I'm going to reserve many of those for a future column when this apparent move to Fredericksburg becomes final,but I did want to write a little about who is most to blame in the loss of professional baseball for the Hub City.
Suns majority owner Bruce Quinn is an easy target,after all,Quinn is the man that would be making the move and there is some blame to toss his way.
Quinn is the person that lined up private investors to move to Fredericksburg,did not make the same attempt for Hagerstown and he has kicked this around over for two years between Winchester and Fredericksburg,but Quinn is not the main target to blame.I reserve that for others,such as two administrations of the Hagerstown City Council to start with.
Former Mayor Bob Bruchey and his council did a lot of legwork and might have gotten this finished had they not stubbornly stuck to the almost universally hated downtown site for the new ballpark,which resulted in three anti-stadium new members elected and Bruchey himself defeated by David Gysberts.
Gysberts also ran on an anti-stadium platform and seemed surprised with an upset win that mainly occurred due to the ramrod tactics on the downtown issue.
Gysberts was saddled with the aforementioned trio of new council members that each had their own ideas on a stadium and realized that after his election that he was going to be saddled with the title of "man that lost Hagerstown its only sports team" forever.
Kristin Aleshire had never been interested in a stadium dating back to his days on the county commissioners,but did champion a new field up the street from the Muni,which was the best location (in my opinion anyway) of those mentioned.
Don Munson,an aging career politician, was busy backtracking from his promise,wavered in every statement until finally deciding on the site of the former city hospital,which has issues with a small footprint and would be the most difficult to build at.
Munson would eventually throw his support to downtown after it became clear that the Suns preferred Fredericksburg and the council decided to pull a "Don Quixote" move late in the game.
Penny Nigh wanted a small renovation of the Muni and the Suns made it clear that they were not interested in that,so Nigh was not interested in doing anything further with a short and narrow minded agenda,Nigh's vote was never achievable.
Lew Metzner and Martin Brubaker were the holdovers and both stuck to the downtown location despite the overwhelming public outcry against it.
Metzner continued his bungling against Quinn by making various statements about finding other interested teams (Until the team actually leaves,they cannot look around) and ludicrous announcements about independent baseball teams wanting to play "at a stadium that had hosted minor league baseball for years".
However,let us not forget the hotel/motel tax that was instituted twenty years ago for a new stadium that seemed to send its funds to everyone but the task that it was intended as various non-profits stuck their hands out for not one time gifts,but expected them to be annual offerings to the point of including these in their yearly budgets.
It is ironic that in an era of politics that sees so many stadiums around the country built with money intended for other items that Hagerstown took money intended for a stadium and used it for something else.
I also could run down the city councils and county commissioners over the last twenty years,but I do not want to write for the next two hours.
All of them are just as liable as the current bunch for their inaction when they had the chance to do something.
As I watched the crowd file out (I had to leave for work in the 8th inning of a 14-1 Suns win),I thought about this-what could be hoped for to turn the tide.
One could hope for a delay in Fredericksburg with purchasing the land for the site or any other delay that could buy Hagerstown the time for a desperate rally.
The current politicians are being ripped from all sides right now and any extra time could swing the votes to get something done from politicians that want to keep their seats.
Penny Nigh is not going to budge,she still thinks that sock hops will be a big draw,but the rest are practical and may move now.
Downtown is not my preferred location by a long shot,but that is the basket our eggs are in,so I have to root for that.
The hopes are dim and the fact is that last night might have been the last regular season game in Hagerstown,but I can still hope that a miracle can happen,but things have to be happening quickly.
The time for hope is gone,now it is a prayer...
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