NAL Finally Dead? in General Discussion Forum

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NAL Finally Dead?

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.		#41	[-]
Posts: 185 Apr 4 12 4:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Some new info in the San Rafael Pacifics http://www.ballparkdigest.com/201204044682/independent-baseball/news/pacifics-ballpark-back-in-court
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prosonkie1x4x5		#42	[-]
Posts: 2213 Apr 5 12 7:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I find it strange that there are crabby-ass people who will hire a lawyer to win a court case no matter what the consequences. It's so damned selfish. But what struck me as weird (and I posted on that) was that the San Marin news publication seems oblivious to the absurd nature of that NAL-N.
prosonkie1x4x5		#43	[-]
Posts: 2213 Apr 13 12 2:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	BPD has announced the official takeover of the Orange Blossom Special Orange County Flyers by the Yuma Scorpions Godfathers Panthers and the NAL is officially a two-division one-division team with dozens of four teams in exotic hard-to-reach places like Maui, Edmonton Calgary Tijuana San Rafael and Yu-ma-ma. I think this is really not new news but the stock swap marks this as a monster an absurd transaction. Sounds like fun a disaster. Here's a poignant deceptive quote: "This is a great addition to our new business strategy and our goal is to continue to grow rapidly through strategic acquisitions, such as the Orange County Flyers," said Godfather Media CEO Michael Cummings. "With this acquisition, we've achieved a significant milestone and I look forward to our continued success. We have acquired an asset, which I believe will yield a significant return to our shareholders." Teams without ballpark leases are an asset? ANYWAY ...
nlfan		#44	[-]
Posts: 8554 Apr 15 12 4:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"Continued success?" What "success?"
prosonkie1x4x5		#45	[-]
Posts: 2213 Apr 15 12 7:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I am remotely curious about their new business strategy here on the 100th anniversary of a great maritime tragedy. But quick growth through strategic acquisitions ... say, I have some stuff that he can buy -- today, cheap. It is all worth lots more than I will ask. Just some stock would be OK. (Tell us more about the significant returns.)
.		#46	[-]
Posts: 185 Apr 28 12 10:23 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Yuma Panthers have pulled the plug. http://www.yumasun.com/news/yuma-78609-season-league.html I hear the NAL will go with Maui, San Rafael, and two non paying travel teams. Sounds about right for the NAL.
prosonkie1x4x5		#47	[-]
Posts: 2213 Apr 28 12 6:15 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	“Things just seemed unstable, so the best decision was to go dark and we’ll have a new league after a couple months here. It will be stronger with more teams that have nothing to do with Diamond Sports. It will allow us to build it to be stronger.” Things SEEMED unstable?
.		#48	[-]
Posts: 185 Apr 28 12 7:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The plan is still to go ahead with a league: San Rafael - California Sonoma - California Maui - Hawaii Hilo - Hawaii Should be a interesting summer of baseball for the NAL.
prosonkie1x4x5		#49	[-]
Posts: 2213 Apr 28 12 8:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	If they were able to conjure up these two teams at the last minute, why didn't they conjure them up last October? These are road-kill semipro teams, are they not? First team to win 35 games wins the title. And we thought the Zion circus was as bad as it can get. Never underestimate people who can sucker other people out of their entertainment bucks.
PilotsHatGuy		#50	[-]
Posts: 40 May 2 12 2:40 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As much as the NAL is a complete clusterfk, I have to admit I see signs of hope in the mess. It appears as if this owner in San Rafael is more or less running the show. He has a plan that would probably work (clusters of teams in TX, HI, SF, maybe LA or AZ) Really, no different a set up than the AA has going (only over a greater distance). From an article I read, it sounds as if he and the Yuma owner had a falling out and parted ways. It sounds as if the SR owner didn't really want Yuma anyhow, but inherited him when he more or less took the reigns of the league. The article quoted the Yuma guy saying they would find a new league by mid season (I persume for next year). So it sounds like they aren't just dark from the NAL, they're out. Believe it or not (and I know prosonkie won't) I think the NAL is in better shape now. The SR guy seems very committed to making this work (given what he inherited), and seems to have a much better plan than Outklast or whatever his name was did. I think they needed the time to really do a good job of making the Sommoa Co and Hilo teams solid, hence why they were holding off till next year, but with the option of either no season, or rush them into action as pseudo road kill teams, he chose the latter. The biggest gamble (and it is a huge one) is the money loss he's going to take this year. With poor baseball, small stadiums, pseudo road teams, and only 2 real teams, he's taking a huge risk that he goes broke by the end of June. That said, if he keeps things together, I think he as a good chance to make something new of this mess, or at least be the beginning of a new western league. That or the whole thing will continue to be a disaster and they will finally die the long predicted death by the end of the week, and SR owner guy will wish he did chose to take the year off and piece things together from there.
