Proposal for Wahconah Park and the Future of Professional Baseball in the City of Pittsfield

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Proposal for Wahconah Park

and the Future of Professional Baseball

in the City of Pittsfield

Presentation to the Board of Park Commissioners

by Jim Bouton, Chip Elitzer, and Eric Margenau

August 13, 2001

Table of Contents

Page #

The Principals 1

Marketing Plan 4
Facilities Plan 7
The License Agreement 10
Ownership Structure 12
Financial Plan 13
League Negotiations 16
Next Steps 18

Appendix: Letter of August 6, 2001, to the Atlantic League

The Principals

Eric Margenau
President and CEO of United Sports Ventures

Dr. Margenau, 60, has been a professional sports entrepreneur since 1986 when he purchased the Watertown Pirates of the New York-Penn League. During the last 15 years, he has owned and managed 14 professional teams, including seven baseball teams, five ice hockey teams, and two arena football teams. Twelve of these teams are enduring assets in their original cities. The other two are thriving in new homes after being forced to relocate by affiliated minor league stadium requirements.

He currently owns and operates seven sports franchises: the Mobile BayBears (AA affiliate of the San Diego Padres), four United Hockey League franchises (the Quad City Mallards, the Rockford Ice Hogs, the Missouri River Otters, and the New Haven Knights), and two arena football teams (the publicly-owned Orlando Predators and a new team that will begin playing at the new Mohegan Sun arena in April 2002).

Prior to founding United Sports Ventures, Dr. Margenau served as Executive Director of the Center for Sports Psychology. In his capacity as a sports psychologist, he acted as a consultant to several major league baseball teams including the New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox helping players deal with psychological, emotional and performance problems.

He received his bachelor's degree from Dickinson College and his doctorate from New York University. He and his family have owned a home in Stockbridge for many years, and they plan to make that home their principal residence within the next two years. He and his wife, Anne, and son, Max, currently reside in New York City. He also has a daughter, Danielle, and a grandson named "A.J."

Jim Bouton
President of Jim Bouton Enterprises, Inc.

Jim Bouton, 62, had an eight-year major league career, pitching for the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves. In 1963 he won 21 games for the Yankees and made the all-star team. In 1964 he won 18 games and beat the Cardinals twice in the World Series.

In 1970 Bouton wrote Ball Four, the largest selling sports book in history, and the only sports book selected by the New York Public Library as one of the “Books of the Century.” Ball Four: The Final Pitch, published last year, is the third and final update.
Following the controversy of Ball Four, Bouton became a television sportscaster and helped WABC-TV and then WCBS-TV climb to first place in the ratings. During the 70’s he also wrote a sequel to Ball Four entitled I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally, won good reviews as an actor in "The Long Goodbye", and created, wrote and acted in a CBS network situation comedy based on his book.
In 1978 Bouton made a comeback to baseball with the Atlanta Braves. Gambling his TV career for a dream, he spent two years in the minor leagues developing his knuckle ball. When he beat the San Francisco Giants 4-1, it was his first major league win in eight years, the longest hiatus on record from a major sport.
During his comeback to baseball Bouton developed Big League Chew, shredded bubble gum in a pouch, which has replaced chewing tobacco at many high schools and colleges. Collegiate Baseball Newspaper awarded him its first annual health and safety award for creating a healthy alternative to chewing tobacco.
Bouton’s career as an entrepreneur continued into the 1980s with a variety of patented inventions, including a multi-use sports arena.
In 1996 he was featured in Macmillan’s Sports 100, “The One Hundred Most Important People in American Sports History.” And in 2001 he was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary - the “People’s Hall of Fame” - in Pasadena, California.
Bouton, who lives in North Egremont with his wife Paula Kurman, is a motivational speaker and a frequent guest on radio and television. His hobbies are building stone walls and ballroom dancing.

Donald B. Elitzer
President of Elitzer Associates, Inc.

