This place is a ghost town.
- Thread starter WV_Celt
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Well, when your basketball team has little to NO post season activity to speak of for 30 years or more, and there is a 2-3 week GAP until Spring football starts, what do you expect??
Well, we could always be talking about baseball? Then again, that's pretty hard when your team doesn't have a field to play in.
There are many reasons for this, here are a few:
1 At the peak of excitement for Herd fans (when we joined C-USA) Bob Pruett left us, Mark Snyder came on and stunk it up we lost many fans.
2 our conference went from the best of the rest to the worst other than Sun Belt. So now Herd fans expect 8-0 in conference and there is no excitement about C-USA anymore
3 this board allowed Eer fans to ruin it for years and many Herd fans found other pro-Herd sites
Many other reasons, but IMO the down turn in the program was the biggest combined with realignment. And now we beat up on nobodies and no one is proud of it. Had we went 7-1 when ECU, Houston, and UCF were still around maybe we have something to be proud of. Now we have nothing to be proud of unless we go 13-0 because no one cares about FIU, Charlotte and North Texas wins. It's sad really.
1 At the peak of excitement for Herd fans (when we joined C-USA) Bob Pruett left us, Mark Snyder came on and stunk it up we lost many fans.
2 our conference went from the best of the rest to the worst other than Sun Belt. So now Herd fans expect 8-0 in conference and there is no excitement about C-USA anymore
3 this board allowed Eer fans to ruin it for years and many Herd fans found other pro-Herd sites
Many other reasons, but IMO the down turn in the program was the biggest combined with realignment. And now we beat up on nobodies and no one is proud of it. Had we went 7-1 when ECU, Houston, and UCF were still around maybe we have something to be proud of. Now we have nothing to be proud of unless we go 13-0 because no one cares about FIU, Charlotte and North Texas wins. It's sad really.
In fact, we have two. One on Rt 2 and one in Charleston. Doesn't seem to be a real big problem. I know I have enjoyed games at both places.
Yesterday we had a softball doubleheader along with a baseball game. Today another softball DH. I love spring sports.
There's some truth to this (although the pay board is very active) and I've done my best over the past few months to eliminate most WVU fans from this board. A few are allowed to participate in discussion because they're respectful and are actually interested in discussion.
We've also eliminated the smack board, which really helped with the WVU fan spillover to herd Nation.
Hopefully things are noticeably better for the posters here and things pick up as Spring Ball rolls around.
I think that until any conference stays together long enough to create some excitement, the feeling will remain dull about conference USA. For heaven sake, we must stop the change over and over. I know one thing I want to be at the WKU game this November, (more so than the Louisville game) I will enjoy the game greatly if we can whip WKU. It does really get me the amount of people that can only see the bad and not the good in Marshall and Huntington. MU does a great job considering the area served and alumni giving. if you can help direct business to the area do so. if you can support the city and MU do so. If I were there I would be helping to beautify the roadways into the city and attending every game. DO SOMETHING yourselves. buy a bag of good grass seed and spread it in one area of Ritter park and take pleasure in someone else enjoying a picnic in that grassy area later. its may be thankless but it could mean the difference of someone moving to Huntington or attending Marshall. example: my wife is form Tulsa and while walking through Ritter said the trees are beautiful and the hills and creek too. but the grass is little more then weed. So people do notice these things. the weeds along the medians coming in the city are a mess. Fix it. OK I am done. the conference must be stable to create the atmosphere and fan followings needed. Thank God it is not the MAC..
Ding ding ding - we have a winner. Too much deference shown to people talking smack (both ways), threads weren't moved to the smack board where they belonged, and after a while anybody whose fandom wasn't 100% centered around hating WVU bolted for.....greener pastures.
It is cyclical. Recruiting talk is elsewhere. MU Baseball is what it is. Fact is we overachieve considering what we have to put up with. Even if we had a proper stadium and a proper team, you are not going to get a bunch of posts about it. The remaining sports no body much cares about. If tennis or softball or golf or whatever has a nice run, somebody will start a thread but it will all boil down to "glad to see that". There will be more activity at spring practice, but really until August or so, what is there to say that has not been said?
