SEPTEMBER 20, 2003
New local owners believe in baseball
Commentary By BRETT ORZECHOWSKI


Published on 9/20/2003 - Local Sports - THE POST-STAR

GLENS FALLS -- New York Collegiate Baseball League Commissioner Dave Chamberlain is an optimist.

He arrived in Glens Falls on Friday and surveyed a decaying East Field with new Adirondack owner Charles Adams.

Chamberlain called East Field's conditions "ideal."

It's a start. One person believes in the product.

Then at a meeting, he welcomed another addition to the NYCBL for next summer, a hand-wrapped rival just to the south of Glens Falls. Dan Scaring and Keith Rogers, both 34 years old and former players in the NYCBL, were introduced as the owners of the league's other new franchise in Saratoga Springs.

This is Glens Falls' fifth attempt at organized baseball in the last quarter century. It will be Saratoga's first. Even though the two cities are at different ends of the NYCBL spectrum, the objective was made clear.

It's baseball, albeit not professional. That's the league's selling point.

"If you're in this league to get rich," Chamberlain said in a moment of clarity, "you're in the wrong place."

There has been no formal announcement about the new Saratoga team. Scaring said Friday that everything needed financially to support the team is secured.

The management hopes that the Fillies, a clever, cross gender nickname, hopefully catches on at East Side Rec in Saratoga Springs, a facility with considerably less seating than East Field but one that's in a similar residential surrounding as the 23-year-old structure. A proven fan-friendly asset.

They are entering a growing league, which expects to field 14 teams. Chamberlain is optimistic because of how the teams are run. Adams and Rogers and Scaring are from different cities with a considerably different look and baseball feel.

But in order to be successful, they will follow the NYCBL's guideline, and hope it works.

Adams was tired of seeing a vacant East Field, home of his semipro football Greenjackets. Adams wants to see baseball.

Scaring and Rogers had similar thoughts when starting the Saratoga team. Scaring put the thoughts of the duo, who played in the NYCBL in 1990, in perspective.

"We're never going to own a minor league baseball team," said Scaring, a managing partner of Shaker Hills Hospital Group. Rogers is an engineer with Verizon. "This is the only opportunity for us to do this. This league allows guys like us to run a baseball team."

The old Lumberjacks booster club was also in attendance Friday at East Field. They made a good point. Any baseball is good baseball here and in Saratoga. They want a rivalry. They want preseason exhibitions.

There is still a calling for baseball here. How much support it will receive is up to the fans.

It's the owners so far, nothing else, that make Chamberlain an optimist.

The guys who are running these teams know they are regular guys. They will take a hit financially, so the longevity of baseball is once again based on the fan support and perhaps something else.

After the Lumberjacks left, some people said the reason baseball didn't last in Glens Falls was because it wasn't promoted properly. Curt Jacey, the Lumberjacks general manager, wasn't a local product.

With both new teams, the local tie is there. The support, though, must be threefold: from the management, the fans and local officials.

There was an irreverent moment in the meeting, signaling that in 10 months baseball has sadly become an afterthought.

"Charles has had very good success with the Lumberjacks," Glens Falls Mayor Robert Regan said, throwing in a Freudian slip when discussing Adams' managerial background.

"I'm sorry Charles. I meant the Greenjackets. We ran the Lumberjacks out of town."

There was laughter.

With baseball next summer in Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs, let's remain as optimistic as Chamberlain was when he first saw East Field.