While the Reno Aces are basking in the warmth of a new ballpark, the folks in Las Vegas are complaining yet again about the substandard conditions at Cashman Field.
In the battle of the Nevada ballparks, we have a clear winner: Aces Ballpark trumps Cashman Field, hands down. And that’s got some folks in Las Vegas mad.
Well, Ron Kantowski is mad, anyway. He’s a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun, and he did a comparison of the two ballparks, spending most of his time lamenting the lost opportunities for a new facility in Sin City:
The thing is, we didn’t have to start a stadium project now. We could have passed a rental car tax and started it 14 months ago, like they did in Reno. Or five years ago, when the Dodgers complained there weren’t enough batting cages at Cashman Field. Or in 1996, when the Oakland A’s opened the season here when the Oakland Coliseum was under repair, and Mike Bordick and Jason Giambi got dressed in the hotel, like an American Legion team, because there wasn’t enough room in the locker room.
But unlike in Reno, where the politicians and other movers and shakers think Triple-A baseball is a pretty big deal, ours thought the Montreal Expos were serious about moving here.
So now Reno has a new team and a new ballpark while we’ve got goats mowing the infield grass and signs in the parking lot that look like they haven’t been painted since the ballpark opened in 1983.
Las Vegas poses an interesting situation for MiLB. It’s a big market, but not necessarily a good one.
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