Having 2, both of which are a significant drive from campus means we have none. I've been to both fields as well to watch the Herd. But honestly, there's seating for 50-75 people at the Kennedy center, and driving 2 hours (round trip) to watch a college baseball game in Charleston is a real pain. Not having a true home field, is a detriment to the program because it makes it hard for students and locals to show up to many games. The softball complex is pretty great though, and I really wish we could get something like that for the baseball program.
College baseball has little to no interest in most markets (outside of the very top tier of ACC, SEC, Big12 and Pac12).
I went to a game at the University of Tennessee two weekends ago and they were letting people in free if you brought a canned good… Place was still only 40 percent full.
Baseball as a whole is declining and has been for several decades. The primary reasons for this are… 1. People in major cities not named New York, Boston and Chicago only care when their team is in contention. 2. It's bad on TV. The games take too long and lack action for a majority of the busy American public. 3. The sport has been passed in the marketing/PR realm by football and basketball.
Baseball is never going to cease to exist, but it does appear doomed to be third in the sports pecking order in America. At least for the foreseeable future.
I went to a game at the University of Tennessee two weekends ago and they were letting people in free if you brought a canned good… Place was still only 40 percent full.
Baseball as a whole is declining and has been for several decades. The primary reasons for this are… 1. People in major cities not named New York, Boston and Chicago only care when their team is in contention. 2. It's bad on TV. The games take too long and lack action for a majority of the busy American public. 3. The sport has been passed in the marketing/PR realm by football and basketball.
Baseball is never going to cease to exist, but it does appear doomed to be third in the sports pecking order in America. At least for the foreseeable future.
While you are very correct about the decline of baseball, and the fact that it doesn't sell well on TV you forget that it is perhaps the most common professional sport across the country. With 3-5 levels of minor league divisions (depending on how your count rookie/Low A, and High A teams) there are 240 minor league teams across the country (plus the 30 teams in the majors). I make a point of visiting minor league teams whenever I'm travelling and they are often well attended, despite the varied prices.
College and minor league baseball is about is about ticket sales and concessions just like our basketball program (and sponsored announcements/events at the games).
While the power is an hour away, those in Ohio and KY parts of the tri-state likely wouldn't want to travel that far to watch a minor league team but might drive 10-20 minutes to watch a college team play if we had a decent stadium in the city (and sold beer - cause what's a baseball game without a good cold beer).
College and minor league baseball is about is about ticket sales and concessions just like our basketball program (and sponsored announcements/events at the games).
While the power is an hour away, those in Ohio and KY parts of the tri-state likely wouldn't want to travel that far to watch a minor league team but might drive 10-20 minutes to watch a college team play if we had a decent stadium in the city (and sold beer - cause what's a baseball game without a good cold beer).
Yes. And actually we have three, considering we also play games in Beckley.
Our baseball situation is a recruiting nightmare. Recruits are told that all of their conference games will be away games. Even the "home" ones, played either 50 or 110 miles away. That is a HUGE issues for recruiting.
It is well past time to either get a proper field built in town. IMHO, it does not really need to be on-campus and, IMHO, the pipe-dream ideas of buiding something acceptable for a minor league team are not realistic. That, or dump the program and add something else (IIRC we are at the minimum for # of male sports for Div I status) . Wrestling? Swimming? I don't know.
I totally agree, we need to drop the minor league idea, and just build something that's good for a college team and within walking distance of the main campus. There's certainly space, and the university has shown a willingness to build for other sports (like soccer) not too far from campus. With the power in Charleston I really don't see another team moving into Huntington, especially with the declining population.
But, nothing is going to happen as long as the current mayor is in office. A couple years ago he said the city would build a stadium (with what money I don't know). Marshall is probably going to wait that out to see if it ever develops before they even think about doing anything themselves.
But, nothing is going to happen as long as the current mayor is in office. A couple years ago he said the city would build a stadium (with what money I don't know). Marshall is probably going to wait that out to see if it ever develops before they even think about doing anything themselves.
recruits/players don't mind playing their conference games in charleston. it's a really nice park, minor league personnel there watching games, etc. the bigger detriment, and not that significant to most of the kids we recruit, is having to play non-conference games out at rt 2.
