[vetteking]

A new minor league team could be on the way to Pearl following the MBraves departure

PEARL, Miss. (WLBT) - Tonight, the Mississippi Braves take on the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in what marks the team’s second home series of the season, and in less than five months, the MBraves will play their last game ever inside Trustmark Park.

Many of you will be happy to hear that the goal of Pearl’s mayor and some state lawmakers is to try and bring another team to the ballpark.

In January, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham announced the MBraves would head for Columbus, Georgia following the 2024 season.

A few months later, Windham says Spectrum Capital - the company that owns the park - is working to fill the void that will exist once the MBraves leave town.

“They’ve been really aggressive and proactive in trying to backfill,” Windham said. “There are a couple of concepts that they have on the hook, and I think that everything is moving in the right direction.”

Mayor Windham says he’s confident Spectrum will recruit a new minor league team to the park.

He also says the city of Pearl and Rankin County pushed for legislation that authorizes them to contribute one-and-a-half million dollars annually to the facility.

That’s double what the city and county currently contribute each year.

The bill’s author, Representative Gene Newman, could not say for certain why the city and county need the state’s authorization to contribute their own money to the park, but he believes it’s because it involves public money going to a private entity.

“Both of them agreed to do it, but they can’t do it without authorization from the state,” he said. “This is just an incentive to help develop a team.”

What that money will be used for - if at all - is unclear, but the idea is to have the means to incentivize a team to make Trustmark Park their new home.

“When you start talking about trying to incentivize a situation like that, you really don’t know. It might be park projects, it might be a lease, it might be a parking lot,” Mayor Windham said. “We will have the ability through state law to try to help.”

Representative Fred Shanks, who represents Rankin County, also says he’s confident that the MBraves won’t be the last team to play ball inside Trustmark Park.

“I certainly think that another team will pick it up. I’ve heard some rumblings of a local league starting up. One of them is the Legacy League, which would be kind of a wooden bat, college-aged league in the summer,” Shanks said. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be used because it is still a very nice stadium. It’s not very old as far as stadiums go. I definitely think you’re going to still see some baseball in it and soon too.”

Similar legislation was filed last session before the MBraves had announced their departure.

The motivation at the time was to incentivize the team to stay in Pearl, but now, the intention is to help bring a new team to the city.
https://www.wlbt.com/2024/04/22/new-...ves-departure/