarre. Weird too. Strange? You bet.<\/p>\n

The Amarillo Thunderheads have merged with the Grand Prairie AirHogs, according to the American Association of Independent Baseball, the league to which both teams belong.<\/p>\n

What does it mean? Well, the team will play 25 of its “home” games in Amarillo and 25 in Grand Prairie (a Dallas-Fort Worth\u00a0suburb) for the 2016 season.<\/p>\n

There’s more strangeness. According to a league statement: \u201cWe appreciate that Southern Independent Baseball, owner of the Amarillo and Grand Prairie clubs, agreed to the league\u2019s request to operate its two teams as one in 2016. We fully expect that both teams will return in 2017 as individual entities with a full schedule in their respective markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league had 13 teams. It wanted to pare it to 12 to provide a more even schedule for everyone concerned. So, the league decided to combine the Amarillo and Grand Prairie franchises for the upcoming season. Is this a one-season gig? Time will tell.<\/p>\n

OK. I know what you’re thinking. What does this mean for the future of the multipurpose event venue that many of us — yours truly included — hope will be built in downtown Amarillo?<\/p>\n

To be honest, at this very moment I have no earthly idea what this means. Here, though, is my hope.<\/p>\n

It is that the $32 million MPEV construction will proceed and that marketing gurus here will be able to locate a first-cabin minor-league franchise — say a AA outfit affiliated with a major-league team — to bring their organization to Amarillo. Here, the theory goes, the baseball team will play ball in a gleaming new sports venue, fill the 4,500 or so seats on most days or nights with fans — and the enterprise will be deemed a success.<\/p>\n

I have to say, though, that this merging of two teams into one for the 2016 season seems a bit fraught with peril for those who’ve been hoping that the Thunderheads could make a go of it in Amarillo.<\/p>\n

The Dillas became the Sox and then the Thunderheads, all in the span of just a few years.<\/p>\n

What now? The Thunder Hogs? The Air Heads?<\/p>\n

How about we just get this new baseball venue built and then bring in an outfit that can lend some stability for those who want to cheer for\u00a0their very own\u00a0minor-league baseball team?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo’s minor-league baseball fortunes have taken a bizarre turn. I cannot yet tell if it’s for the better or the worse. Let’s just call it bizarre. Weird too. Strange? You bet. The Amarillo Thunderheads have merged with the Grand Prairie AirHogs, according to the American Association of Independent Baseball, the league to which both teams … Continue reading Play ball … in two cities next year<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[337,1436,5630,5631,3153],"class_list":["post-11685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-thunderheads","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-grand-prairie-airhogs","tag-minor-league-baseball","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11687,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11685\/revisions\/11687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}