Unless it as changed, CUSA has required us to have baseball. I think those that don't have it were grandfathered in.
Whether a kid (not from around here) is playing baseball to pay for school or has ideas on playing at the next level, the idea that, everything else being equal, he would sign on for our deal as opposed to a standard set up at a similar school is just hard to believe. Academics matter and facilities matter.
I have heard the "we are required to play baseball" line before. UNT and UTEP don't.
As to the minor leagues, there are a half dozen groups around town that would love to play minor league owner, if only MU and/or the city would just build them a ballpark and rent it to them for $1/year. It will not work here, even at the rookie level. The Cubs failed, remember. Huntington is not Charleston. Marshall already fills all the live gate sports demand Huntington is going to generate. Charleston has no major college filling that role, and so the Power can find a niche (and even at that, are heavily subsidized by the city due to intimate relationships between the mayor and the team's #1 fan).
I have heard the "we are required to play baseball" line before. UNT and UTEP don't.
As to the minor leagues, there are a half dozen groups around town that would love to play minor league owner, if only MU and/or the city would just build them a ballpark and rent it to them for $1/year. It will not work here, even at the rookie level. The Cubs failed, remember. Huntington is not Charleston. Marshall already fills all the live gate sports demand Huntington is going to generate. Charleston has no major college filling that role, and so the Power can find a niche (and even at that, are heavily subsidized by the city due to intimate relationships between the mayor and the team's #1 fan).
The kids don't mind playing at route 2, but it's a horrible field to watch a game. Seating is awful.
Once again, if you want Marshall to build a baseball stadium, choose the sport you want to drain the money from - football or basketball. Baseball is a red ink generator that we play because our conference requires it, and if it wasn't for the deal Marshall has with the APP here in Charleston we'd have lost tens of millions of dollars on it in the last decade - money that would have come out of the budget for the sports people actually care about.
And please bear in mind when complaining about the arduous two-hour round trip journey to the far off land of Charleston, realize about half of the fanbase makes the reverse version of that drive for football and basketball, every game, every year.
And please bear in mind when complaining about the arduous two-hour round trip journey to the far off land of Charleston, realize about half of the fanbase makes the reverse version of that drive for football and basketball, every game, every year.
it's more that it's not close to campus, and honestly more so because of our weather, they don't get to use it that much. i know this year the first time we were outside on a baseball field was the day before our opening series against florida a&m. that's what's tough on our guys (and a lot of northern-ish schools).
their agreement with cusa is obviously different. our agreement when we joined cusa is that we could carry x number of sports, with certain ones required and baseball was one of those sports.
They all drive to the Rte. 2 field so that's not that big of a deal and they like the games there so they don't have to bus to Charleston and sleep in a hotel. And they got outside at least 4 or 5 times before the season opener, but that's still not enough. And you're right about it being a problem for all northern schools and many have it worse that WV schools.
Doesn't mean that sport can't and won't draw enough support and fans to be around for the long haul. Seems like there are, as noted in another post, enough fans to make minor league baseball viable in many locales throughout the country, including some in West Virginia. Economic "depressed" area like Mercer County supports TWO minor league baseball teams. Huntington has ZERO!! Same with college baseball; college World Series is more popular than ever. Non baseball school like WVU spent what, 20-25 million, along with Morgantown to build new stadium there. This week, VA Tech announced 14-18 million in improvements, upgrades, luxury boxes for stadium in Blacksburg.
My problem is baseball issue in Huntington is a microcosm of city's failures and inertia in general. For over half a century, city and MU have discussed, brainstormed, planned and TALKED to DEATH the idea of a baseball stadium. We've gone from St. Cloud's Swamp, to RT 60 University Heights Pony League caliber facility, to Kennedy Center on Rt. 2. ALL INADEQUATE!! No closer today to a modern, quality and first class baseball facility. Yet in that half century, Huntington has lost HALF of its population. But city HASN'T shrunk in term of area. With exodus 40,000 people, obviously lots of FLAT LAND and ABANDONED Buildings lying around between I-64 and Ohio River. Yet city can't find the mechanism, funds and wherewithal to condemn, raze and clear all the idle flat land within its boundaries!! Initiate condemnation proceedings, clear abandoned housing, warehouses and industrial cites, provide adequate utilities to said sites, market and develop same for light industrial, commercial use, new residential facilities, and for public projects, like a baseball stadium, modern tennis center and courts, both for MU and public's use, etc.
