{"id":11697,"date":"2015-11-20T15:10:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T15:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11697"},"modified":"2015-11-20T15:10:43","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T15:10:43","slug":"mpev-argument-making-more-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11697","title":{"rendered":"MPEV argument making more sense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/matney.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-11315\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/matney-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"matney\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/matney-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/matney.jpg 986w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Paul Matney did not say this directly as he was touring Amarillo on behalf of a proposed multipurpose event venue, but I think I have gleaned a message from his pro-MPEV pitch.<\/p>\n<p>It is that if we build a shiny new baseball park in downtown Amarillo we&#8217;re going to attract the attention of a serious, well-funded minor-league baseball franchise that can come here to run a team the right way &#8212; and not the way it&#8217;s being run these days.<\/p>\n<p>I refer to the decision to combine the Amarillo Thunderheads with the Grand Prairie AirHogs and to split the 2016 baseball season between two locations, nearly 400 mile apart.<\/p>\n<p>I believe I now get what the retired Amarillo College president was getting at.<\/p>\n<p>Amarillo&#8217;s baseball fan base deserve better than to be treated to this clown show.<\/p>\n<p>They haven&#8217;t broken any ground yet on the MPEV. The $32 million venue has been (more or less) endorsed by the Amarillo City Council, which has handed off implementing the development of the project to the Local Government Corporation.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not certain how this combined franchise location thing is going to work for the owner of the Thunderheads\/AirHogs. My gut tells me it&#8217;s a loser.<\/p>\n<p>It well might give MPEV supporters additional grist to expedite the development of the new ballpark, to get it built, to market the city to the owner of a legitimate Class AA franchise and return serious minor-league baseball to Amarillo.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, maybe this franchise combo deal can be a blessing after all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Matney did not say this directly as he was touring Amarillo on behalf of a proposed multipurpose event venue, but I think I have gleaned a message from his pro-MPEV pitch. It is that if we build a shiny new baseball park in downtown Amarillo we&#8217;re going to attract the attention of a serious, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11697\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MPEV argument making more sense<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[337,1436,5631,3153,3522],"class_list":["post-11697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-thunderheads","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-minor-league-baseball","tag-mpev","tag-paul-matney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697","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=11697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11698,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697\/revisions\/11698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}