New Britain: Baseball Town No More

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. — It was the same scene that has unfolded thousands of times in hundreds of ballparks all over the country for decades: minor league Opening Day. This time it’s the New Britain Rock Cats, Double-A affiliate of the Rockies, hosting the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Double-A affiliate of the Blue Jays, on a gorgeous April evening, one that was even a little warmer than you might expect during early New England spring.

The event had all of the hallmarks of the first home game of a season — general merriment, drawn-out introductions, local kids performing the national anthem, and a thinned-out crowd by night’s end because, hey, it was a weeknight, after all.

Dampening the mood and consuming chit-chat, though, was an undeniable sense that these celebrations at this Opening Day were different. This is the last time such an occasion will happen in New Britain. Next season, after more than three decades here, the Rock Cats will turn into the Yard Goats and move 15 minutes up the road to a new home in Hartford.

New Britain is like a lot of American minor league towns, known to those outside the region, if at all, perhaps only for its affiliated baseball. First were the New Britain Red Sox in the 1980s and early ‘90s, then the Minnesota Twins’ Hardware City Rock Cats (1995-96) and New Britain Rock Cats (1997-2014). This season the organization kept its name in its first year with the Rockies. Next summer, no more.

“We’re an old manufacturing town. You have average folks that live here,” said George Springer, a longtime New Britain resident and the father of the Astros outfielder with the same name. “For them to walk down the street and watch future major leaguers, where the beer is cold and the hot dogs are good and you can afford it — how can you replace that?”

A local institution

Al Nelson is as much a New Britain institution as the Rock Cats themselves. An 87-year-old World War II veteran and lifelong resident of the city, Nelson has attended games since the old New Britain Red Sox came to town in 1983. Three club nicknames, three major league parent teams, two stadiums — Nelson has been here for all of it.

During day games, Nelson rides his bike the four-mile round trip to the park. He’s occupied the same seat — Section 213, Row A, Seat 1 — since New Britain Stadium opened in 1996.

From his perch, Nelson has seen dozens of major leaguers make their way through the Red Sox and Twins farm systems in recent decades — Roger Clemens, Joe Mauer, David Ortiz, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Mo Vaughn and Michael Cuddyer, to name a handful, not to mention all the other players who visited with other Eastern League teams.

“It’s a great place to sit. I’ve been there for a long time. You ask them, ‘Where’s Al sit?’ They know where he sits,” said Nelson, who paused a 10-minute conversation at least a half-dozen times to greet people he knows, plus once to bro-hug a mascot. “It’s nice and it’s comfortable, and people walk down below you, and I can look at them and they can’t see me.”

Among the youngsters Nelson watched from above was another big leaguer, but no one knew it at the time. Astros outfielder George Springer grew up in New Britain, a regular at Rock Cats games along with his father, George; mother, Marie; and younger sisters, Nicole and Lena.

When the kids were young, the elder George said, the family went as frequently as once a week during the summer months. One day in 1998, the Springers hosted a barbeque for the team, with A.J. Pierzynski and Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiewicz and Hunter chowing down on hot dogs and hamburgers at the family’s home a few miles from the stadium.

Hunter in particular caught young George’s attention, and even now, with Springer establishing himself with the upstart Astros as Hunter is on his way out, it’s not hard to see how Springer has modeled his game and all-out style after Hunter.

“Torii Hunter has been George’s role model from the very beginning,” Springer said. “He was a guy who could hit and run and throw and he played really hard. George admired that, even as a youngster.”

The Springer parents do still go to games occasionally, though a lot of their free time these days is dedicated to seeing their kids play — George with Houston, plus Nicole (CCSU) and Lena (Ohio State) on the college softball scene.

But during those early years, when mother and father Springer were raising a young family, the Rock Cats were an integral part of the family’s routine, as they are for countless others in town, which is an awkward in-between geographically, an hour and a half from Boston and two hours from New York City.

“It’s in a great location. It’s been a tremendous source of family entertainment for as long as I remember,” Springer said. “It’s very cost-effective. No matter what the size of your family is, it’s safe and it’s a great place to watch quality, professional baseball. It’s always packed, it’s always filled. A Rock Cat game on Memorial Day is like going to the parade. It’s just what you do.”

