OT: 4-6 week delay for Yard Goats Stadium

[upstater]

I doubt that either Richmond or Providence would ever envy Hartford at all. You're looking at 2 good cities and one crappy one, even with this stadium. Hartford's just circlin' the drain.

Richmond actually has a huge baseball stadium controversy going on. Much bigger than Hartford's.

 

[huskymedic]

Yard Goats Owner Solomon Doesn't Hold Back — And He's Not Happy
http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-jacobs-column-yard-goats-0109-20160108-column.html

 

[TRest]

Yard Goats Owner Solomon Doesn't Hold Back — And He's Not Happy
http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-jacobs-column-yard-goats-0109-20160108-column.html

I believe his father got Manchester, NH to build his team a little palace so he went looking for his own. Only Hartford was dumb enough

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Buffalo has a beautiful downtown stadium over looking the harbor, and it has been there for years. But there is so little interest in minor league baseball, they only get a few thousand fans per game. It never contributed anything really to life downtown, though now all around it there are lots of restaurants and bars. But those popped up in the last 3 years for reasons quite other than baseball. Baseball has very little to do with it and other than the pretty venue, I can think of very little that's to be gained from this. I catch a few Pawtucket games a year.

This is the rare game with packed stands. I think they get about 500k fans for 80 games.

I thought I read a while back that the Buffalo baseball stadium was built with the ability to be expanded to 40K should MLB ever consider an expansion team fort he city, which is very, very unlikely.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Reminds me of a cop from NH way back when I lived in the state when the annual public record were released, a certain town cop stood out was the highest paid police officer in the entire state, primarily due to the the amount of overtime he worked. Naturally, as NH is home to the highest vanity plate per capita rate in the country, his own plate wound-up on the front page as it read "OT King" The taxpayers if Windham (pronounced Wind HAM in NH, which drove me nuts), were not impressed.

http://www.cnht.org/news/2008/06/30/nh-cop-overtime-king-retires/

 

[upstater]

I thought I read a while back that the Buffalo baseball stadium was built with the ability to be expanded to 40K should MLB ever consider an expansion team fort he city, which is very, very unlikely.

That would be interesting, but I don't see how. They couldn't build an upper deck, but then again, the entire outfield is empty. There are no stands there, and the stadium seating ends somewhere up the baselines. But that would require double the seating and far away from home plate. It would be positively Fenway-ish. For Buffalo to have another sports franchise, the city would have to add 300,000 people. 1.3m in Buffalo + burbs, 1.2m in Rochester, 500k in Ft. Erie, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Ontario. Add 300k in the core of Buffalo, and you'd have 3.3m living within one hour's drive of the stadium.

 

[upstater]

Reminds me of a cop from NH way back when I lived in the state when the annual public record were released, a certain town cop stood out was the highest paid police officer in the entire state, primarily due to the the amount of overtime he worked. Naturally, as NH is home to the highest vanity plate per capita rate in the country, his own plate wound-up on the front page as it read "OT King" The taxpayers if Windham (pronounced Wind HAM in NH, which drove me nuts), were not impressed.

http://www.cnht.org/news/2008/06/30/nh-cop-overtime-king-retires/

My neighbor's cousin at his Christmas party was telling everyone that the best thing he ever did was retire and move to Florida because the taxes in New York State were insane. He retired from the police force at age 45 with a big pension, 25 years on the force.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

My neighbor's cousin at his Christmas party was telling everyone that the best thing he ever did was retire and move to Florida because the taxes in New York State were insane. He retired from the police force at age 45 with a big pension, 25 years on the force.

Retirirng in FL is one thing, raising a family in FL is another as I have heard very little complementary things about public schools there. Sometimes, one does get what one pays for.

 

[upstater]

Retirirng in FL is one thing, raising a family in FL is another as I have heard very little complementary things about public schools there. Sometimes, one does get what one pays for.

Oh I wasn't criticizing him for any of it except the hypocrisy. If you're retiring with a nice pension for public service at age 45, it's probably because the state you work in has a high tax rate.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Oh I wasn't criticizing him for any of it except the hypocrisy. If you're retiring with a nice pension for public service at age 45, it's probably because the state you work in has a high tax rate.

No argument there. Some public service retirement programs are insane such as using 3 year final average salary for pensions or in NJ where one person can work to retirement in one county, retire, and then go work for another government entity (city/county/state) and get additional credit to his/her prior retirement plan for that work.

Public education in NH is a tricky thing, too. Since NH does not have sales tax nor income tax, schools are almost 100% dependents on property tax. So towns that can and are willing to pay horrendous property tax bills to fund education have very good schools (Durham, Exeter, Bow, Hanover, Bedford, Amherst, Windham, etc.) have excellent schools; but, if the will and the resources are not there, then the schools (Hillsborough, Claremont, Franklin, etc.) they are a disaster.

 

[upstater]

No argument there. Some public service retirement programs are insane such as using 3 year final average salary for pensions or in NJ where one person can work to retirement in one county, retire, and then go work for another government entity (city/county/state) and get additional credit to his/her prior retirement plan for that work.

