Boise loses its affiliated baseball team. Owners point to stadium as the reason.
The Boise Hawks’ 30-year run as an affiliated minor-league baseball team ended Wednesday, one of many cuts as Major League Baseball reduced the number of its low-level clubs.
Hawks President/Partner Jeff Eiseman pointed to the aging Memorial Stadium as the main reason Boise lost its status as a Major League Baseball-affiliated city.
“We were told our current facility ultimately led to the decision,” Eiseman said in a statement. “As we have stated since the day we purchased the Hawks, the venue is a challenge. The failure to not have replaced it in all of these prior years led to this move.”
But pro baseball will not fully leave Boise. The Hawks plan to continue as an independent team in the rebranded Pioneer League with teams in Idaho, Montana, Utah and Colorado.
Major League Baseball sought to eliminate 25% of its minor-league affiliates, going from 160 to 120 teams, in a dramatic restructuring. It reportedly targeted teams with subpar stadiums and far-flung franchises.
Replacing Boise’s Memorial Stadium has remained a hot-button issue for years and across ownership groups. The Hawks are also 290 miles away from their closest opponent in the Northwest League: Tri-Cities, Washington.
BOISE HAWKS JOIN NEW PIONEER LEAGUE
Boise will join the new Pioneer League, whose teams also lost their affiliated status during MLB’s contraction. The league will become a “partner league” in 2021, with MLB providing some funding for operating expenses and installing scouting technology in stadiums.
The other eight cities in the new Pioneer League are Idaho Falls; Ogden, Utah; Billings, Missoula and Great Falls in Montana; and Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Windsor in Colorado.
Teams will sign their own players from a draft pool of players with less than four years of professional playing experience. Major League Baseball will cut its draft from 40 rounds to 20, leaving a crop of players available for the new independent teams.
Previously, Boise received players drafted or signed by its Major League parent club, most recently the Colorado Rockies. There previously were links to the Cubs and the Angels.
The farm club model saw future MLB stars such as Josh Donaldson, John Lackey, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez begin their careers in Boise. But the Hawks did not post a winning record or make the Northwest League playoffs in five years as a Rockies affiliate.
Losing MLB affiliation will prevent any high draft picks or players with newly signed, multimillion-dollar bonuses from suiting up in Boise. But Hawks General Manager Mike Van Hise said allowing Boise to scout and sign its own players could lead to a better team on the field.
“The level of baseball our fans can expect in many ways will be significantly better than what we have been accustomed to in the Northwest League,” Van Hise said in a statement. “Scouting and development of our players and coaches will be our responsibility, and with that an emphasis on winning.”
The new league will also see Boise expand its season from 76 games to 92.
HAWKS WILL STILL PUSH FOR NEW STADIUM
The Hawks’ owner, Agon Sports & Entertainment, plans to keep pushing for a new stadium, one that could house a Triple-A baseball team and minor-league soccer.
The Hawks originally discussed leaving Expo Idaho for a new stadium. Two potential sites — one in downtown Boise, the other in the West End — did not work out. In August, the team’s owners proposed staying at the fairgrounds in a new stadium.
The proposal includes a $400 million redevelopment of the 247-acre fairgrounds property with Ball Ventures Ahlquist, one of the Boise area’s leading commercial developers, and Agon’s sister business, the Greenstone Properties development firm in Atlanta.
In addition to the stadium, the project would include multifamily and single-family homes, a hotel, office buildings, restaurants, stores and a parking deck.
A citizens committee appointed by the Ada County Commission on Tuesday recommended the proposal as one of three possible futures for the county-owned fairgrounds property.
“Our efforts remain the same today as they were yesterday: To continue to seek development of a new facility to secure baseball, as well as deliver a United Soccer League Championship franchise, in the Treasure Valley for generations to come,” Eiseman said, “and to provide Boise with a showcase facility that will meet and exceed the new requirements of Major League Baseball and ultimately deliver Triple-A baseball to this market.”
BASEBALL’S TOUGH HISTORY IN BOISE
Losing Major League affiliation delivers another tough blow to baseball in Boise.
Boise State cut its baseball program in July in a money-saving move tied to the coronavirus pandemic. The Broncos had just revived their baseball program after 40 years in the spring, playing 14 of their 56 games before the NCAA shut down all spring sports.
Meanwhile, professional baseball has a history of fits and starts in Boise. The Hawks brought baseball back to Boise in 1987. They played as an independent team for three years before becoming an affiliate of the California Angels and winning six Northwest League titles.
Boise previously was a founding member of the Pioneer League, fielding a team in the circuit from 1939 to 1963 (with a three-year pause for World War II). But after the Boise Braves folded in 1963, only a pair of short-lived teams in the 1970s — the Boise A’s (1975-76) and the Boise Buckskins (1978) — took the field in Idaho’s capital city before the Hawks came along.
CHANGES TO THE NORTHWEST LEAGUE
In addition to cutting the number of teams, Major League Baseball eliminated all short-season leagues. MLB teams can now have four minor-league affiliates, as well as teams at their spring training and Latin American complexes.
The changes saw Boise and Salem-Keizer dropped from the Northwest League, which will now operate as a High-A, full-season league with six teams: Spokane, Tri-Cities and Everett, Washington; Hillsboro and Eugene, Oregon; and Vancouver, British Columbia.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Boise loses its affiliated baseball team. Owners point to stadium as the reason.."