An ugly breakup

New Britain isn’t your stereotypical, ritzy Connecticut community. The median household income is a tick over $40,000, according to the latest census data, and nearly a quarter of residents live below the poverty level. The city’s “Hard-Hittin’ New Britain” nickname originated on the high school football fields but since has come to describe its rough-and-tumble reputation, a persona generally embraced by residents.

If you’re not from the area (likely) and have ever heard of New Britain (unlikely), it’s almost certainly for one of a few reasons. There is the headquarters of Stanley Black & Decker, if you’re really into home improvement, and a college, Central Connecticut State University, with Division 1 athletics. And then there are the Rock Cats.

“It’s beneficial to have New Britain Rock Cats on people’s hats and shirts. That’s positive imaging for the city,” said Mayor Erin Stewart. “When people think about the great experience they had at the Rock Cats game, that’s New Britain. As the mayor of an urban center in Connecticut, that positive talk means the world to me.”

That’s part of the reason why the mayor and city are so angry about the way things ended — or are still ending.

Before last summer’s announcement, the club’s owners, led by Boston real estate developer Josh Solomon, negotiated with the city of Hartford in the dark for more than a year to bring the team to the state’s capital. The news caught Stewart completely off guard.

In return for abandoning their home of the last three-plus decades, the future Yard Goats were promised a souped-up $56 million stadium. City officials hope bustling baseball games will help revitalize a neighborhood that long has needed it.

“The opportunity to build a new state-of-the-art facility in the capital city was too great to pass up,” Solomon told the New York Times last year.

Nelson, the longtime season-ticket holder, won’t go to Hartford games. He says he’s been asked by various people “100 times already,” and his answer has remained the same.

“I’m not going up there. Everybody asks me that,” Nelson said, listing the longer trip, a questionable parking situation and a lack of familiarity with the new surroundings among his reasons. “I’m going fishing and I’m riding my bike.”

The team and city are banking on Nelson being in the minority, on folks from throughout the state — not to mention Western Mass. — who have flocked to New Britain to follow the team to Hartford. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

“It’s always been the region’s team,” said Jeff Dooley, who has served as the Rock Cats’ play-by-play announcer for the better part of two decades. “The team’s address is in New Britain, but it’s been the region’s team.”

For Stewart, 28, the stabbed-in-the-back emotion is still close to the surface, but as a community leader she is trying to make like Jay Z: On to the next one. She’s met with officials from the independent Atlantic and Can-Am leagues, and she hasn’t ruled out the return of affiliated baseball, perhaps in the form of a Short-Season A New York-Penn League team. The latter would need to the approval of the Solomons, who own the rights to affiliated baseball in the region.

“You’ve got hundreds of thousands of people in central Connecticut who are used to coming to New Britain Stadium,” Stewart said. “They’re still going to come as long as it’s good, quality baseball. Baseball has been a staple of the New Britain community for the last [33] years — since before I was born. … It certainly was always a part of growing up in New Britain.”

A clear trend?

The Rock Cats are leaving a smaller city (New Britain) for a larger in-state one (Hartford). The Pawtucket Red Sox, Triple-A affiliate of the Red Sox, are also leaving a smaller city for a larger in-state one (Providence).

A decade ago, the Double-A Round Rock Express left for Corpus Christi, Texas, three hours south and three times as populated (though Round Rock did get Edmonton, Alberta, Canada’s Triple-A franchise in its place.) In the 1990s, the Double-A Canton-Akron franchise moved from tiny Canton to its significantly larger neighbor, Akron. A couple of years before that, the Double-A Hagerstown Suns moved across Maryland to a larger home to become the Bowie Baysox. New Britain itself benefited from a similar move, when a then-Red Sox affiliate left nearby Bristol for Hard-Hittin’ in the early ‘80s.

Minor league teams relocate all of the time, of course, and those are just a few examples of intrastate moves. But the thought process is seemingly obvious: When looking for a new home for your club, the bigger the better.

It makes complete business sense, on paper. Bigger towns and more populated areas mean more potential fans — or customers — and maybe a shiny new stadium is thrown in to sweeten the deal.

But what’s the town left behind to do? New Britain is going to find out.

“You wonder what’s going to fill the gap, what’s going to fill the void in the summertime,” Springer said. “When you have unifying cultural traditions, that’s why they’re so valuable. I don’t care where you came from or how much money you make. We can all go down and root for the Rock Cats. That’s going to be missed.”