Federal League team to play entire home schedule outdoors
From the department of bad ideas comes this from the Federal League. The Williamsport Outlaws -- who just moved from New Jersey -- will play an entire season outdoors.
Really, this is going to happen. That's because the Outlaws moved to Williamsport where there was actually no place for them to play at the moment.
Williamsport does not have anything like the arena near Wilkes-Barre. It does not even have in ice rink.
What Billtown does have is Historic Bowman Field where the CrossCutters play baseball.
And when that season's over, the Williamsport Outlaws will play their hockey games outdoors at the future Pond at Historic Bowman Field.
Talk about foresight, huh? Move first, ask important questions like do we have a place to play later.
To clarify, there are plans for a place to play -- indoors -- in the works. They want to build a civic center for the team to play in, but those don't go up overnight. So instead you have a team looking to play outdoors.
As you might imagine given that it's a minor-league baseball stadium in Williamsport, Pa. and second oldest minor league park still being used in the States, there is no retractable roof on the stadium. Shocking, I know. But that means they will have to battle the elements as they come. An unseasonably warm 80-degree day in October? A deluge in November? All possibilities, and all things they would have to deal with.
That's going to make life awfully tough on teams travelling into Williamsport for a game should it have to be postponed. It's not like they can line up a doubleheader the next time the team comes into town.
Plus you have to wonder about the quality of the ice all season long. We see the best ice-makers in the world work every year on the rink at the NHL's Winter Classic and even that is severely sub-par with regular NHL ice and the game suffers for it.
That doesn't even mention the potential impact this could have on the baseball field for the Crosscutters, a Class-A short season affiliate of the Phillies.
If this works out well -- hard to imagine -- maybe this opens the door for the Islanders to play at MetLife Stadium when the lease runs out. Just a thought.
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