Chip Elitzer, 53, formed Elitzer Associates, Inc. as a private investment bank in 1984. In addition to conventional corporate finance and merger & acquisition assignments, the firm has sponsored and participated in leveraged buy-outs, acted as management's representative in management buy-outs, and arranged substantial refinancings and going-public transactions for corporate clients.

Prior to forming his own firm, Mr. Elitzer was Vice President in Corporate Finance at Rothschild Inc., where he structured and financed all leveraged acquisitions undertaken by Rothschild as principal or agent during his eight-year tenure. He was also active in public equity offerings, private debt placements, and venture capital financings. In the venture field, he raised private equity capital for companies in various industries, including biotechnology, computer peripherals, semiconductors, specialty chemicals, and metal fabrication.
Prior to Rothschild, Mr. Elitzer was an officer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, a management consultant to the Ford Foundation, and the developer of a consumers' and producers' cooperative in the Amazon jungle (Brazil). He holds an M.P.A. (1974) from Princeton University and a B.A. (1969) from Dartmouth College.
Mr. Elitzer is the founder and chairman of the Berkshire Hills Technology Fund, established last year to ensure that all students, teachers, and administrators in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District (K-12, serving the towns of Great Barrington, Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, and Housatonic) have home-based computers connected to the Internet, and to fund a competitive annual grants program for the creative use of technology in the classroom. The first round of grants has supported 18 projects by 25 BHRSD teachers.
Mr. Elitzer is also a member of the Finance Committee of the Berkshire South Regional Community Center, now under construction in Great Barrington.
He and his wife, Cindy, and their three sons have been full-time residents of Great Barrington since 1996. Daniel and Sam are students at Monument Mountain Regional High School, and Jacob is a student at Searles Middle School. They were all avid fans of the Pittsfield Mets.
Marketing Plan

Our goal is to double the 2,000 average attendance at Wahconah Park by marketing three under-appreciated or previously unavailable assets to local, regional, and national consumers. In addition to traditional media advertising, particularly local radio and newspaper, we will raise consumer awareness with brochures placed in local hotels, inns, and B&B's, cross-promotions with Berkshire cultural institutions, and national media attracted to the stories of Wahconah Park and Jim Bouton – the historic site that refused to die, and the maverick player who became an owner.

