Extra innings
by Trey Nosrac
A sport, like any business, can spiral downward quickly. Some players in our sport follow pending state legislation with the same intensity as buyers study yearling catalogs. The racing scene today will not remain the same in the long run. Nothing stays the same.
For many years, my wife, daughter, and I took baseball trips every summer to catch minor league baseball games in the New York Penn League. When the schedules were released, we selected options from the menu of at least 14 NYP towns hosting games in the upcoming season. Then we booked quaint Bed and Breakfast Inns, explored the city during the day, and visited the ballpark in the evening. I cannot explain the magic of the summer days and evenings watching young professional players with big dreams and meeting friendly people.
Then, one day, shockingly, the league was gone.
Gone? The New York Penn League had been around since 1939. It was America’s oldest and longest-running minor league, with lovely towns in mountain foothills and near the shores of the Finger Lakes.
Cities like:
Aberdeen IronBirds
Auburn Astros, Doubledays, Mets, Phillies, Red Stars, Sunsets, or Yankees
Batavia Clippers, Indians, Muckdogs, Pirates, Trojans
Binghamton Triplets
Bradford Beagles, Bees, Blue Wings, Phillies, Yankees
Brooklyn Cyclones
Connecticut Tigers
Corning Athletics, Cor-Sox, Independents, Red Sox, Royals
Elmira Red Sox, Pioneers, Suns
Erie Cardinals, Orioles, Sailors, SeaWolves, Senators, Tigers
Geneva Cubs, Pirates, Redlegs, Senators, Twins
Glens Falls Redbirds
Hamilton Cardinals, Red Birds, Red Wings, Redbirds
Hornell Dodgers, Maple Leafs, Maples, Pirates, Redlegs
Hudson Valley Renegades
Jamestown Braves, Dodgers, Expos, Falcons, Jaguars, Jammers
Little Falls Mets
Lockport Cubs, Reds, White Sox
London Pirates
Lowell Spinners
Mahoning Valley Scrappers
New Jersey Cardinals
Newark Co-Pilots, Orioles
Niagara Falls Pirates, Rainbows, Rapids, White Sox
Olean Athletics, Oilers
Oneonta Yankees, Tigers
St. Catharine’s Blue Jays
State College Spikes
Staten Island Yankees
Tri-City ValleyCats
Utica Blue Sox
Vermont Lake Monsters
Welland Pirates
West Virginia Black Bears
Williamsport Crosscutters
That’s a lot of teams, a lot of cities, a lot of history, a lot of ballparks, a lot of players, a lot of competition for seats at next season’s league table, and a lot of broken hearts when the lights went out on the venerable league. So, what happened?
The reason that this historic league disappeared is a lesson for harness racing; it was just business, nothing personal. Businesses do not care that the city of Auburn, NY, is lovely and that the sport has been played there in quaint stadiums for a long time. Businesses do not run on nostalgia. Businesses run on money.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the 2020 baseball season, accelerating changes. Major League Baseball decided to restructure the minor leagues and reduce the number of affiliated minor league teams. They eliminated several leagues, including the New York Penn League, a Class A Short Season circuit, primarily serving as a developmental stage for newly drafted players. The business plan was to streamline player development and cut costs.
The elimination of the NYP league is sad but shows how quickly events can change, leaving disappointed fans, workers, and players with no place to turn or no one to turn to.
But that is not the end of this story.
Some individuals and groups would not let the lights go out. They would not let the green outfield grass wither and die. Innovators, go-getters, visionaries, passionate advocates, investors, individuals, and incorporated Town Councils did what many people do when knocked down. They rose, determined not to be the ones holding the reins for the end of the game they loved. Baseball continues in many, but not all, cities that hosted a New York Penn League team.
How did teams and cities adapt to keep baseball alive after the New York Penn League dissolved in 2021? Different cities took different paths to the future.
Some teams, such as the Hudson Valley Renegades, upped their game, joined other affiliated MLB Leagues, and became a New York Yankees High-A affiliate.
Some orphaned teams moved to the Independent Leagues. The MLB does not fund Independent Leagues. The Tri-City ValleyCats entered the Frontier League, maintaining professional Baseball outside MLB’s structure.
Some rumors are that a “League of Their Own” is percolating.
Some of the abandoned baseball cities joined Collegiate Summer League Teams. Several teams, including the State College Spikes, shifted to collegiate summer leagues, allowing them to continue hosting games with amateur players.
A few franchises, like the Lowell Spinners, folded or suspended operations. These franchises did not devise a plan or could not secure a new league and ceased baseball operations.
The analogy to harness racing is simple.
A beloved sport shockingly disappeared. Other entities pulled funding, leaving the local participants alone. A core of people who loved the sport wanted to continue. The obstacles were/are many — the primary obstacle is that the restarts begin without any guaranteed funding. Today, after the storm struck the NYP League, baseball action in the towns that lost their franchise ranges from oblivion to surprising success. While extremely difficult, a restart of a defunct baseball league can succeed.
If a disaster hits harness horse racing, will we have the resilience to race on? Can we convert from an engine driven by gambling to a more self-funded sport? A non-gambling or a minimal gambling horse racing world is challenging to ponder because the pari-mutuel model is the only model we have ever known. Could a harness racing league of our own be possible?
These are difficult questions to ponder.
But right now, we are planning a trip to watch the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, one of the teams that rose from the rubble of the New York Penn League. The Scrappers now play in a collegiate summer league. The game will not be precisely the same, and the players will not play for money, but the game will continue – and that’s something.
