The sun appears to finally be setting on Kevin Costner’s Lake County Fielders.
The team, which really hasn’t been viable from the get-go, is facing yet another public relations nightmare which is somewhat ironic given that team owner Richard Ehrenreich told me last year when I was working on a story for Page 2 that he didn’t have a dedicated media relations person in house for the Northern League team in Schaumburg that he owned at the time because he didn’t think he could get coverage in the Chicago market.
Their latest PR blow comes in the form of an excellent investigation done by the Chicago Sun-Times’ Pulitzer-winning Mark Konkol. In today’s story, Konkol delves deep into what went on behind the scenes between the organization and the city of Zion in which really nobody comes out looking good. It’s definitely worth a read if you get a moment though.
Konkol’s article is about as thorough of an investigation as has been done into the sad soap opera that this team has become, detailing what happened and where things went wrong.
For those of you just now coming to the party, the city of Zion was expecting to receive a grant from the state of Illinois as well as some private funding to help build a gleaming new baseball stadium on the outskirts of town in 2009. Konkol reports that problems began when city determined that the original site was inadequate:
“But a Sun-Times review of the stadium project — interviews and a search of public records that included contracts, lease agreements, property documents, tax bills, tax increment finance payments, memos, letters and emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — found the stadium plan wasn’t such a nightmarish deal for everybody involved. At least not after Zion leaders, on (then-city economic development director Delaine) Rogers’ recommendation, decided to relocate the proposed stadium away from the original site on 9th Street.
That land is adjacent to Trumpet Park, an industrial park developed by a company controlled by Richard Delisle, a prolific developer in Zion who also was listed as the city’s “development broker” on the stadium site.
Citing the $2.5 million purchase price for the land and the “smell” from a nearby landfill, Rogers — with Mayor Harrison’s approval and Ehrenreich’s blessing — pushed to move the proposed stadium to its current spot at Route 173 and Green Bay Road, owned by a separate company controlled by Delisle.”
A couple of paragraphs later, Konkol offers up some speculation as to why Rogers may have steered towards land owned by Delisle’s company.
Again, per Konkol:
“Publicly, Rogers oversaw and approved millions of dollars in tax increment financing cash for at least three other projects — two hotels and an industrial park — developed by companies controlled by Delisle. Privately, Rogers had a secret, personal relationship with Delisle, according to emails obtained by the Sun-Times.”
Both were married at the time with kids when they were exchanging flirtatious e-mails on Rogers’ work e-mail account, though Rogers has reportedly since divorced. Ehrenreich speculates that relationship may have helped submarine the entire stadium project, though it didn’t help that a proposed $10 million grant from the State of Illinois that the city was expecting to receive to help fund the whole thing fell through. While Delisle declined comment, Rogers denied that their personal relationship was anything more than harmless flirting or that it affected her judgment when it came to making business decisions.
If you read this site with any regularity, you know the rest of the story. The Fielders never got their “Field of Dreams,” splitting their first two seasons between Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc. in 2010 and a temporary stadium built just weeks before the home opener both years. Said temporary stadium featured trailers that served as locker rooms for the players, alumninum bleachers for fans to sit on, port-a-potties instead of permanent bathroom facilities, and concessionaires hawking their wares from tents.
While the team was competitive last season on and off the field, things really took a turn for the worse in 2011. First there was team manager Tim Johnson and several players quitting before a game in July because they hadn’t been paid. Team broadcaster Qumar Zaman would later quit his job on air because he too hadn’t been getting paid. Then a game was cancelled because the team didn’t provide adequate baseballs to play with. The team was later kicked out of the North American Baseball League because they failed to travel to Hawai’i for a series.
That didn’t stop the Fielders from playing out the rest of their schedule — kind of. The team played the last few weeks of their season against a local semi-pro team dubbed the Kenosha County Fielders before sparse crowds, turning into a sort of dollar store Harlem Globetrotters in the process. Despite having continued to use their temporary facility, the team hasn’t paid rent there all season long. Konkol and others report the team owes Zion over $300,000 in back rent, something the city is reportedly planning on heading to court in order to collect.
Over the course of the past two years, the Fielders went from being a cute little independent minor league operation with a movie star owner (more on that in a sec) to a prime example on why small towns need to do their homework before getting in the independent baseball game, lining up funding and making sure everyone is on the same page before moving forward. Rogers and other Zion officials had high hopes for the project and having grown up 45 minutes south of Zion, I can tell you there is a market for minor league baseball there if done right.
As for Costner, aside from a brief appearance at the temporary facility during the team’s inaugural season, has had little if anything to do with the Fielders since. He’s been described as a minority owner but his publicist repeatedly declines comment when asked about the organization. Costner has been to Chicago since coming to Zion last year to flip on the lights, but there’s no indication that he has attended another Fielders game since.
So is this the end of the Lake County Fielders? Ehrenreich hasn’t stated a desire to fold the team just yet although neither side has said how a permanent facility will be funded, if they’re willing to play another season at the temporary facility or if they’re willing to sink any more money into the project. But if baseball is going to succeed there, it’s clear a lot of things need to change in order to rebuild public trust in the project.
