Curtain continues to descend on professional baseball in Vero Beach

The curtain continues to descend on professional baseball in Vero Beach, and it now seems certain that Dodgertown will go dark for all of 2009.

Not only have the Los Angeles Dodgers played their last game at Dodgertown, but the two minor league clubs who train and play home games at the complex during the summer are just a few weeks away from bidding their own farewell to Vero.

The Vero Beach Devil Rays of the Florida State League, operated by the Dodgers under a two-year player development agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays, will conclude their season with a home game August 31 and relocate to Port Charlotte for 2009.

Additionally, the Gulf Coast League Dodgers -- a short-season rookie team -- will finish their season with a home game on August 27th, and play next season in an Arizona rookie league while using the Los Angeles Dodgers' new Glendale training site.

Negotiations with the Baltimore Orioles to replace the Dodgers in Vero Beach continue behind the scenes. The Orioles will remain in Ft. Lauderdale for spring training next year, so their inaugural year in Vero -- if they decide to come -- would be 2010 at the earliest.

And even if the Orioles come, there is no reason to think one of their farm teams will be transferred here. All three of the Orioles Class A teams currently are established in other cities in Maryland, and the Orioles rookie team plays in West Virginia.

So unless a miracle occurs and an eleventh-hour deal is struck to move some Florida State League franchise to Vero Beach, no professional baseball will be played here next summer for the first time in many years.

The final nine home games of the Class A Devil Rays will thus be the last opportunity to see pros on the field at Holman Stadium for quite some time.

With the future of Dodgertown in doubt, speculation is rampant about what it will take to induce the Orioles to come.

For some insights, we talked to Shawn Marette, a Dodgers employee and General Manager of the Vero Beach Devil Rays.

Marette, who has spent the past four years in Vero, waxed enthusiastic about the Dodgertown training complex and its ability to accommodate major and minor league teams simultaneously.

“The facility here is wonderful, especially for spring training,” Marette noted. “The fields are in really good shape.”

But Holman Stadium, in his view, is a different story.

“It is an old stadium and it can definitely use some renovations,” he said. He cited the need for:

• A wider concourse.
• Bigger concession areas
• A new press box
• Luxury boxes
• A party deck

These modifications “would be great for the overall atmosphere of this place,” Marette said.

The feature continuously mentioned when old ballparks are upgraded -- or new ones designed and built -- is luxury boxes. Detested by purists, luxury boxes nevertheless generate revenue and have become sacrosanct in all sports structures. Expect the Orioles to insist on this particular item.

Further face-lifting and you inch toward building a completely new stadium, sacrificing any leftover charm and tradition. This would ensue if Orioles' demands include new covered dugouts to replace the current open-air configuration, the installation of better seating, or an overhang to shade some areas of the grandstand.

When politicians and owners of a major league baseball franchise attempt to hammer-out an agreement of this type, the process often gets ugly. You can almost bet on that happening here.

At odds are the community’s desire to enjoy -- and benefit from -- the presence of a major league baseball team, and the instinctive opposition of many to a hefty up-front outlay from public coffers for expenditures that would benefit a highly profitable sports franchise.

As the saga of Dodgertown unfolds, we will continue to provide information, commentary and a forum for reader input. Share your thoughts on the importance of professional baseball to Vero Beach.