TROY — We learned recently that Binghamton, that struggling little city to our southwest, will survive the massive contraction of minor league baseball with its connection to the pros intact. The Binghamton Rumble Ponies will continue as a New York Mets affiliate.
The Hudson Valley Renegades, meanwhile, will become an affiliate of the New York Yankees, keeping professional baseball alive and well in Fishkill, just south of Poughkeepsie.
But here in the Capital Region — a region with a population significantly larger than Binghamton or Poughkeepsie — we're still waiting to hear if the Tri-City ValleyCats will keep a connection to Major League Baseball. It seems quite possible, as I write this, that the area is going to lose its link to the big leagues.
So, a question: Does anybody around here care?
Oh, I know people enjoy and value the ValleyCats. Before the pandemic canceled the 2020 season, attendance at the stadium on the Hudson Valley Community College campus in Troy had been near the top among teams in the historic New York-Penn League, which has been destroyed by an MLB contraction that will cut the number of affiliated minor-league teams from 160 to 120.
The ValleyCats are a warm-weather tradition, and it would be a blow to civic pride if the team went away. Summer nights and baseball are like canned tuna and mayonnaise; the former is significantly diminished by the absence of the latter. Right?
What's not clear to me, though, is whether fans care if the ValleyCats continue as they have always existed and play professional, minor-league baseball. Or would most ValleyCats fans show up just as faithfully to watch amateur baseball on those nights when the weather is delightfully warm and the beer/ice cream is deliciously cold?
For 18 seasons, the ValleyCats have been a Class A short-season affiliate of the Houston Astros, but the relationship between the two is likely over. The ValleyCats, though, are hoping to remain a connection to professional baseball, perhaps with an affiliation to another Major League Baseball team or in an independent professional league.
"In the simplest form, we feel that our facility and organization are best suited for professional baseball, so that remains our focus," Tri-City General Manager Matt Callahan told Times Union sports reporter Mark Singelais, who on Monday reported that the ValleyCats were not among the teams announced as founding members of the MLB Draft League for college prospects.
It's as if the nation's minor-league baseball teams are engaged in a game of musical chairs. So far, the ValleyCats are still standing, with seats disappearing fast. (Major League Baseball is expected to announce its affiliate decisions this week, Singelais reports.)
Surely, the link to pro baseball would have mattered more to Capital Region fans had the ValleyCats been a Yankees, Mets or Boston Red Sox affiliate. But few around here care about the distant Astros, so it's hard to say that the link will be missed or that the ValleyCats' connection to the team has been a factor in their popularity.
That could explain why the ValleyCats' plight seems to have been met in the Capital Region by what feels like apathy. While U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer has lobbied to keep professional baseball in Troy, fans haven't launched a broader campaign or made much of a stir about Major League Baseball's threat to their team.
Maybe that's because the ceaseless tragedies of the coronavirus pandemic make baseball feel trivial by comparison, which, of course, it is. Maybe the cancelation of the 2020 ValleyCats season muted fan anger at Major League Baseball. Or maybe Capital Region fans are conditioned by prior disappointments.
After all, this region's mixed record with minor-league sports is well-documented. The Albany-Colonie Yankees were short-lived, the River Rats took their pucks to Charlotte and the Devils skated off to Binghamton. Binghamton! Professional hockey has yet to return.
But unlike those teams, the ValleyCats have been a continuing success story. The uncertainty the team now faces has nothing to do with a lack of fan support or any regional failing. Its precarious position is Major League Baseball's doing, with its contraction plan apparently provoked when some minor-league players sued for better pay.
Given how fans have supported the ValleyCats, it is hard to believe that some sort of baseball won't return to Troy when the pandemic ends and crowds can gather. But the region's link to Major League Baseball could already be over, as could the ValleyCats as we've always known them.
cchurchill@timesunion.com ■ 518-454-5442 ■ @chris_churchill
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December 01, 2020 at 06:35PM
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Churchill: How much do we care about the ValleyCats? - Times Union
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