The four South Carolina Minor League Baseball teams — Charleston RiverDogs, Columbia Fireflies, Greenville Drive and Myrtle Beach Pelicans — are jointly raising funds for flood victims across the state. (more…)

The four South Carolina Minor League Baseball teams — Charleston RiverDogs, Columbia Fireflies, Greenville Drive and Myrtle Beach Pelicans — are jointly raising funds for flood victims across the state. (more…)
Things are progressing fast on a new 2016 Columbia (S.C.) ballpark: suites are on sale, and the team owners have released some more renderings of the facility. (more…)
Tuesday saw the groundbreaking of a new Columbia (S.C.) ballpark, Spirit Communications Park. The $37-million project ($30 million from the city, $7 million from team owner Hardball Capital) is set to open for the 2016 season. (more…)
We don’t know what team will be playing in Columbia, S.C., in 2016, but we do know the name of the new ballpark as a naming-rights deal was announced: Spirit Communications Park. (more…)
It went down exactly as Mayor Steve Benjamin promised: the Columbia (S.C.) City Council voted to move forward with a funding plan for a new ballpark on a 4-3 vote. The deal with Hardball Capital’s Jason Freier commits the city to borrowing $29 million for the ballpark construction and infrastructure costs. Hardball Capital will pay […]
Despite all the talk recently about Jason Freier’s pursuit of a new Columbia (S.C.) ballpark, he’s still working on a plan for a new Savannah Sand Gnats (Low Class A; Sally League) facility. The assumption by many — including Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin — is that the Sand Gnats would be ending up in South […]
The Columbia (S.C) City Council will hire a consultant to perform a cost/benefit analysis on a new ballpark pitched by MILB owner Jason Freier, as the city slows down on a proposed Bull Street facility. Freier has been working with a local developer, who has offered free land as part of a larger Bull Street […]
Columbia (S.C.) is the second-largest U.S. market without pro sports and could support a return of Minor League Baseball, but questions remain about a funding source for a proposed $41.8-million ballpark. A report prepared by Brailsford & Dunlavey indicates the market is robust enough to support minor-league baseball, despite some potential competition with the USC […]
Columbia (S.C.) Mayor Steve Benjamin wasn’t too subtle in describing a potential baseball partner for his city, leaving little doubt he was talking with Savannah Sand Gnats (Low Class A; Sally League) ownership about a new facility. In a newspaper interview, Benjamin talked about the existing owner also owning a new team in the Midwest […]
Retailer Cato Corp. is proposing a $450-million mixed-use development that would include the current site of Knights Stadium, the home of the Charlotte Knights (Class AAA; International League). The ballpark is slated to close at the end of the season, when the Knights make the move to a new Uptown ballpark. York County (S.C.) has […]
A proposal to extend a TiF district to include a new Augusta GreenJackets (Low Class A; Sally League) ballpark hit an expected snag after the Aiken County (S.C.) Council voted 4-2 to turn down the financing application. The ballpark would be part of a larger development that would include a 200-room hotel, convention center and […]
A group is proposing a renovation of Knights Stadium, in its last season as home of the Charlotte Knights (Class AAA; International League), to a racetrack. The group foresees the transformation of the ballpark to a racetrack, releasing some renderings of a converted ballpark (like the ones above) and setting up Web and Facebook pages. […]
At the ballpark, the term grandstand refers to the fan’s natural habitat; along the Atlantic coast, the Grand Strand indicates a stretch of beach land that proceeds over 60 miles in South Carolina — and the centerpiece city of the Grand Strand is Myrtle Beach, home of the Pelicans and TicketReturn.Com Field at Pelicans Ballpark. […]