Support for a new stadium with fancy batting cages could emerge from messy Dodgers-51s breakup

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It was a week of change at Cashman Field.

Barack Obama on Wednesday. The Toronto Blue Jays on Monday.

I’ll give you 14,000 guesses which drew the bigger crowd to the Little Ballpark That Couldn’t, at least in the estimation of the highfalutin’ Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office.

After throwing the 51s a steady diet of chin music during the eight years Las Vegas served as the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, the Los Angeles brass finally plunked Don Logan and his staff in the ribs last week. We’re not coming back, they told the 51s’ president and general manager, because you don’t have nice batting cages.

I might point out that James Loney did pretty well for himself without nice batting cages.

I do agree, however, that you can’t turn around in the 51s’ locker room without stepping on the toes of a future big league utility infielder. And that the concourses should be wider than Bruce Froemming’s strike zone.

Once thought of as the ideal marriage, the Dodgers and the 51s had a messy divorce. I’m not talkin’ Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards. I’m talkin’ Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. The granddaddy of all divorces.

While these baseball breakups are fairly common, they usually are amicable. For instance, the Blue Jays and their longtime Triple-A affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs, are splitting up after 31 years. That’s like Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward calling it quits.

But Dick Scott, the Jays’ director of player development, who represented the organ-I-zation — which is what they call ballclubs north of the border — had nothing but nice things to say about the Syracuse organ-I-zation at Monday’s news conference.

Conversely, nobody from the Dodgers had anything to say, nice or otherwise, in a news release confirming the Dodgers were moving back to Albuquerque, which they left before moving here — because the old Albuquerque Sports Stadium didn’t have nice batting cages.

The 51s, to their credit, didn’t totally ignore the past eight years. This is what their official news release said: “Although in fourth place in the Eastern Division of the American League and 10 games behind the Tampa Rays, the Blue Jays currently have a better win total than the Los Angeles Dodgers.”

How’s that for a high, hard one? I thought Cowboy Joe West was going to have to come out from behind home plate to warn both teams’ publicity departments.

The contentiousness of the breakup notwithstanding, the Dodgers actually may have done the 51s a huge favor by leaving them holding the ball bag.

By leaving, the Dodgers hammered home the idea that Cashman Field, the Granny Clampett of Pacific Coast League ballparks, is no longer adequate for an American Legion state tournament, much less for preparing the next Garth Iorg for the bigs.

(The Dodgers gave us Robinson and Snider, Koufax and Drysdale. The Blue Jays gave us Garth Iorg. Yes, I know there were Blue Jays who were actually sort of famous. But Garth Iorg is the one I always remember.)

If pro baseball is important to local business and community leaders, maybe they’ll finally do something to save it, or at least commit to building a new ballpark, so the Blue Jays won’t leave for Bakersfield, or some other place that might build a new ballpark between now and when the current player development contract expires in two years.

As for the perception that this shotgun marriage, this minor league game of musical chairs between Las Vegas and the Blue Jays, is the worst development since the designated hitter ... well, you’ll get over it, Dodgers fans.

In fact, considering the players will be wearing the same uniforms, you may not even notice. You’ll still be able to get peanuts and Cracker Jack. The hot dogs will taste just as good. The pitchers still will have trouble throwing strikes and the batters still will have trouble hitting the occasional slider that catches the outside corner.

It’ll still be minor league baseball. Runs, hits and errors, in abundant supply. Fireworks on the Fourth of July. Giant mascots getting in the way. Garth Iorg bobblehead dolls.

“That’s not going to change,” Logan said.

Plus, “there’s going to be a Canadian component that hasn’t been here in the past, absolutely,” Logan said.

I think he was talking about Canadian beer.

The McKenzie Brothers won’t throw out the opening pitch for seven months, and I’m already liking this arrangement.

Even if the batting cages stink.