Braves ditching The Ted for suburbs

A major-league team locating a stadium 15 miles from the metropolis with promised development around it at the beginning? And sticking the suburban host government with the tab?

Nope, never seen that before.

 

On the one hand, I can see why the Braves would want to hold those negotiations out of the public eye. If it falls through, they can simply stay downtown. Take any other large business and they'd probably do the same thing. Still, the fact that the Cobb Commission's lack of transparency is pretty troubling. Six months later, I'm shocked that they were able to keep it quiet as long as they did.

 

I like Schuerholz, but to say a deal had to be done in secret is pretty much a confession that the parties kept in the dark, the taxpayers, are taking a rough trade screwing.

 

If the Cobb County commissioners think this is the only time the Braves are going to come with their hands out, they clearly have not followed, oh, every other locality that has a pro team.

 

I think it might be part of the way the Braves operate, too. When they moved their Double-A team from South Carolina to Mississippi 10 years ago, there was nary a peep something was afoot until the day the deal was announced. Not sure how the Richmond to Gwinnett move was reported and handled.
Most times, when a team is angling for a new stadium or to relocate, there's some rumblings and a process. That's two pretty major organizational moves that were kept under wraps until they were finalized, or in the final stages.

 

The Braves' moves to both Atlanta in 1966 and Milwaukee in 1953 were early masterpieces of dicking around municipalities to get new stadiums built, fucking the city you're leaving, and of lightning last-minute moves.

In 1952-53, Bill Veeck was all set to move the St. Louis Browns (back) to Milwaukee, when owner Lou Perini of the Braves vaulted his franchise out of Boston in the matter of a couple weeks in spring training.

The Braves annihilated every NL atttendance record in Milwaukee throughout the mid-to-late 50s, but by the early 60s they were looking for a way out. The franchise was threatening/hinting to move to Atlanta throughout most of 1964-65 before finally making the leap in '66.

Hilarious: in 1964-65 the then-new Fulton County Stadium was going up in Atlanta. The scoreboards were being painted with Braves logos and emblems, yet the team in Milwaukee continued to express complete public shock at the idea anybody believed the franchise was going to move, along with constant denials.


So maybe it's just an insitutional tradition that they feel they always have to fuck with everybody.

 

Good lord. Thou art the architect of all bad ideas.

 

Veeck also was stalled by the other AL owners, who pretty much wanted him out. He had to wait another year, then sold and the team was moved to Baltimore.

 

Yeah, they wanted to hold him hostage in St. Louis, where he was in a hopeless financial battle against Gussie Busch and Budweiser, bankrupt him and force him to sell to the buyer of their choice, which he eventually did.

Veeck also made noise about possibly taking the Browns to L.A. (which the previous owners had strongly considered in 1941-42 before WWII put the kibosh on it) but the owners wanted to keep that territory open for possible expansion or as a moving destination for a more 'popular' owner.

 

The Braves are already selling reservations for 2017 season tickets at the new park. I'm just kind of biding my time until PSLs are brought up.

 

Just wait until it comes out that if they don't sell enough PSLs or a certain number of tickets, then the taxpayers have to make up the difference.

I think it was the Diamondbacks who had a deal like that, but I could be wrong.

 

As Starman pointed out, they set the tone decades ago. The GM of the Boston Braves quite literally handed out caps with the letter M on them one day in spring training in 1953 because, oh, by the way, we'll be playing our home games in Milwaukee from now on.