With the Staten Island Yankees being abandoned by their MLB namesake and MLB, the borough of Staten Island lost a baseball team as the Staten Island Yankees threw the towel. But now it seems that the independent Atlantic League will return to Richmond County Bank Ballpark, the former New York-Penn League ballpark.
According to ballparkdigest.com, an investment group is negotiating with the Atlantic League and these negotiations are in the final stages.
The investment group is led by John Catsimatidis, head of the Gristedes Foods grocery chain. New Jersey politician Eric Shuffler and Dany Garcia, chairwoman and owner of the XFL, are also involved in the investment group.
In the past months, the New York City Economic Development Corporation has been discussing investing $5 million in Richmond County Bank Park in order to make it fit for an Atlantic League team. Part of this investment would be a completely new artificial turf and new seating.
If the deal between the investment group and the Atlantic League will be sealed, the league will expand to nine teams for the 2022 season. Since a further expansion is only planned in 2023, it is very likely the league will form a travel team, likely named Road Warriors, as tenth team for the 2022 season. The addition of travel teams is an often used option when an indy league has an odd number of teams.
Yours truly is looking forward to the upcoming name the team contest and uniform reveal. 🙂
Dutch Baseball Hangout 