Triple-A Baseball Coming to San Antonio if a Downtown Ballpark Is Built – San Antonio Current (blog)

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If you build it, he will come.

The Field of Dreams thesis is now pretty close to San Antonio’s reality, with Mayor Ivy Taylor announcing today that Triple-A baseball will come to San Antonio in 2019 if a new ballpark is built Downtown. Taylor made the announcement with David Elmore, part of Elmore Sports Group, which owns the San Antonio Missions.

A new stadium could cost $75 million, and the public would have to vote in favor of building it. If that happens, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox of the Pacific Coast League, the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, would move to San Antonio.

The Sky Sox (a standout peculiar nickname in a minor league landscape that teems with them) are also owned by the Elmore Sports Group. If the deal to move the Sox to SA goes through, the Missions would play here through 2018 before moving elsewhere — possibly Amarillo, which is looking for ways to fund a new multi-purpose stadium.  

The deal is contingent on building a new baseball stadium Downtown. Brailsford and Dunlavey, a consulting firm which specializes in stadium research, is finalizing a study and analysis of a potential Downtown stadium. Centro San Antonio commissioned the study, which will report on potential sites for the ballpark, its economic impact and the cost to build it. 

The social media response to the announcement was largely negative, with some saying they’d prefer to hold out for possible — but not imminent — Major League Baseball expansion:

You haven’t even settled anything w/ the Police and Firefighter unions. How about straightening that out first before thinking AAA Baseball.

— Megan (@MegaMaz) April 7, 2016

@IvyRTaylor @missionsmilb work on a PROFESSIONAL team, not AAA baseball which has less talent than AA ball..this makes zero sense

— Texas_metalhead (@TX_metalhead) April 7, 2016

AAA baseball in San Antonio? You don’t say… cc @geoffsheen760 pic.twitter.com/T3noWo8Coa

— Kyle Burkholder (@kyleburkholder) April 7, 2016

The San Antonio mayor has committed to keeping AAA baseball in town, locking out MLB expansion, and fans are on it. https://t.co/GG0c1Vz3kW

— Kyle Kepner (@KyleJKepner) April 7, 2016

@DontSayItEddie @mySA @IvyRTaylor nobody cares about AAA baseball!!!

— Johnny Futbol (@johnnyrotten23) April 7, 2016