23rd October 2003, 4:11 PM
Quote:EDMONTON (CP) -- A company owned by Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan has bought the financially struggling Edmonton Trappers of the Pacific Coast League and will move the triple-A club to Texas after the 2004 season.
The sale, announced Thursday, leaves only one triple-A baseball team still in business in Canada, the Ottawa Lynx.
The Canadian Football League's Edmonton Eskimos, which bought the Trappers in 1999, have sold the team for $10.4 million US to Round Rock Baseball Inc., of which Ryan, one of the greatest pitchers in Major League history, is majority owner.
The team is expected to play out the 2004 season in Edmonton and continue its affiliation with the National League's Montreal Expos before moving to Round Rock, Texas, next fall.
"When you are faced with something that is inevitable and you are given an offer that would be more than we would get if we were in a force situation where it got nasty, then you take it," Eskimos chairman John Butler told a news conference.
The Trappers have played in Edmonton since 1981 and won their fourth PCL championship in 2002.
It's the third western Canadian triple-A club to head south for financial reasons in recent years. The PCL's Vancouver Canadians moved to Sacramento, Calif., after winning the 1999 triple-A World Series, and the Calgary Cannons went to Albuquerque, N.M., following their 2002 season.
Eskimos president Hugh Campbell said the owners had been under pressure to sell the team for the last two years.
"This was a very difficult decision for us," Campbell said. "We originally purchased the Trappers to keep them in Edmonton. However, the PCL has changed significantly.
"The Calgary Cannons' move to Albuquerque was the major factor that triggered the push by PCL members for the Eskimos to sell the Trappers franchise. Scheduling, air and cross-border travel and the Canadian dollar were also factors in the PCL not wanting to have a Canadian team in the league."
The Trappers remain popular in the sports-crazy Alberta capital, recording an average attendance of 5,443 at their games this season, the second highest total of any minor-league team in the country.
By contrast, the country's remaining triple-A club, Ottawa of the International League, only managed 2,417 a game this year, making their lovely 10,332-seat stadium look bare. Lynx owner Ray Pecor has said he doesn't want to move the team but finances may force the issue.
In Edmonton, however, location ultimately turned out to be the franchise-killer.
PCL president Branch Rickey praised the Trappers as a "model franchise" with exceptional fan support and called Telus Field "one of the finest ball parks in the PCL." But he said the distances between Edmonton and the other PCL cities along with the growing complications of crossing the border have became too much of a hassle.
"With smaller airplanes and some of the other elements of how the airlines are reconfiguring, our travel is more challenging for us every day," Rickey said.
The Eskimos plan to begin talks immediately with the City of Edmonton regarding the future of Telus Field, the beautiful river valley park that has been home to the Trappers.
Campbell said the Eskimos will use the profit from the sale to pay off the baseball team's debts and replenish the football club's stabilization fund, which was utilized to buy the Trappers.
The Round Rock Express is a double-A team playing in the Texas League. Its president and chief executive is Reid Ryan, son of Nolan Ryan. The plan is to renovate the Dell Diamond in Round Rock next year before moving the Trappers in. The Express would then move to Corpus Christi, Texas.
That sucks, I love watching Trapper's games, and they are an awesome team. :(
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