Public education in NH is a tricky thing, too. Since NH does not have sales tax nor income tax, schools are almost 100% dependents on property tax. So towns that can and are willing to pay horrendous property tax bills to fund education have very good schools (Durham, Exeter, Bow, Hanover, Bedford, Amherst, Windham, etc.) have excellent schools; but, if the will and the resources are not there, then the schools (Hillsborough, Claremont, Franklin, etc.) they are a disaster.

As my New Hampshire friends like to say, "Live Free AND Die."

 

[huskymedic]

Cost Overruns For Yard Goats' Ballpark Began Early On
http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-stadium-impasse-0110-20160110-story.html

 

[uconnphil2016]

I know someone who works in baseball and he says that the word is that the RF fence is only 300 ft, which is below the MiLB requirement, so they're going to install a net above the RF wall and when the ball hits the net it will still be in play...sounds like some circus league baseball. Couldn't believe it when I heard it. I haven't seen anything about that out in public, but I'm sure that's something they'd want to keep under wraps given all the bad pub

 

[upstater]

I know someone who works in baseball and he says that the word is that the RF fence is only 300 ft, which is below the MiLB requirement, so they're going to install a net above the RF wall and when the ball hits the net it will still be in play...sounds like some circus league baseball. Couldn't believe it when I heard it. I haven't seen anything about that out in public, but I'm sure that's something they'd want to keep under wraps given all the bad pub

That can't happen. That's another sport altogether. Whiffle ball.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

That can't happen. That's another sport altogether. Whiffle ball.

And UConn wants to work with these same fools (Hartford) to rebuild or replace the XL?

 

[huskymedic]

I know someone who works in baseball and he says that the word is that the RF fence is only 300 ft, which is below the MiLB requirement, so they're going to install a net above the RF wall and when the ball hits the net it will still be in play...sounds like some circus league baseball. Couldn't believe it when I heard it. I haven't seen anything about that out in public, but I'm sure that's something they'd want to keep under wraps given all the bad pub

Geez, I'd be astonished IF (big if) the RF fence comes in 25 ft short of the MiLB/MLB field dimension requirements of 325 feet (it's the same rules for both major/minor leagues), but even if it was a design/construction error, a net is not required - they would seemingly apply for an exemption from MLB like many, many other venues do/have even in recent past (see Yankee Stadium, AT&T Park, etc...).

 

[FartMan69]

And UConn wants to work with these same fools (Hartford) to rebuild or replace the XL?

Wrong.

 

[UC313]

Being in construction it sounds to me like they put the plans out to bid as incomplete. This tells me that they had 100% structural and civil drawings but much of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing was still up in the air. Basically a design build that they had some budget numbers on but no fully executed drawings or specifications. Build it bare bones and you'll likely hit your 56mil budget. Go on and add things and, well, you find out itll cost ya around 10mil. 10 million in extra work will certainly extend the schedule unless you want to pony up for overtime. Id imagine that there is some OT built into that 10 million but who really knows. Prevailing wages really need to be examined. They've gone up every single year even in the midst of the recession.

 

[huskymedic]

Jeff Jacobs: Landino Adamantly Presents His Side Of Ballpark Story
http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-jacobs-column-yardgoats-0112-20160111-column.html
(may need to use google backdoor for access)

 

[Dove]

The Yard Goats are distracting Jacobs from the real story...realignment.

 

[TerryA88]

Oh .......your want plumbing AND electricity at the stadium? Thats going to be an extra 15 million.

 

[RichZ]

WTF is a Yard Goat? Does it differ from a House Goat?

Originally, a tiny locomotive used to haul trains (and bigger locomotives) around within the confines of the freight yard. Nowadays, a small diesel cab designed to do the same with freight trailers within the confines of the trucking depot, but not built for over-the-road hauling.

If you're searching for a rationale in naming a baseball team the Yard Goats, well, there isn't any. They came up with a list of horrible name nominations, and let the public vote on it. Apparently, the public thought that the only value any of them had was Yard Goat's comedic value.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Oh ..your want plumbing AND electricity at the stadium? Thats going to be an extra 15 million.

So I see you chose not to read the article.

 

[Palatine]

The Yard Goats are distracting Jacobs from the real story...realignment.

Good point.

I also read that Hartford had bonded the proposed soccer stadium at 10 million dollars. A simple vote could make that money available to use on the stadium and problem solved. The city could then figure a way get the money back with surcharges and stuff over the life of the stadium. But that's probably too easy and makes too much sense.

 

[Danzz]

I feel like it's been said elsewhere, but no, that's not what happened. The bid on the project as it was originally planned, and then the city designer made several costly changes and the city has refused to acknowledge that this leads to price increases and delays. Hartford is lucky he does so much business with the city, because otherwise he'd probably sue them.

I knew last July that the stadium wasn't going to be ready and was told that when the crap hit the fan that they would blame the city. Since then they fired the only construction professional they had on the job and decided to manage it themselves. They never had enough subcontractors working to ever have a chance of finishing on time no matter what they did. BTW, 6 weeks isn't going to happen either.