Fans need to feel a special connection to their team. Our 100% locally owned team, including 51% to be offered to a broad base of individuals and businesses, will be a source of pride to the community, and a new reason to go to the ball park. This will be a major change from the past, when fans were often expected to root for the rival farm team of their major league favorites, with affiliations changing every few years. A locally owned team, rare in these days of moveable franchises, will generate the kind of fan loyalty found only in places like Green Bay, whose football fans own the Packers.
The biggest attraction in professional sports is often the venue. Historic Wahconah Park, hosting professional baseball since 1919, will be marketed as an attraction as interesting as the game itself. For fans who tour the country visiting legendary ballparks, Wahconah will be a must-see stopover in the triangle formed by Cooperstown, Fenway, and Yankee Stadium. With its own logo, licensed merchandise, and historic site map identification, Wahconah Park has the potential to gain a national identity. Even its quirky "flaws", such as its wooden grandstands and its infrequent sun delays, will become the well-known "signature" features of its national reputation. We will know that we're on the right track when the umpire's call for a sun delay triggers a standing ovation.
The virtues of independent league baseball compared to affiliated single A ball will soon be as obvious to the uninitiated as it already is to the fans who have observed it. The level of play is considered at least AA, with recently released AA, AAA, and Major League players on the roster, some on the way down, others on the way up. Other advantages include more local players and returning favorites, and a greater, more immediate chance for a player to be called up to the big leagues. And who better a spokesperson than Bouton, who has actually played independent league ball?
The marketing strategy behind our plan for Wahconah Park is based on the concept of "share of customer" rather than "share of market." The beautiful Berkshires are already being effectively marketed as "America's Premier Cultural Resort." People who flock to the Berkshires during the height of the tourist season (which conveniently overlaps most of the baseball season) are already motivated to sample one or several of the area's many offerings: Tanglewood, Shakespeare & Company, and The Mount in Lenox; Jacob's Pillow in Becket; the Norman Rockwell Museum and Chesterwood in Stockbridge; the Williamstown Theater Festival and the Clark Museum in Williamstown; Mass MoCA in North Adams; and Hancock Shaker Village, to name only the most prominent.
Only a small fraction of these tourists are even aware that professional baseball is played in Berkshire County, let alone that it is old-fashioned, close-to-the-field baseball in a historic ballpark that substantially pre-dates many of the Berkshires' better-known sites. Although Pittsfield is conveniently located right in the heart of Berkshire County, visitors and even residents of North County and South County zip through and around the city in their eagerness to eat sushi in Great Barrington or attend a late-night cabaret in Williamstown.
Our goal is to capture for Pittsfield at least a modest share of those tourist dollars that are now being spent elsewhere in Berkshire County. After several days of the "high culture" of classical music, dance, theater, and museums, many visitors (particularly families with children) should welcome the opportunity to enjoy an inexpensive evening of hot dogs and baseball.
But to be consistent with our marketing focus on "share of customer," we need to provide our patrons with more reasons to spend money at Wahconah Park than just hot dogs and baseball. One idea that we plan to implement in time for Opening Day, 2002, is a season-long "Taste of the Berkshires" food court, similar to the Great Barrington event of the same name that is held one day each year in its Town Hall Park. Restaurants and bakeries in Pittsfield and throughout the county will be invited, on a rotating basis, to sell inexpensive, previously-prepared miniature versions of their signature dishes at Wahconah. Many people, including those with only a passing interest in baseball, will come to the park an hour or more before game time to sample a continuously-changing selection of the Berkshires' best food.
We also propose to host a similar concept – "Shops of the Berkshires" – along the outside fence facing the parking lot. Here we would set up a string of tents and invite a rotating selection of Pittsfield merchants and other Berkshire shops and artisans to display and sell a sampling of their wares before and during every home game. We would charge each vendor a small but fair percentage of sales, subject to a modest per-game minimum.
In addition to standard minor league promotions, we plan to introduce a few new ones, taking advantage of this quirky ballpark in the middle of a cultural mecca. "Sun delay" means free sunglasses to the fan who guesses its exact duration. "Celebrity anthem" will feature musical performers in town for the summer. Notables from the worlds of literature, art, and theater, most of them baseball fans, once invited, will soon vie to throw out the "first pitch."
In the not too distant future, we envision a "Walkway Museum and Hall of Fame" behind the stands on the left field line. The museum will feature artifacts, photos, and letters from local archivists and private citizens, documenting the history of Wahconah Park since 1919 and the story of baseball at that location going back to the late 1800's. The Hall of Fame section will display photos and newspaper clippings of the Park's most famous players and greatest moments.
Our vision for Wahconah Park is not just for tourists. Ideally, the Park will become Pittsfield's "town square," a place where – in a less-frenzied era – people would come to mingle with their neighbors. In this case, "neighbors" will be broadly defined – across town and around the county.

Facilities Plan

Our plan recognizes two important roles that we must play if the City of Pittsfield grants us a long-term license agreement or its equivalent for the use of Wahconah Park:

