Rebuilding Tyler's True Foundation
A house's foundation is the element we all take for granted. It's crucial to keep the house from falling apart, but we never take notice of it unless there is a problem.
Tyler is a city built on a baseball foundation.
Yes, there is a problem. The city and its people have forgotten about it.
Yes, there is a problem. The city and its people have forgotten about it.
Eighteen years before Tyler High won its first state football championship, 62 years before Earl Campbell graduated and 92 years before both John Tyler and Robert E. Lee owned state titles, Tyler created its sporting image with baseball.
It took 12 years for the city to get another minor league baseball team after the Tyler Elbertas folded in 1912. But the East Texas and Long Star Trojans built on the foundation laid by Tyler's first baseball team.
Today the foundation is broken. Has been for almost seven years.
It's time to start building again.
A city once graced by Hall of Fame players George Sisler and Louis Santop is empty of professional baseball.
A city once graced by Hall of Fame players George Sisler and Louis Santop is empty of professional baseball.
Local high school and college baseball teams are slowly filling the cracks. Tyler Junior College and UT Tyler own solid programs. Thirty-seven East Texas players were drafted by major league teams the past two years.
But Tyler will still suffer without local, professional baseball.
Tyler, 30th in population in Texas (from 2000 cenus), watched Kilgore - ahem, 190th on the list - announce Driller Park will house a Texas Collegiate League team this year.
Texarkana announced in November it will return professional baseball for the first time in 54 years when a Continental Baseball League team starts this season.
Four other independent league teams will house Texas teams in 2008. Tyler has not been on the list since the Roughnecks came and went in 2001.
That's ridiculous.
It's impossible to come up with an immediate remedy to every problem the skeptics seem to come up with and claim that professional baseball simply cannot survive in Tyler.
It's impossible to come up with an immediate remedy to every problem the skeptics seem to come up with and claim that professional baseball simply cannot survive in Tyler.
But one thing is certain: it can survive.
People in Tyler and the surrounding areas will support a team that is locally and privately owned and acts like it cares enough to stick around.
People in Tyler and the surrounding areas will support a team that is locally and privately owned and acts like it cares enough to stick around.
The money is here. We all know that. What Tyler needs is a person, or people, to take an aggressive step out onto the branch and make a worthwhile investment.
It's time to forget about Mike Carter Field. A new investment needs to involve a new stadium that fans will be proud to go to.
We live in an age where new and flashy is the way to go, and building a new stadium in the rapidly expanding area of Tyler - on the south side around exploding cities like Whitehouse and Bullard - will guarantee a higher influx of fans than Mike Carter Field ever saw.
Sure, a new stadium is expensive. Very expensive. It doesn't have to be huge and extravagant. Go to the dark side and sell the naming rights - a la Trinity Mother Frances Rose Stadium - and much of the cost is already taken care of.
It is an inconvenient truth but a new, independent stadium would leave the option of alcohol sales - a constant complaint of many who never went to watch the Roughnecks or Wildcatters.
Tyler is way behind the times, and this is a city that loves baseball. The city is very proud of its Little League organizations and thousands of players and fans flock to see games all around the area every year.
There is no reason why those same fans would deliberately choose to not see professional baseball with a proper and aggressive investment in place.
It doesn't have to be a major league-affiliated team (yet). That can be a dream for farther down the road. One small step at a time.
There is not a vehement outcry to bring baseball back to Tyler. But the support is out there, believe it or not.
A constant complain from the younger demographic in Tyler is that there is nothing to do, especially during the summer. There are only so many trips to the movies or the bowling alley you can take.
Housing a professional baseball team would change that.
Professional baseball can be popular again in Tyler. You will never convince me otherwise. I never missed a Wildcatters home game in 1994-95. I celebrated my eighth and ninth birthdays at Mike Carter Field with my Little League teammates.
Build it. They will come again.
FAQ
Search Forums
Log in
Register
