Blaze’s move to Salinas halted for now

The Bakersfield Blaze will not move to Salinas for the time being. The owners of the California League (A Advanced) club, negotiated with the owner of the site where they wanted to build a new ballpark but eventually they could not strike a deal.  According to the owner of the Blaze it is all about money….

This doesn’t mean that Salinas is off the radar, but the chosen location is. There are more options in the Monterey Bay area.

The Seattle Mariners’ satellite club is playing in historic Sam Lynn Ballpark in Bakersfield. The team claims that the games played there are the last of the day. The games only start when the sun has set behind the outfield wall; otherwise the batters are bothered by the sunlight.

Sun set behind the outfield of Sam Lynn Park

Over the last few years, the Blaze didn’t do very well at the turnstiles. Attendance wise they were dead last in the California league over the past five seasons. Even clinching a play off spot in their last four seasons didn’t help.

Game average
2014 (827), 2013 (805), 2012 (637), 2011 (572), 2010 (932)

Season total
2014 (57,057), 2013 (56,345), 2012 (43,969), 2011 (40,056), 2010 (64,321)

Now the fans know that the owners are looking to move the team, you can wonder if the few fans that showed up last season, will return next year.

The city of Bakersfield has about 355,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area around 840,000.
Salinas has about 164,000 citizens. Monterey County has about 415,000 inhabitants.

When I look to the population numbers of both cities, I wonder how Salinas can support a baseball team, if a much bigger city like Bakersfield even can’t. A new ballpark in Bakersfield might help the club, but in 2013 they cancelled a new ballpark plan because of the lack of private funding.