Custodian of an irreplaceable historic asset: The Park will remain the property of the City, and we will have an obligation to maintain it year-round not as a museum or relic, but as a functioning, active place for players and spectators, not just of baseball, but of high school football, and for educational, civic, and other entertainment purposes, such as outdoor concerts. To that end, it will be our responsibility to assure that it maintains its structural integrity, that all building systems work properly, and that it is operated in a safe and sanitary manner.
This is not a baseball-season-only commitment. For the facility to be properly maintained, without confusion over who is responsible for what or who pays for what, one entity must have undivided responsibility, obligation, and authority to control the use of the Park and to maintain it, if the role of custodian is to be performed effectively.
Our expenditures on the custodial side of our facilities plan will be substantial. The first expenditure will be to completely repaint the facility in a color scheme that will probably be predominantly dark forest green. Properly done, this project will not be entirely cosmetic, although replacing the existing orange-and-blue legacy of the Pittsfield Mets will be a welcome change. We have had a Pittsfield-based professional painter evaluate Waconah's painted surfaces, from steel I-beams to wooden benches and fences, to corrugated siding. His very preliminary estimate of the cost in labor and materials to repaint with a primer and two topcoats is $100,000. Much of that cost will be the labor of surface preparation. He noted that it would be much cheaper to simply spray on our new color over the old paint, which has apparently been the method of choice in at least some of Wahconah's previous paint jobs. But since we're taking a long-term view with a long-term payback, we will specify methods and materials for maximum life. For example, the steel frames supporting both sets of bleachers are corroding under their paint (more extensively on the first base side). The proper way to stop the rust will be to remove the wooden planks, sandblast the steel down to bare metal, re-prime, and recoat, probably with epoxy primer and paint.
We understand that the ejector pumps for the bathrooms are nearing the end of their useful lives, and will probably have to be replaced sooner rather than later. The Mayor has told us that the cost of replacement will be in excess of $100,000. So be it. If we are granted custody of Wahconah, that will be our problem, not the City's nor the taxpayers'. When you're driving an old car or living in an old house, you don't know what will have to be fixed or replaced next, maybe the transmission or the roof, the brakes or the furnace. But next year it will be something else.
Investor in cost-effective improvements: The second role that we must play in our facilities plan, after that of conscientious custodian, is to improve Wahconah Park in ways that enhance the fans' and players' experience and are economically justifiable. For example:

Food concessions: Lines are often long, especially during well-attended games; the menu selection is quite limited; and the food quality is spartan. As explained more fully in the Marketing Plan section of our proposal, we will add a "Taste of the Berkshires" food court before Opening Day, 2002. Right now there are booths along the wire mesh entrance fence for box office, beer, and souvenirs. We intend to add a continuous row of similarly constructed booths sitting on railroad ties (no subsurface footings to raise environmental issues) along that fence line, and remove the fence. Because most of the food will have been prepared in the sponsoring restaurants and delivered on industrial food racks, expensive kitchen equipment and ventilating systems will not be necessary.

"Not-so-luxury boxes": The press box perched atop the roof of the grandstands offers its occupants a spectacular view of the field and the full glory of Wahconah Park and its surroundings. We propose to build 14 more boxes with similar corrugated construction, stretching continuously along the roofline, prior to Opening Day, 2002. Each box would contain ten seats (a front row with five, and an elevated second row with five), and would easily be supported by the horizontal I-beams resting on top of evenly spaced vertical I-beams that form the current roof frame. Stairway access and handrail-guarded walkways would replace the current ladder access route.

Parking: The lot is dusty in dry conditions and muddy or underwater in wet conditions. Although ample parking is available within easy walking distance of the ballpark even on sell-out nights like July 4^th and less-than-ideal weather, it would improve the appearance of the Park and the fans' experience if the large main lot were consistently and fully usable. With the support of the City of Pittsfield and our state legislators, we would seek a waiver of state environmental regulations to allow us to place an average 6-inch layer of crushed 2"-3" stone over the entire parking surface, which would render it usable except in extreme flooding conditions. With a waiver, we would seek to complete the parking lot by Opening Day, 2002. We would also pursue a petition that was previously filed to have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study the consequences of removing or breaching the downstream dam, whose owner has told us that he is willing for it to be removed. We hope that downstream remediation might permanently resolve the flooding problem.

Bathrooms: The Park's public restrooms were renovated in 1997, but are still fairly primitive, although designed for easy cleaning. Sometime within the first several years, but not the first year, we will probably enlarge and modernize them.

Locker rooms and exercise/therapeutic facilities: Enhancing the space available for players will be necessary for competitive reasons, although not in the first year. Moving the concessions to the outer fence perimeter as discussed in (1) above will free up space for rest room and locker room expansion under the main grandstand.

