Bring a Baseball Team to Racine

RAY-TOWN WANTS BASEBALL!

Greetings, all you Wisconsin baseball enthusaists! Welcome to Friends of Racine Baseball (FORB), the official online grassroots movement to bring professional or NCAA-sanctioned summer-collegiate baseball to the city of Racine, Wisconsin. Now why should Racine get a team, you may ask (other than because it's the site founder's hometown)? Just read the below paragraph and you'll see.

Though Racine has never had an affiliated, independent, or NCAA-summer collegiate baseball team, the Belle City has a strong heritage in our national pastime thanks to the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls League from 1943 to 1950 (won the championship in 1943 and 1946, and were documented in the movie A League Of Their Own). In addition, Racine has supported its local amateur teams in the nonprofit Racine Baseball Cooperative (Kiwanis, Redbirds, Mudcats, Raptors, Bombers, Vipers, & Cobras) for almost 20 years. Finally, our local football team, the Racine Raiders (under various names) have been a successful part of Racine's landscape for 55 years and counting, winning numerous championships and attracting seemingly unreal numbers for a minor-league NAFL team.

In addition to a proven history and tradition, bringing minor-league baseball to Racine will boost the city's struggling economy, attract tourism and its accompanying revenue to our local landmarks and businesses, create several new jobs to relieve our unemployment rate, and improve the atmosphere and quality of life in the city of Racine.

Now that you know the reasoning behind the movement, you're probably wondering how we'd get a team and which league they would play in. Well, currently, the most viable options for a Racine team are the independent Frontier League (ranging from O'Fallon, Missouri to Washington, Pennsylvania and from Traverse City, Michigan to Marion, Illinois-nearby rivals would include the Windy City Thunderbolts, Rockford Riverhawks, Kalamazoo Kings, Traverse City Beach Bums, Southern Illinois (Marion) Miners, Gateway (Sauget, IL) Grizzlies, and River City (O'Fallon, MO) Rascals), the fellow independent Northern League (ranging from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Kansas City, Kansas and from Fargo, North Dakota to Gary, Indiana-nearby rivals would be the Chicagoland trio of the Schaumburg Flyers, Joliet Jackhammers, Gary-Southshore RailCats, and Lake County Fielders), and the NCAA-sanctioned summer collegiate Northwoods League (nearby rivals would be the Madison Mallards, Green Bay Bullfrogs, La Crosse Loggers, Eau Claire Express, Wisconsin (Wausau) Woodchucks-wow, five teams in Wisconsin!) Our hope is to find an ownership group that would either purchase an expansion franchise for Racine or purchase an existing one and relocate it to Racine.

Where would such a team play, you may ask? At least the first three will require that a new ballpark be built sooner or later; as the FL and NrL would require a new ballpark be built before a team could begin play, the NwL option could accomidate historic Horlick Field (former home to the Belles and current home to the RBC teams) being the team's home for the first season with additional bleachers being added, while the new ballpark would be under construction and completed for Year Two.