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.		#51	[-]
Posts: 185 May 2 12 4:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I agree the NAL is in better shape now than it was when Diamond Sports and Entertainmant ran the show. DSE ran the GBL/NAL for the benefit of the league, and not the teams. The ownership group in San Rafael is a very knowledgeable group, very professional, Mike Shapiro has done a good job at turning things around for the NAL. I still think the NAL would've benefited by taking the 2012 season off, and moving forward in 2013... but it is what it is. The league has to give up on Maui, it costs way to much to travel there, they never finished last season, and they had the worst attendace in indy baseball. It wouldn't surprise me to see a four team Californian division , and a four team Canadian north division for 2013. Maybe someone can answer this, how can a four teams who will average under 1,000 people each afford to fly to Maui, Hawaii, San Rafael, and Sonoma. Arguebly the best franchise in indy baseball (winnipeg goldeyes) open the AA season on the road in Texas, they aren't flying down to Texas they are busing, and they have averaged over 5,000 people for a number of years.
nlfan		#52	[-]
Posts: 8554 May 2 12 6:13 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Answer: They Can't. Someone is taking on piles of debt or finding other revenue streams to cover these expenses. In the past the GBL had sponsorship deals with Safeway but those probably aren't around. They also ran a winter league that may have turned a profit (thought doubtful). That the Goldeyes are NOT flying is a decision they may regret. The Saints tried that and found it was really "hard" on the players (and coaches) so they started flying again. The Goldeyes can "afford" to do the long road trip mainly because they ARE starting the season on the road so the first (2) day(s) of bus riding aren't during the season. It WOULD surprise me (INCREDIBLY) if they put together a successful 4-team Canadian division. There aren't enough professional facilities and ownership groups for that. All of this NAL talk (outside of the TX/ULB teams) sounds like "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic." First the GLB fails. Then they cobble together a "Frankenleague" out of leftover scraps from the NOL, ULB and GLB that fell apart before, during and after its first season. I don't know why anyone is putting any faith in a league that's clearly "circling the drain." I don't see anyone coming in as a "savior" to make it work any better when the fundamentals are so bad (and the reputation getting worse?). The best time to judge what they can/will do in 2013 will be after they've succeeded in completing a full 2012 season. That doesn't seem entirely certain.
prosonkie1x4x5		#53	[-]
Posts: 2213 May 2 12 9:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	San Rafael caved in and agreed to a ONE YEAR deal in a ballpark that seats 800 people and can't sell beer after the 6th inning or play music after 9:30. If that's what it takes to run the NAL, I wish you bluebirds. That city has no real reason to commit to a professional team and there's enough opposition to start a political backlash that will effectively end this travesty by the end of July. So maybe Shapiro is indeed the sharpest Shapiro on the shelf, but he's the only team in the league, really now, so turning it around is kind of ... what? And nobody in the NAL is going to be flying anyplace. This is exactly what the Fielders did with the Kenosha All-Stars. Best out of 49.
.		#54	[-]
Posts: 185 May 3 12 11:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The talent level in the NAL North/South Divisions will be taking a big hit this season. I heard the South is operating with a salary cap of 60k, and I would imagine the North is not far behind. Other than the San Rafael Pacifics, no other team in the North has a website that is up and running or kept up to date to check team rosters. It's a shame, you will have players playing ball this summer who shouldn't be playing all together. Not only is it a bad image for the NAL, but independent baseball in general.
