With Re/max future uncertain, Prospects eye Spruce Grove

There is stealing home plate, and then there is having your home base stolen out from under you.

That’s what it felt like, anyway, for the Edmonton Prospects after seeing the lease on the ballpark they’ve called home since 2012 go to a local group calling itself Baseball Edmonton Inc.

On Wednesday, the city announced the group, led by former Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup champion Randy Gregg, secured a 10-year lease on the ballpark.

And on Friday, the Prospects stepped up to the plate with an announcement of their own, following a period of negotiation over revenue-sharing in order to remain in Re/max Field. And in keeping with the baseball vernacular, there’s a home run and then there is running to a new home.

“By 2022, it is our plan to be up and operating in a modern and very exciting venue in Spruce Grove,” read the news release from Prospects managing partner Patrick Cassidy, who expanded on the idea over the phone with Postmedia.

“Spruce Grove was always on the table for us, it’s ideally set up for a Western Canadian Baseball League franchise,” he said, drawing similarities with the success the defending-champion Okotoks Dawgs have been able to realize after moving from Calgary’s Foothills Stadium. “If it worked there, perhaps it could work here. Down there, they continually finish about third in terms of attendance figures throughout all of college summer baseball, averaging 3,500-4,000 fans a game, year in and year out.

“That’s a community of 25,000 people 20 minutes out of Calgary. Here, we’ve got a community of 45,000 20 minutes out of Edmonton.”

The club is in the process of finalizing the purchase of 25 acres to develop on the corner of

Highway 16A and Pioneer Road. But the preference would, of course, have been to remain in Edmonton’s eye-catching river valley ballpark, where they saw an increase in annual attendance from just under 6,000 fans in 2012, to a record-setting 60,000 last season, averaging 2,143 over 28 games to sit 13th overall in summer baseball clubs on the continent.

“We worked hard and passionately in terms of developing our brand there and our fan base,” Cassidy said. “It’s just a wonderful facility and setting and it’s got so many things to offer. We just have to keep moving forward.

“It’s sad, actually, for the fact that somebody else is coming in there and taking over, maybe has a different vision.”

One that, so far, doesn’t include a baseball team. Not in the WCBL, anyway, who came out with a statement Thursday that there had been no discussions on adding a second franchise in the area, and that the Prospects, as the territorial rights holders in the Greater Metro Edmonton Area, would have so sign off on it.

“In terms of another (WCBL) team in our market, they need to come through our front door and have a sit-down discussion and make an offer that makes sense,” Cassidy said. “And then it also still needs to be approved by the league.”

But the Prospects weren’t too keen on a pitch being made by Gregg’s group earlier in the week that would have had a new team playing out of Re/max Field side by side with Cassidy’s & Co.

“When people start talking about two franchises when they haven’t even had an official meeting with the league yet, the league gets a little protective,” said Cassidy.

“If I was from the outside looking in, I would be saying, ‘Hasn’t the cart been put before the horse a little bit?’ You’re going to sign a 10-year deal with a group who hasn’t necessarily got a team yet?

“It’s not necessarily how I would handle it, but the city has every right to run their business the way they feel works the best.”