The defunct, one-and-done North Country Baseball League, which emerged from Colin Cummins’ failed effort to launch the East Coast Baseball League, has become The Empire Professional Baseball League. Eddie Gonzalez, Director of Baseball Operations, had this to say in an e-mail:
“[W]e have merged over with the newly established Empire Baseball League. We wanted to let you know that the league will be better then ever with a true focus on professional player development and career advancement. This is the exact same league as the North Country Baseball League re-branded as The Empire Professional Baseball League.”
The league will operate with four teams, including the Watertown (NY) Bucks, Old Orchard Beach (ME) Surge, Rome (NY) City Explorers, and Albany (NY) Wild. Read announcement here. In related news, Matthew Snyder has joined the organization as director of business administration. Read announcement here. Thanks to John Cerone for sharing the e-mail.
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Bleeker is not a good situation. That’s why the current collegiate team moved to St. Rose. Again, you can’t start up on Christmas and expect to run a league. It takes at least ONE year of planning, fundraising, etc..to get this going. And, just because you pay someone $350 a month doesn’t make it QUALITY pro ball. Brian is spot on. This ruins markets.
Good God. These poor communities. They just don’t know when to say no. Let’s start the pool. When will the league fold? Or over/under on how long it lasts. Rome already has multiple users for that field and Albany has more teams than they can support now. Watertown is always a mess. But hey, for $350-450 a month minus tryout costs, you too can be a pro!
Besides Old Orchard, do any of the other cities even have a proper ballpark to function in during the summer months? I am not sure why Watertown cannot fit in soundly to one of the collegiate wood bat league’s in upstate New York. Also, do owners expect the new Albany franchise to compete against the ValleyCats of the NYPL? It looks like the folks in Newburgh were wise enough not to get back into this league of a robust four.
Jason, Watertown did at one time fit nicely into a summer league but politics seemed to get in the way of reality and they chose Collin Cummins. Enough said there. Albany…who knows where they will play. The collegiate team there plays at St. Rose and have a nice relationship with the ValleyCats. Again, when you sucker municipalities into promising $$ for facilities, they don’t do their due diligence. I would recommend to these places if they really want older players..just start men’s leagues. It won’t be much different in terms of level of play and people won’t get screwed out of pay or hundreds of thousands of dollars for operating costs.
Sounds like they are going to use Bleecker Stadium in Albany. The field may be ok, but it is close to the downtown and had limited parking. The area around the park appears to be a bit sketchy as well. Can’t imagine that Albany will be able to support two pro teams and a college summer team. Same with Rome – they just got a new college league team so do they really need a pro team as well?
I just find it odd that neither of the existing teams has even mentioned this league on their sites or FB pages. And there has been zero articles in the local newspapers about this league.