HorseRaider		#55	[-]
Posts: 534 May 3 12 2:44 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Good gosh. Talk about a deja vu moment. Flashbacks to what the late CoBL (Continental Beer League [my term]) did. Except they had one traveling team out of a four team league. As far as a salary cap for the NAL, their website says the minimum salary cap amount is $60k with $90k maximum. http://www.northamericanl...ue/league/league-rules-5 No way that Bryant and company who own all six teams in the West are going to pay nothing more than the minimum salary. The way they're running the Cats right now, seems to be that's the way it is. Who wants to guess the number of teams in that league that will be near or at the maximum end? I 'll put the number at less than one.
prosonkie1x4x5		#56	[-]
Posts: 2213 May 3 12 3:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Pacifics are still promoting their opener against Orange County so until they at least upgrade their website, I will assume that they aren't really going to do any business this summer.
Eddie CCPBA		#57	[-]
Posts: 144 May 4 12 9:31 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I just don't get how they even survived this long... They need a full scrub, format the hard drive, erase the stray mark, reboot the system. After doing some research I see where they were charging $5 for hotdogs and other high prices which will drive someone away. They were charging major league prices. They wait until the season starts to let people know what's going on. Teams fold, move, come back, don't finish seasons. Rumors of AWL people not getting paid this past season. The Hawaii team didn't even finish the season but they're back? The teams playing in spring training parks in the past even had recorded attendances of 26. Yuma was supposedly over 1000 but even that was fluff. San Rafael has 800 seats...I think the little league park this guy built in his backyard about a mile from me has more than 800 seats. They continue to give us a lot to talk about but how do these things make a league... Has anyone heard from Pat Sajak and all the others who backed this? I'd love to know what they think. Safeway, can probably guess why they didn't renew. The moving of teams seems like shell games. This haphazard way of forming/maintaining a league is a black eye on indy ball. And they may have poisoned the waters for something better to come along in the future. Would take a tremendous amount of goodwill. Just have a feeling that the players will be looking for employment midseason. ______________________________ "Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we would all run around in a darkened room munching pills and listening to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo
prosonkie1x4x5		#58	[-]
Posts: 2213 May 4 12 10:04 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I went on the Pacifics website and where the "dates" for their schedule showed, it switched me to a singles dating site ... so I wrote them and told them about it, suggesting they were a joke operation. They wrote back, saying they were a baseball organization, not connected to a dating site, which I noticed they quickly fixed. Besides, they said, they didn't think that I should call them a joke operation if I wasn't aware that I was on a professional baseball website. I huddled with myself, tried to clear my mind. Yes, there was no doubt, I was on a baseball website since it said right at the top that it was. San Rafael Pacifics. I wrote back suggesting that their schedule showed them playing the Flyers and the Panthers and until they stopped showing it ... that, yes, they indeed ARE a joke operation. I told them they didn't need to respond to that, as it was an annoyance. So far, they have agreed to that part of it.
.		#59	[-]
Posts: 185 May 4 12 11:57 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Prosonkie your a beauty, that's all I have to say Getting back to the talent level of the NAL this season, it seems like many players who played in the NAL last year have found jobs in the AA. By my count 33 players who played in the NAL last season, are now on AA rosters. It seems the NAL has shifted to a younger league, similar to the Frontier League. Any chance the AA/CanAm would change the roster limit of veteran players from four to six down the road? Former NAL players to watch in the AA this season: P Chandler Barnard - Lincoln IF Leivi Ventura - Lincoln OF C.J. Beatty - Lincoln IF CJ Ziegler - Wichita OF David Peralta - Wichita IF Enrique Cruz - Fargo-Moorhead P Tom Boleska - Fargo-Moorhead Ventura & Ziegler could hit 15-20 Big League Bombs this season. Good chance Beatty, and Boleska will get signed by seasons end. One man's loss is another man's treasure.
prosonkie1x4x5		#60	[-]
Posts: 2213 May 4 12 1:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	BPD is reporting that the Grapes will be the Wrath of San Rafael. SR "owns" the Grapes? Wow, sounds like a real great league. HERE IS THE BPD REPORT
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NAL Finally Dead?