Colorado Rockies Hartford Yard Goats to Finish Year on Road
With a half-built new stadium and an impending court case coming, Colorado Rockies Double-A affiliate the Hartford Yard Goats will be spending the remainder of the season on the road.
In perhaps the least surprising announcement of the minor league baseball season, the Eastern League on Friday changed its schedule to move the Hartford Yard Goats’ remaining home games to the road, due to the team’s brand new stadium, Dunkin’ Donuts Park, still not being completed.
The announcement had been anticipated, and shifts the Yard Goats’ remaining home games to Manchester, New Hampshire; Binghamton, New York; Bowie, Maryland; and Trenton, New Jersey.
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“These final changes are being made due to the delayed availability of Dunkin’ Donuts Park,” the Eastern League said in a press release.
Construction of the park, which began in February 2015 and was slated to be ready for Opening Day 2016, has been an issue almost from the beginning. The publicly-funded facility that enticed the New Britain Rock Cats to move to Connecticut’s state capital has been behind schedule, over budget, and the subject of public mudslinging between the City of Hartford, the Yard Goats’ front office, and the developer. Originally slated to cost $56 million, the cost is already at least $66 million.
Delays in construction and cost overruns were discovered by the city in December, causing completion to be pushed back until mid-May. When the developer, DoNo Hartford and Centerplan Construction Co., missed the May 17th deadline for significant completion of the ballpark, the city terminated the contract.
The city alleges that the developer defaulted on its contract by missing the substantial completion date, while the developer claims the Hartford Stadium Authority (which represents the city) is at fault for issuing more than 100 change orders to the construction plan in April and May without having the means to pay for them.
The city has discussed publicly taking over as developer on the project, and as a result, Centerplan filed a lawsuit in superior court seeking an injunction that would forbid the city from completing construction on its own or hiring a new company.
“That lawsuit I think is Centerplan’s attempt to distract from the fact that they couldn’t deliver on their obligations to the city and we’re going to stay focused on our responsibility which is getting that insurance company to fulfill its obligations to the city of Hartford,” the city’s mayor, Luke Bronin, said.
While the two sides squabble, the Yard Goats’ have been forced to lay off front office personnel, and the city has been forced to spend $6,200 per day in fire department overtime because the facility doesn’t have a working sprinkler system and has to be kept on round-the-clock fire watch. Additionally, the city of Hartford is losing more than $1 million in 2016 due to lost ticket sales, parking fees, stadium naming rights, and taxes.
Worse yet, from a baseball perspective, an organization will spend an entire season displaced, and with no guarantee that their home will be ready for them in 2017.
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“While we are extremely disappointed that we will not have baseball in Hartford this season, we will continue to work with the city to bring Yard Goats fans and sponsors the best minor league ballpark in America,” the team’s general manager Tim Restall said after Friday’s decision.