Nashville Sounds: Sky Still Not in Danger of Falling
Two weeks ago, we wrote about the growing number of Chicken Little premonitions pointing towards the imminent departure (or demise) of the Nashville Sounds: a frosty relationship between ownership and the Mayor's office, local investors flirting with relocating a Jackson Double-A team, and a missed deadline to renew the lease at Greer Stadium.
Not surprisingly, the Sounds said don't believe the hype.
This morning, however, we got an email from a Sounds fan who was at last night's home finale. According to her, Greer was abuzz with news that the general manager was leaving and most of the staff was being laid off.
So we were curious: Was this more hot air, or an honest-to-God sign of the coming minor league baseball apocalypse in Nashville?
According to team president Glenn Yaeger, these recent developments would fall in the former category. GM Joe Hart has indeed left the team—but not, Yaeger says, because the Sounds are going in the tank.
Hart, a Baltimore native, was offered a job with Ripken Baseball. Which, if you grew up an Orioles' fan, is sort of like having God ask you to play a game of catch. And the layoffs? Yaeger says that's also true, but it's restricted to seasonal help such as picnic managers, same as they've done now for a decade.
Yaeger added that last week's meeting with the Mayor's office went so well, he now feels better about the Sounds' future in Nashville than he has in the past year. The public may not be confident in that future until a lease is signed. But it doesn't seem to be worrying Yaeger or the Sounds.
Comments
Who's going to miss them? The city offered them a great deal and they pissed it away quibbling over cents when dollars were on the table.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:54:14 PMThe press has cut Yaeger way too much slack in all this. The Sounds ownership wouldn't put up a cent and the deal even as proposed relied on totally unrealistic pricing for the TIF condos to prop up the Sounds. All the while Yaeger has played the press to make the Sounds like the victims because they didn't get the same deal as the Preds/Titans. That story just doesn't pan out.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 06:12:53 PMWho would miss em Freaky? About 400,000 common folks that cannot afford the elite price of the Preds and Titans.
Posted 09/01/2008 at 08:41:26 AMPost Politics has made this pathetic blog irrelevant.
You guys suck. I'm taking you off my list.
Maybe your out-of-town editor can find another immigrant child to humiliate.
Posted 09/02/2008 at 11:18:01 AMDid I miss the post about the immigrant child?
Posted 09/02/2008 at 09:10:02 PMWell you have to wonder why the sounds are trying so hard to keep it together. When you think about it the city is sorta the "landlord" in this mess, so what happens when your apt or house your renting breaks down? Your landlord fixes it or he's labeled a "slumlord". I can see eye to eye with the sounds. Its not all there responsibility to meet the ADA requirements. It should technically be all the city's, but it looks like the sounds want to lend a helping hand. Why can't both sides find resolution where they "both" win. Why does someone else have to get the better hand in this. Its stupid business.
Posted 09/03/2008 at 09:01:19 AMYou can see the Preds for not much more than a Sounds ticket. And the NHL is the premiere league of hockey.
Posted 09/03/2008 at 10:04:42 AMBurrito,
Most of the tickets are high priced but even so the Preds cannot survive on the low price tickets and need $$ millions in annual subsidies from Metro to keep stay viable. Hockey is a flawed biz model.
The low price tickets for the Sounds would be enough to make them profitable if they had a new stadium. No annual Metro handouts.
Posted 09/04/2008 at 10:39:30 AM