Huntington has long been long on talk and short, and slow, on development. Charleston sports writer years ago hit nail on head, dubbing Huntington as the "we will" city. Today, at end of first term of current mayor, still half of the Hal Greer public housing site still has not been razed. Will entire site be clear by end of second term? Will any commercial development be located on site? Same applies to the Riverfront/marina development site? Will any concrete development be forthcoming in near future? As for baseball facility, it remains, in 2016, as much of a pipedream as the idea of a new downtown arena that some have advocated to replace both the Big Sandy Arena and the Henderson Center!
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Interesting. I thought the post was about this board being a ghost town but it quickly morphed into a 2 day bitch session about not having a baseball park. 
Hey, jocktalker, it has gotten some activity on this board hasn't it? Original post complained of no activity. Now, complaint about the activity. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.Interesting. I thought the post was about this board being a ghost town but it quickly morphed into a 2 day bitch session about not having a baseball park.
outside as in on the football field. talking with one of the staff members, the first time they stepped foot on a diamond this year was when they got to tallahassee a couple days before the season opener.
As far as attracting fans goes, I feel that Huntington could do well with a nice park - both in minor league and college play. I know that a ton of people on the WV side would love to go to a nice park without driving all the way to Charleston. On the KY side of the tristate, there's three teams anyone cares about at all - UK basketball, Reds baseball, Bengals football. Basketball barely conflicts with baseball, NFL not at all. MLB is a bit different, but out of ten reds fans, maybe two will go to multiple games, three to one game, and five to none. I would imagine the OH side of the tristate I'm not as positive, but I would imagine you would just replace UK Basketball with OSU Football. Ultimately, you have a lot of baseball fans in the area, and just a few (almost exclusively on the WV side of the tri-state) actually go to Charleston for games, and the rest would love to have baseball with less than a three hour drive.
Outside of attracting fans, I feel that if we had a local minor league team - particularly one that marketed itself as the Tri-State's Team instead of Huntington WV's Team - the tristate area could really establish an identity for itself outside of "Way over here at the unpopulated edge of KY/OH" or "Little Detroit, WV." That alone is something this entire area needs more than anything else if it wants to attract more business, industry, and population, and rejoin the rest of the country in getting out of the recession. A little baseball team of course wouldn't do it all, but it would absolutely be a good start. After all, if you were a business looking to expand, where would you rather look - a large metropolitan area spanning three states, with a major university, located close to many large cities (Lexington, Louisville, Cincinatti, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, DC, Tidewater, Richmond, Roanoke, Charlotte, Nashville, Knoxville); or would you rather expand to a tiny city in the edge of nowhere in Ky/OH, or a small city in a sparsely populated state.
It's a small difference between the two, but there is absolutely no identity to the tri-state right now, just to each of three major cities in the area. And although a minor league team (along with MU Baseball finally having a home) seems like a small thing doomed to failure, it could be an excellent start to building towards revitalizing this entire area. Only a start, and there would be many other things that would need to happen in addition, but I don't see what else could get that start at this point. But first it would need a home, marketing to the entire tristate, and the support of the tristate.
tl;dr - Build it, and they will come.
Outside of attracting fans, I feel that if we had a local minor league team - particularly one that marketed itself as the Tri-State's Team instead of Huntington WV's Team - the tristate area could really establish an identity for itself outside of "Way over here at the unpopulated edge of KY/OH" or "Little Detroit, WV." That alone is something this entire area needs more than anything else if it wants to attract more business, industry, and population, and rejoin the rest of the country in getting out of the recession. A little baseball team of course wouldn't do it all, but it would absolutely be a good start. After all, if you were a business looking to expand, where would you rather look - a large metropolitan area spanning three states, with a major university, located close to many large cities (Lexington, Louisville, Cincinatti, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, DC, Tidewater, Richmond, Roanoke, Charlotte, Nashville, Knoxville); or would you rather expand to a tiny city in the edge of nowhere in Ky/OH, or a small city in a sparsely populated state.
