Well, yesterday the news broke that Rocky Mountain was to be no more and that the franchise was on its way to Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha of course being the former home of the current Rocky Mountain GM Justin Niles.
Confusion immediately ensued with many questioning what that meant for the other Omaha franchise that Niles was at the helm of for so long. Were there going to be 2? Some creative suggestions included both the Omaha teams playing in the current Omaha stadium known as Mordonez Stadium. Others included the Rocky Mountain franchise playing all the games as the “away team”.
A few of those questions were quickly answered when the current(old) Omaha publicly announced their plans to move to a suburb just outside of Cleveland and become the Brook Park Brownies. They went as far as they revealing that they were only relocating if Omaha had a replacement team. Luckily for them, Rocky Mountain had already been scouting out options (such as Fargo?). When the call came from Omaha, it seemed like a slam dunk.
But things are a bit more interesting than they appear on the surface.
Rocky Mountain is purchasing the former Omaha stadium (Mordonez Stadium) from Omaha for $20,000,000 and will assume liabilities and maintenance fees for the stadium. This $20,000,000 going from Omaha is funding part of the stadium construction in Brook Park.
This sale, although rare, seems to have saved Omaha about $30,000,000 on what would be new ballpark construction in Omaha, and saved Brook Park $20,000,000 that Omaha is forking over for the rights to their old ballpark.
At the heart of this, is that Mordonez Ballpark appears to be saved. Mordonez Ballpark opened in 1958, and is named in honor or Orlando Ordonez and Emilio Morales. Both players spent their entire careers in Omaha. They both still hold much of the single season and career batting records for the franchise. Both players are in the BBA Hall Of Fame.
At this time, the team has not disclosed details regarding what the potential name will be for the franchise when they move to Omaha, nor any uniform design.“It’s an honor to keep this ballpark active in Omaha. We do not have any plans to rename this field as it honors two players who even though would have never suited up for the Rocky Mountain franchise, meant the world to this city. Obviously, they both meant quite a bit to me on a personal level as well.” Said GM Justin Niles.
"It's coming. We know what we are doing. I just want to make sure that we give a proper introduction to the city of Omaha and to the Brewster. We need to make sure that all of our I's are dotted and T's are crossed. Stay tuned.'