Seating: To preserve the traditional feel of Wahconah Park, we do not intend to modernize the upper grandstand benches or the bleachers. However, the metal folding chairs of the "box seats" hold no such charms and have no historical value, so we will eventually replace them with stadium-grade seats with cup holders.

Walkway museum and "Hall of Fame": In the third or fourth year, we would build this project behind the bleachers on the third base side.

The License Agreement

Our license agreement ("the Agreement") with the City of Pittsfield for the use of the ballpark and adjacent parking areas of Wahconah Park ("the Park") should contain the following principal elements:

Performance-based: The renewal or continuation of the Agreement will be contingent on our compliance with contractual undertakings. Specifically, the Agreement can be revoked (after notification by the City and our failure to cure the default within a cure period to be defined in the Agreement) for failure to perform any of the following:

provide a professional baseball team that plays its home games at Wahconah Park;
invest at least $250,000 in the repair and upgrading of the Park before Opening Day, 2002;
invest at least $25,000 in each subsequent year of the Agreement in the repair and upgrading of the Park;
assume responsibility for all maintenance and repairs ordinarily paid by the City ($500,000 over the past five years);
allow reasonable use of the Park for civic, educational, sports, and entertainment functions, consistent with its primary function of hosting professional baseball;
pay an annual license fee of $1.00.

Exclusive license: Any use of the Park by others will be subject to our consent, which cannot be unreasonably withheld. As we stated in our Facilities Plan, "For the facility to be properly maintained, without confusion over who is responsible for what or who pays for what, one entity must have undivided responsibility, obligation, and authority to control the use of the Park and to maintain it, if the role of custodian is to be performed effectively."

A necessary corollary of the exclusive license is that any revenues derived by the license-holder from the use of the Park by others will belong to the license-holder and not to the City. If we are to maintain the Park at our own expense, including for the use by others, then both fairness and economic practicality dictate that we should keep any revenues that can be used to defray some of those costs.

Long-term commitment: Although we prefer a single 30-year Agreement, we would be willing to accept an Agreement as short as one year, as long as it is renewable at our option on the same terms, subject to the performance criteria stated above. If regulatory or legal hurdles prohibit a 30-year commitment, even if based on a series of renewals, then we would sign an Agreement of maximum permitted duration, if the City would agree to use its best efforts to get regulatory or legislative relief from such prohibitions and to sign a new Agreement extending the term to 30 years if such relief were granted.

As we stated in our July 10^th proposal to the Chairman of the Board of Park Commissioners, "We believe that the City and its citizens are best served by granting us a time frame that enables us to plan projects and financial commitments from the prospective of an owner, not a renter. To use an analogy, whom would you expect to take better care of an historic house for future generations, an owner or someone who was just renting it for a few years?"

As detailed in our Facilities Plan, we are committed to making substantial expenditures to maintain and improve the Park. With a long-term Agreement, we will know that we can afford to take a long view on capital expenditures, and not be in the position of having to go back to the Commission every five or ten years to renegotiate our Agreement or lose it and everything that we would have invested in the Park along the way.
We believe that these proposed terms of the Agreement are highly beneficial to the City of Pittsfield, turning on its head the customary arrangement whereby cities compete for professional sports franchises by promising owners or leagues new ballparks or substantial upgrades to old ones.
By way of comparison, the lease that the Lowell Spinners signed for their new stadium calls for capital expenditures totaling $250,000 over 10 years in place of rent payments, and their city is responsible for maintaining the exterior and for structural repairs. A 1999 memorandum summarizing a city study conducted after the park had been open for a year stated, "The Single-A Baseball Stadium leases that we have reviewed to date have carried annual rents of $10,000 to $30,000 with the teams assuming very limited game preparation and post-game cleanup obligations. I have concluded that the current arrangement with the Spinners is very advantageous financially to the City of Lowell."

Ownership Structure

The entity with which the City would sign the License Agreement for Wahconah Park would be a newly formed corporation (referred to here as "the Ball Club"), which would initially be owned 100% by a limited liability corporation that we are forming ("Wahconah Enterprises LLC" or "the LLC"). The LLC will be owned equally by Jim Bouton, Eric Margenau, and Chip Elitzer.

