The county needs the money, and it’ll help make those morons who decided to build a baseball stadium in the middle of nowhere next to a mental hospital and a juvenile delinquency center look SLIGHTLY less stupid. (As opposed to…. you know, building it downtown, since the city’s been trying to renew downtown. Freaking Grijalva) As a Dbacks fan, I hope it works out because it’ll possibly encourage the Dbacks to stay in Tucson; same thing with the Rox, especially if the Sports Authority uses some of the money, along with the rent to be collected from the new Toros, to do some renovation on Hi Corbett.

My feeling, though, is that this group, being from MA, may not fully realize the ramifications of using an outdoor stadium in triple digit heat. Sure, it’s a decent facility in a vacuum, and the lovely AZ weather means you can train there year-round, and the higher altitude means the players get into better shape. But if they want to try and draw spectators, dark colored seats in the summer aren’t a very nice attraction. I expect that the developmental academy is a better idea, due not only to the relatively warm winters, but, in all practicality, to the abundance of Spanish speakers in southern AZ.

My guess is that this will largely be received with indifference, unfortunately. The idea of bringing a Japanese team actually makes a fair amount of sense, and I would expect that they’d get some support from MLB to get it to work. The novelty of having a foreign team may draw some fans early on, though, and I would expect it may be good for the Diamondbacks specifically, in that it’d get some Japanese players more familiar with Arizona. As it is now, the west coast teams and the big eastern cities are hogging most of the Japanese players.

Having real Japanese players in Tucson would probably be good for Sakura, as well, now that Gonzo’s gone. (He did all their commercials back in the day, famously referring to Mr. An as “Dad”.)

I really love the idea, but I’m not too terribly optimistic. It sounds like the county is doing a good job selling the idea to this Baseline Group.

My sense is that this’ll either go forward and succeed, or else the proposal will simply disappear like Houdini.

if Rio Nuevo had, say, included a minor league baseball stadium….