It's official- Sun (s) set in Hagerstown, Keys locked out in Frederick

        In what seemed to be the time that it took to send out a press release, but actually had been in the works for months, Western Maryland baseball fans saw themselves move from two pro teams within 25 miles of each team to having none as the Hagerstown Suns and surprisingly the Frederick Keys lost their affiliation with Major League Baseball. 

Hagerstown's fate was sealed last week when the Washington Nationals announced that they would not be returning to the Hub City in one of the worse kept secrets in years, but the Frederick Keys were thought to be returning despite being included on the original list to be consolidated.

Frederick was offered the token gesture of being one of the six teams in the new MLB Draft League, which will feature college players playing during their off-season and often using wooden bats for the first time.

The MLB Draft League will likely be similar to the Cape Cod League as one of the best leagues of its level in the country, but in my opinion, is still a full step below the High A level of baseball that has been present for three decades in Frederick.

While it's not difficult to see why Hagerstown wasn't retained for several reasons, I wonder what the major problem was with Frederick?

Frederick's Harry Grove Stadium is 30 years old and likely could use a facelift along with some of the player amenities needing some upgrades, but I've been to far worse facilities and some of those franchises were retained.

Combine that with the consistent level of support that the Keys received from their fan base, which usually sees Frederick battling for the Carolina League attendance championship with Winston-Salem, who has a newer and beautiful ballpark, and you would think the Keys would have been a franchise that should have had no worries about staying in the game as long as assurances were made for the improvements that major league baseball would ask for.

Instead, the Keys are bound for the MLB Draft League, which doesn't start until June, plays half the games of affiliated baseball, has younger and even more untested players, and has the feel of a consolation prize from Rob Manfred and company for taking baseball away from cities.

I'd even go a step farther and offer this as a possibility- the league may be looked at as a league designed to avoid lawsuits and should the fans in those cities ( the Applachian League is also now an MLB run league) not support these teams to their previous level, MLB can close the league up on a dime and claim that they offered baseball and those cities didn't support it.

Under some of the rumored terms of these teams in the new MLB-owned setup, it is more expensive to own a team now (for the right to own a franchise) than it was under the MILB sanctioned leagues and I would again consider betting that MLB never dreamed the Appalachian League would accept those terms (The New York/Penn League did not accept those terms) and leaving MLB to at least go through the motions for a few years.

The Draft League wasn't one that was rumored for Frederick as the whispers for Frederick saw the possibility for the Keys to join the top independent league, the Atlantic League.

The Atlantic League would have brought some bigger names from the past, but certainly not the future of the game as the Carolina League does.

Still, with older players on the field, an argument can be made that the Atlantic League offers a better on-field product and with the minor leagues already being called "developmental" as is, the Draft League is going to be even more about development.

I'm not saying that is wrong, just stating what it actually is.

What is the future for Hagerstown and Frederick baseball?

For all of the things that seem to be negative about the new major league-owned system, there is one positive- the old system of territories will no longer exist.

What this means is that should Hagerstown ever decide to actually join the new millennium (twenty plus years after it started) and build a new stadium, a team in Frederick could not stop a Hagerstown return to affiliated baseball.

I don't think that is going to happen as if the desire for that existed, it would have been built when they actually possessed a franchise, but it does leave the door open a hair for Hagerstown.

As for Frederick, I have a feeling that they are being used as a stalking horse, in the unlikely event that one of the teams that received invitations decides to go out of business.

In other words, they are going to wined and dining to scare teams into renovating or building stadiums as the alternative if they don't do what the bossman says.

Frederick could always build a new stadium and should they do so, they could perhaps fit into the AA Eastern League or the high A league without a name.

Frederick always had the fan support that makes a new stadium low-risk instead of Hagerstown's chicken or egg question on a potential new park.

In the end, this takes a lot of baseball out of my life for a while.

I don't really have any interest in the MLB Draft League and with Harrisburg and Altoona 90 plus minutes away as the nearest affiliated teams, I might be reduced to going to see the Indians and Giants farm teams and the Giants now have only Richmond on the East Coast for me to see.

I'm still planning a few trips a year to see new parks with my buddies, but I don't think I'll be doing much on those trips as far autographing goes.

This might be the end of a lot of that hobby for me.

Hagerstown got what it deserved.

Frederick did everything right and still got screwed.

You can love baseball, but baseball doesn't always love you.