It's a small difference between the two, but there is absolutely no identity to the tri-state right now, just to each of three major cities in the area. And although a minor league team (along with MU Baseball finally having a home) seems like a small thing doomed to failure, it could be an excellent start to building towards revitalizing this entire area. Only a start, and there would be many other things that would need to happen in addition, but I don't see what else could get that start at this point. But first it would need a home, marketing to the entire tristate, and the support of the tristate.
tl;dr - Build it, and they will come.
The fixation on minor league baseball is one of the major (no pun intended) issues that has kept us from building. There have been several times that we have been near the position to build a proper park for MU's needs. But the cadre of wannabe baseball owners keep wanting somebody else (not them) to build something they can use for their minor league dreams. It is time to forget minor league baseball and build something MU can use. Nice field, proper clubhouse (or positioned near enough campus to use existing stuff), nice seats for a couple hundred, overflow sit on the bank for a couple hundred more. That is all.
As to Mercer County, yeah. But how does the Appy League work? It works like this. The MLB team pays for everything. Players, staff, uniforms, travel, everything. Plus a fee to the "sponsor". And most of the players live with host families at no cost. All you need is a field. If you can find somebody to build and upkeep a field, the first $ you make is profit. So the Mercer County school board (Princeton) and the town (Bluefield) are willing to spend tax money on these fields.
But,, again, WTF else is there to do there? Watch the cars rust? Here, Marshall already soaks up 100% of the live gate sports demand. Different.
As to WVU, it and Morgantown (the field is not actually in Morgantown but in the speedtrap Barney Fife "town" of Granville) spent zero $$ on the ballpark. 100% WV taxpayer money. (Some Spamite will now yell NO really loudly and perhaps even call me a girl, does not change the facts.) IMHO, MH was promised something in return for not raising a fuss about that insider deal, but everybody else involved on all three sides (WVU, MU, and state) are all now out of office, dead, or in jail).
I think everybody who is old enough realizes that the biggest mistake the city made during its long sad expiriment with the city manager form of government was the HCC/Henderson Center. In some alternate universe Huntington and MU built a 14 to 16 K all chairback arena. Wow.
But, it is too late now. The state is broke and there is a war on coal and we (coal) are looking like we are going to lose for the 3rd time in a row. MU is broke. Huntington is broke. We are going to be in the HC for the next 70 years.
cusa's stadium requirements require more than that, otherwise we'd just play our conference games out at route 2.
mlb teams pay the salaries of all minor leaguers in their system, but the minor league team/owner pays the rest of the expenses. that's the way it is in the international league on down to the appy league.
Hey, jocktalker, it has gotten some activity on this board hasn't it? Original post complained of no activity. Now, complaint about the activity. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I, for one, have enjoyed the discussion but I'd really like to know if this is what Celt hoped for in his initial post.
Ahh, the vaunted "CUSA standards". Which nobody has ever been able to actually produce a copy of.
And, with respect, not in the Appy League. It, and I believe the Pioneer as well, are not run the way the rest of the minors are. The Blue Jays and Rays pay the "owners" (actually there are no owners, both teams are non-profit corporations) a fee that covers everything. To the extent that profit matters (it does not) whatever they take in is profit. If you have ever been to a game anywhere in the Appy League thinking they take in enough money at the gate to cover the cost of anything is just wrong.
if they don't exist how come we don't play our conference games at the kennedy center?
the tampa bay rays own the princeton rays, not a non-profit corporation. to add to that, the burlington royals and pulaski yankees are owned by local individuals. basically the rest of the appy league is owned by their parents mlb franchises. parent ownership of affiliates is common across all of milb, and becoming more common.
OK sorry. Like I said, there are a half dozen or so people around Huntington that want to play pretend baseball owner. If only Marshall and or Huntington would pay the bills. Obviously you are one. It an't happening.
now that you've admitted to being wrong on that, back to the cusa stadium standards. if there were no such standards, why don't we just play our games out at the kennedy center? surely, it'd be more cost efficient than having to put the entire baseball team in a hotel all weekend in charleston/beckley, right?
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