By DARIN ALLRED
Register Sports Editor
Texas Collegiate League (TCL) baseball will not be coming to Gainesville’s Locke Field after all.
A plan to move the Coppell Copperheads TCL team to Gainesville was shot down by the Gainesville City Council recently, leaving the organization scrambling to find a place to play for the upcoming season.
Gainesville City Manager Barry Sullivan said the council discussed leasing Locke Field to the Copperheads during executive session at their Oct. 20 meeting, but it was the opinion of the council that they not pursue an agreement with the baseball team at this time.
“Council instructed me that they are not interested in leasing that property out at this time so I shouldn’t go any further with negotiations (with the Copperheads),” Sullivan said.
The city still has a lease agreement with the Gainesville Independent School District that allows the high school baseball team to use Locke Field for games and practices. Sullivan said that it’s a year-to-year lease that stipulates that the school district maintain the facility and incur all the costs of that maintenance.
For David Apple, one of the owners of the Coppell Copperheads, the news was disappointing.
“Yes we are disappointed, but we are not giving up and hope the city will reconsider its position so that the Copperheads can relocate to Gainesville for the 2010 season,” he said.
Apple said the news caught him and his organization a little off guard.
“Based upon our last meeting a few weeks ago with City Manager Barry Sullivant and school superintendent Bill Gravitt, we understood that the city had decided to lease the facility to us and that we just needed to iron out the details of the lease,” he added.
Even though it looks to be a dead issue from the city’s end, Apple says his team is not giving up hope that they can relocate to Gainesville.
“We are still hoping to speak with the mayor and council in an effort to convince them why they should reconsider their decision,” he said. “Locke Field is a tremendous asset to Gainesville and one which its citizens should want to preserve. Based upon our latest meeting with the city manager and school superintendent, we had already begun working on plans for various improvements to the ballpark before the 2010 season. It was, and remains our hope, that these improvements could be completed early enough so that the local high school team could enjoy them this coming season.
“We had also hoped to research historical photographs of the facility with the hope of restoring it close to its original look,” Apple added. “Locke Field is a historical feature of Gainesville and one that many cities around our state wish they had.”
If they are not able to move to Gainesville, Apple says the Copperheads will have to find another city that is interested in its summer baseball team.
“In the event we are not sucessful in convincing the city leaders to change their mind, we are considering some other locations,” he said. “It is also possible that we will remain in Coppell for the 2010 season.”
The Copperheads won the 2009 TCL championship.
The TCL currently consists of five teams: The East Texas Pumpjacks in Kilgore, the Brazos Valley Bombers in Bryan, the Victoria Generals, the Coppell Copperheads and the McKinney Marshalls.
The league gives college players a chance to continue playing in the summer. To be eligible for the league, a player must have been on a collegiate roster and still have college eligibility remaining. It is similar to the historic Cape Cod League in Massachusetts.
Since the TCL began play five years ago, over 300 of its players have been drafted by Major League Baseball clubs. Two of the most famous former players are Houston Astros All-Star Hunter Pence and Boston Red Sox pitcher Clay Bucholz, who threw a no-hitter for the Red Sox last season.