By November 2001, we will offer shares representing 51% ownership in the Ball Club, at a price to be determined subsequent to preparation of an offering document and evaluation of market demand. The proceeds would be used to help build the team, finance improvements to the Park, and provide working capital. We will reserve the right to withdraw the offering partially or in its entirety if, in our judgment, there is insufficient demand to close a successful offering by December 31, 2001. However, our proposal for Wahconah Park is in no way contingent on the success of this offering.
We plan to offer the shares exclusively to individuals and businesses in Berkshire County, with some preference given to citizens of Pittsfield if the offering is over-subscribed. Our motivation for selling substantial ownership in the Ball Club was described in our open letter to Mayor Doyle and the Pittsfield City Council on June 22^nd: "… so that fans can truly say that it is their team. Widespread local ownership will also make it difficult if not impossible for anyone to ever move the team to another city."

Financial Plan

Our plan recognizes three traditional Wahconah Park revenue streams: ticket sales, concession profits, and corporate advertising. In addition, it recognizes a fourth revenue source that is usually associated with modern stadiums: corporate suite rentals (or, in our case, "Not-So-Luxury Boxes," as described in our Facilities Plan).

The most important variable in determining the success or failure of a minor league sports franchise is home game attendance. On the second following page, we use a simple model to demonstrate the financial impact of two "mid-range" attendance assumptions and two "extreme range" attendance assumptions. If we assume that our team does no better than the former Pittsfield Mets did in recent years (2,000 average visitors per home game), we are barely above breakeven. (Independent league baseball has a higher cost structure than affiliated minor league ball, because without a major league ball club to foot the bill, the local team has to pay the salaries of players, coaches, and umpires.) At 3,000 visitors, the club makes almost $500,000 before taxes. At the extremes, if the team draws only 1,000 visitors, the ball club loses almost $400,000; if it achieves near-sellout crowds of 4,000 (our goal), it makes over $900,000.
These profit numbers are before consideration of capital investments made in major repairs and improvements to the ballpark (at least $250,000 by Opening Day, 2002), and other investments in items like batting cages, field tarps, and weight room equipment.
Our model assumes 43 home games that "count," five more than the current NY-Penn League home schedule of 38 games. That is because whether we ultimately play a short season in the Northern League (currently 45 home games) or a longer season in the Atlantic League (currently 70 home games), it would not be conservative to count on doing any better than breaking even on home games played in May, early June, or after Labor Day. (Our breakeven point on these additional games is well below 1,000 visitors, because all of the ball club's fixed costs are built into the 43-game model.)
Based on our experience with operating seven minor league baseball teams over the past 15 years, we have assumed that our total annual operating expenses will run about $1,000,000, a number that has been confirmed as reasonable by independent league officers. We have not yet prepared a detailed expense budget, because we do not want to be misled by the "false precision" of such a document prepared prematurely.
The model on the next page combines the two revenue sources that vary with attendance – ticket sales and concession profits – into a single independent variable: Average Revenue Per Visitor. This iteration assumes that number to be $10.00, which is based on an average ticket price of $5.00 (consistent with the Pittsfield Astros' prices of $3.00, $5.00, and $7.00) and an average profit on sales of food, souvenirs, and programs of $5.00.
"Corporate suite" rental is assumed to be $7,000 per "Not-So-Luxury Box" (10 seats), which works out to be slightly more than double the $7.00 currently charged for much less exalted "box seats" at Wahconah. Advertising revenue (in all its forms, including signage, program and schedule advertising, sponsorships, and promotions) is conservatively estimated at $100,000.

League Negotiations

Pittsfield and the Berkshires represent a scarce and potentially valuable opportunity for the two independent professional baseball leagues that operate in the Northeast (Atlantic and Northern): a proven market with a long tradition of professional baseball in a historic park that fans are passionate about.

