MLB wants all Minor League Baseball parks up to whatever MLB’s standards are.

Maine legislators are the next group of lawmakers who will have to spend taxpayers’ money to make Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and his 30 owners happy. If the Maine legislature does not come up with money to fix up the Portland Sea Dogs stadium soon, the Boston Red Sox Double A minor league team may be headed elsewhere. The owners of the minor league team may be looking for as much as $10 million to bring the stadium, which opened in 1994, to whatever MLB has deemed as state-of-the-art. The stadium is also used by local high school teams. The Boston ownership has a deal with the Sea Dogs ownership to send players to the Double A team through 2030 but if those stadium upgrades do not occur, the deal can be ripped up. One of the main stadium criticisms is that the locker rooms are not up to MLB standards. In 2018, the Portland stadium was named one of the top 10 minor league ballparks in a list published by Baseball America.

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. Some minor league teams are moving while others in places like the Eugene, Oregon market are hanging on by a thread hoping to get taxpayers dollars for stadium upgrades. The barons of baseball have spoken.

Major League Baseball, Rob Manfred. Portland Sea Dogs, Portland, Maine, Minor League Baseball, Eugene, Oregon, Double A, Boston Red Sox, Baseball America,