The Atlantic League, an independent baseball league set
to begin this May in the Northeast, "has persuaded five of
the six cities on its roster to build new 5,000- to 6,000-
seat ballparks almost entirely at the public expense,"
according to Kirk Johnson of the N.Y. TIMES. A total of
$110M in public financing has been committed altogether "for
teams that, with only weeks to go before opening day, still
exist for the most part on paper." Baseball "experts say
that in a market where there is so much major and minor
league baseball already, the Atlantic League's ambitions are
testing the limit of baseball both as a recreational drawing
card and a spur for economic revitalization." The league,
roughly the equivalent of Class AA, will have franchises in
Atlantic City, Newark and Somerset, NJ; Lehigh Valley, PA;
Bridgeport, CT; and Nashua, NH. Former Wall Street bond
trader Frank Boulton is league Chair and has "sought out
cities" that couldn't get a NAPBL team because of their
location and those that had public financing available for
economic development and new stadiums (N.Y. TIMES, 4/10).