We are all familiar with how cities woo teams to come or to stay with expensive new stadiums or stadium upgrades, at little or no cost to the team owner. Every few years, the owner threatens to leave if the city doesn't do more for him. If our proposal is accepted by the City of Pittsfield, then Pittsfield will have changed the traditional balance of power between cities and team owners in its favor.
Unlike someone who already holds a league franchise but must shop for a place to play, our local group has always insisted that the only place we will play is Wahconah Park. Once we have secured the long-term right to use the Park, we believe that we will quickly be able to conclude a deal for a league franchise.
On Saturday, August 11, Mr. Frank Boulton, founder and CEO of the Atlantic League, stated that if we had Wahconah Park, then our group had the League's approval to play the 2002 season on the terms outlined in the letter from Chip Elitzer to him dated August 6, 2001 (appended to this presentation). Pittsfield's team would be the League's eighth team in competition with the Long Island Ducks, the Bridgeport Bluefish, the Camden Riversharks, the Atlantic City Surf, the Newark Bears, the Somerset Patriots, and the Nashua Pride. Although the Atlantic League season begins at the end of April, and normally includes 70 home games per team, the Pittsfield team would be on the road until June, playing only 49 home games during the regular season.
Although we welcome this opportunity, our negotiations with the League are not complete. As currently structured, we would have the right to continue playing in the Atlantic League after next season only if a "short season" division is formed, an uncertain prospect at this time. A full "expansion franchise" membership in the League would cost $2 million, an uneconomical amount for the size of the Berkshire market. One idea we have pursued with the League is to grant us an option to purchase a full membership with restrictions that would substantially reduce its market value, such as making it specific to Pittsfield (could never be moved to another city) and giving the League a right of first refusal on any sale of control. However, the officers of the League are apparently not yet convinced that the Berkshire market is large enough to sustain a team, compared with the markets served by the other teams in the League.
We have also been in negotiations for the purchase of an existing dormant franchise in the Northern League, which would make Pittsfield the eighth team in a short-season eastern division (45 home games) that includes the Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs, the Adirondack Lumberjacks, the Elmira Pioneers, the Allentown Ambassadors, the New Jersey Jackals, Les Capitales de Québec, and (in 2002) a new Brockton team. At several times during the past two weeks, the representative of the franchise owner has told us that the owner is willing to sell to us at our offer price. However, given that Miles Wolff, the Northern League Commissioner, has given Mayor Doyle a letter of support for Jonathan Fleisig's bid for a Pittsfield team and a new stadium, we have told this potential seller and Mr. Wolff that a precondition for our purchase would be a letter from Mr. Wolff stating that our group is acceptable to the Northern League and that Wahconah would be a suitable permanent home for our team.

Next Steps

We ask the Board of Park Commissioners to recommend our proposal for Wahconah Park, and to reject any and all competing proposals.

We ask for the Mayor's public endorsement of our proposal, to the exclusion of any other proposal.
Although not strictly necessary, we ask for the endorsement of the City Council for our proposal.
In order to conclude successfully our negotiations for a franchise in one of the two leagues, we must have a signed long-term Agreement with the City of Pittsfield for the use of Wahconah Park, as outlined in the "License Agreement" section of this proposal. To avoid a potential Northern League tactic of "waiting us out" in favor of Jonathan Fleisig, the Agreement must be non-cancelable prior to the 2002 baseball season.
At this point, our preferred home is the Atlantic League. With the Wahconah Agreement in hand, we will make a full presentation of our Marketing Plan and Facilities Plan to the officers and owners of that League. If we can negotiate an acceptable option price for full membership in the event that a short season division has not been created by the end of the 2002 season, then we will accept the offer that has been made to us to play the 2002 season in the Atlantic League. If we cannot, then we will purchase one of several Northern League franchises that are still potentially available.
To succeed, we need the full-throated, unconditional support of the citizens of Pittsfield and the officials – both elected and appointed – who act on their behalf in deciding the fate of Wahconah Park and the future of professional baseball in their city.
Thank you.

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