Hawaiian Baseball team?

[ZR56664]

Does anyone think there should be a MLB team from Hawaii?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Does anyone think there should be a MLB team from Hawaii?

Sure! Why not.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Is there a call for this in Hawaii? Are there minor league teams there, and do they draw?
MLB franchises are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. You don't just place a team somewhere for the heck of it.

[KCGHOST]

That would be a bitch of a road trip from the east coast to Hawaii.

[Blowfly]

Hawaii had a AAA team for a number of years they were the affiliate for the San Diego Padres and then the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Padres also played one series there in 1997 against the Cardinals. That series did not sell out so I don’t think it would work there for multiple reasons i.e. travel, attendance.

[Elvis]

Aloha Stadium May See 'Lockdown'
by Brooks Baehr - [email protected]

A 30-year tradition of football and baseball at Aloha Stadium is in jeopardy.

The facility is in need of $129 million of repair work over the next five years, but that cost can be reduced by $11 million if equipment and machinery that moves stands from football to baseball configuration is locked into place instead of being repaired.

Tuesday the annual transformation from football to baseball configuration began. Large bridges that connect sections of the stadium were lowered to the ground by a giant hydraulic lift. They were moved into a storage area below seats in the North endzone.

One of the four million pound movable sections of stands along the makai sideline was scheduled to be pulled across a rail system toward the endzone seats, but bad weather postponed the move until Wednesday.

The movable parts that make the configuration change possible are getting old.

"Just through obsolesce, a lot of the equipment has worn down to a point where they may not be reliable anymore," said Ken Tong, chief engineer at the stadium.

It will cost an estimated $11 million to replace and/or refurbish the moving parts -- or the state can save the money by locking the stadium in place.

"All of the financial and marketing analysis tells you that you should leave it in a football configuration," said state comptroller Russ Saito.

Saito told KGMB9 it costs about $20,000 to switch from one configuration to the other, and another $20,000 to change it back. He said every time the move is made, the state loses money. Gate receipts from occasional baseball games do not come close to covering the cost.

While Saito favors freezing the stadium in football configuration, not all members of the Aloha Stadium Authority are sure that is the best idea. And the Stadium Authority will be making the decision.

"Potentially, if we lock it into football, obviously it's great for football, but it's not going to be very attractive for professional baseball," said authority member Alvin Narimatsu.

Narimatsu and other Stadium Authority members told KGMB9 that if locked into football configuration, baseball could no longer be played at the stadium. The field, in football configuration, is also too narrow for professional soccer and less than ideal for some concert configurations.

"It's the mission of this stadium to be available for everyone," Narimatsu said.

The stadium could be locked into baseball configuration. That would be ideal for baseball, soccer, and large concerts. But it would mean lots of expensive changes to make room for football. The field would have to be realigned, the crown of the field would have to be adjusted, the press box would have to be moved, and prime football seats now at the 50-yard line would suddenly be much farther from the field making them less than prime.

"The problem is that we lose a certain number of seats and you have to reorient the field," Saito said of locking the stadium into baseball configuration. "In addition, you have to reorient, or at least reassign, all the season ticket holders because the people who are currently sitting on the 50-yard line are not going to be sitting on the 50-yard line anymore."

"We would probably have to get the University of Hawaii's athletic department involved too because the 50-yard seats would be the farthest seats in the house, which I don't think they would go for," added Stadium Authority chair Kevin Chong Kee.

The Stadium Authority will meet next week to discuss the situation, but it may be several months before a final decision is made.

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Click here to see how the stands move

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[Mattingly]

How many baseball teams, from independent league, minor league affiliates or college/HS are there in Hawaii?

[DownUnderDodger]

It would probably attract a lot of Japanese interest and possibly Japanese players, given the large Japanese influence in Hawaii. Maybe even Korean interest would be there as well, as, from the last time I was in Hawaii, there was plenty of Korean tourism going on! Not sure it could sustain a MLB team though!

[mojorisin71]

The Hawaii Warriors are the only NCAA Division I program from Hawaii, and aside from the NFL Pro Bowl once a year, there are no pro sports there. Logistically, it would be difficult for teams to schedule games during the year there with the additional distance they'd have to travel.

Besides, I don't think Hawaii would have the fanbase needed to sustain a MLB team.

[Chisox73]

You also have to figure in the time difference between Hawaii and the mainland.Maybe a game or two at the beginning of the season like MLb did for Japan a couple of years ago.

Useless fact abaout the Hawaii Islanders; In 1970,Hawaii was the AAA team for the Cyhicago White Sox.That season,the Islanders outdrew the White Sox for the entire 1970 season.Almost unheard of from a minor league team.

[BasEbaLlKnoItAll]

It would be very hard to have a team in Hawaii. The travel would be just too hard. And the market isn't large enough. I would favor a Minor League team in Hawaii, because the travel problems wouldnt be as ridiculed. The only way it would really work is to make long home stands and long road trips. Two weeks at a time for instance. That is the only way a professional baseball team in Hawaii would work.

[west coast orange and black]

a hawaii-based club would be at a distinct disadvantage because of the travel time. now that amphetamines are included in drug testing, the players would find it that much more difficult to take their "a" game out there. the result could be a watered-down product.

[Bullwinkle]

Hawaii MLB

My son just played in Hawaii last weekend....He flew in from Orange County and that was still a 5 1/2 hour flight. The start time for games was 6:30 pm Hawaii time, 8:30 Cali time. (Only 2 hour while we are on standard time....three hour during daylight time)

The average attendance for the series was about 2,800 per game; all games are on TV live. (Average NCAA Div 1 team...west coast is only 1,000) Personally, I believe that Hawaii could for sure support a MLB team, but the cost and time travel would be huge. Just the time difference between east coast time to Hawaii time is a major problem.

[BristolBoy]

Travelling coast-to-coast is already a bit of a stretch on the players, surely, coast-to-coast-to-offshore island is going to make life even worse? Imagine the team's home/road splits though...