Columbus last had a Minor League Baseball team in 2008.
Major League Baseball has struck again in its battle to get new or renovated minor league facilities. This time, MLB has gotten its way in Columbus, Georgia. Local politicians took part in the stadium game looking for a minor league baseball franchise owner to relocate to the city that has not had a minor league team since 2008. Columbus politicians landed a team. The Pearl, Mississippi based Atlanta Braves affiliate, the Mississippi Braves franchise, is heading to town in 2025. In late December, the Columbus city council decided in a unanimous vote to look into the mechanism that could provide financing for a $50 million bond issue to upgrade the city’s ball park to whatever Major League Baseball deems as a state-of-the-art minor league facility. In 2021, after Major League Baseball took over the operations of Minor League Baseball, the barons of baseball put out notice to Minor League Baseball owners and the municipalities that host Minor League Baseball games that all Minor League Baseball stadiums would be inspected and that if there were problems with any facilities that the flaws had to be fixed by 2025 or MLB would take away operating licenses from Minor League Baseball owners and just find another city that would put up taxpayers’ money to build a new facility.
The local baseball park was built in 1926. It seats 3,500 customers and at the present time is not a Minor League Baseball state-of-art venue. Golden Park has undergone many renovations. In 1951, the park was rebuilt. It was renovated in 1995 for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics as it housed the Women’s Fastpitch Softball competition. The renovation of the ballpark could be a part of a plan complete with a hotel, retail space and housing on the property. It only cost $50 million for Columbus to get a team.
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