League boss seeks Cardinals revival

Though the Hamilton Cardinals are officially dead, the Intercounty Baseball League says it is now searching for a new owner and hopes to find one in time to revive the franchise and put a team on the field next summer.

“I’m hopeful there will be a team there next year,” commissioner John Kastner says.

In Tuesday’s Spectator, former owner Gary Molinaro explained how dissatisfaction with some of the league’s policies and a phalanx of unsatisfactory conditions at Bernie Arbour Stadium had convinced him to simply shut things down. The other owners had heard about his plans several days before at a league meeting.

In the wake of that, Kastner has decided to throw open the doors to anyone who would want to take over the team.

While there’s no frontrunner at this point — he had someone who wanted to move the franchise to Niagara Falls but wasn’t keen on that — he expects to have some interest before the league’s next meeting in three weeks.

Not everyone is eligible. The commissioner says a new owner wouldn’t have to pay anything to get the franchise but he or she would have to present a solid business plan to keep it going and a path to build a competitive organization.

While he would like to keep the league at eight teams, he says he won’t do that at any cost. He says he’d rather have seven good teams than eight with one that’s in trouble. In other words, the new owner would have to have some money, some sponsors, a huge commitment to running things and a significant amount of time to make it work.

Further, he says some of the issues at Bernie Arbour would have to be addressed. It sounds like a lot. Still, he’s being optimistic. “I’m hopeful we can have a good team in Hamilton so we don’t have to have this conversation every few years,” he says.