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| Wednesday, May 24, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
Mike Clark / Times Asst. Sports Editor
It was easy to be cynical about the RailCats for a long time, and many people were.
Pro baseball in downtown Gary was an idea that took a long time to gain traction in a Region that had mostly abandoned what was once its economic hub.
First came the proposal from minor league entrepreneurs Tom Dickson and Sherrie Meyers to put a team here in a start-up league they planned to debut in 2002. That idea fizzled and the husband-and-wife team of Dickson and Myers went on to other projects.
But Scott King, Gary's mayor at the time, didn't give up so easily. Plan B was an expansion franchise in the Cadillac of independent baseball -- the Northern League.
NL membership comes with a price, however. In Gary's case, that price was around $45 million, the final cost of its downtown stadium.
Some influential people still consider that a huge boondoggle in a town with serious crime, education and housing issues. King, correctly, believed that the only way to solve the city's considerable problems was to use its casino dollars as seed money for economic development.
Even after King got a majority on the Gary Common Council to buy into his vision, there were credibility issues. The stadium was finished late and over the originally announced cost, forcing the RailCats to play their 2002 debut season entirely on the road.
That club wound up 20 games under .500, but was competitive enough to earn Joe Calfapietra NL Manager of the Year honors. Calfapietra left after one season for another job closer to his East Coast home and was replaced by ex-big leaguer Garry Templeton.
Beginning in 2003, RailCats management was working to convince fans that coming to watch baseball could be an enjoyable experience. But Templeton did little to enhance the team's credibility, running through players like a down-on-his-luck gambler watching his chips vanish at the Majestic Star.
Two chaotic and unsuccessful seasons later, the RailCats fired Templeton and brought in indy ball lifer Greg Tagert to replace him. The result was a turnaround that's the stuff of Hollywood: a worst-to-first run to the NL title last fall.
What's next? RailCats coach Andy Haines joked this spring that there was only one way to go -- down. But Tagert believes there's still a possibility for some upward mobility for his club. Simply put, the 'Cats still need to prove they're not a one-year wonder.
"I say this, not with any arrogance, there's a lot more people in this league now that are aware of what we're doing here," Tagert said recently. "It's about time, because this franchise is held in very high esteem in terms of the stadium, the front office -- you've got a general manager (Roger Wexelberg) who was the (2005 Northern League) Executive of the Year."
The one missing link has been what happened on the field -- which until last year was unrelentingly dismal. Now that the RailCats have shown they can win, they need to show they can do it again.
"When I interviewed," Tagert said, "what I told Roger was, 'That's where I want us to be. I want us to be viewed in the same breath as the Fargos and the Winnipegs.' "
When that happens, Gary baseball's credibility gap that once seemed so wide will have pretty much disappeared.
This column solely represents the writer's opinion. Reach him at mclark@nwitimes.com
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