Minor league baseball returning to Ozark

Last edited 2 p.m., April 3, 2015

Independent minor league baseball is returning this year to what was formerly known as Price Cutter Park baseball stadium in Ozark.

The newly formed Ozarks Pro Baseball LLC is collecting 10 teams for a baseball league to start in June at the stadium fronting U.S. Highway 65 southeast of the Highway CC interchange, officials say.

“We’ve created a brand new concept of regional minor league baseball,” said Art Wilkinson, vice president of baseball operations for Ozarks Pro Baseball.

He said the venture, dubbed the Heartland of America League, began as the creation of North Arkansas College baseball coach Phil Wilson, also a former manager of the now-defunct Ozark Mountain Ducks, who will serve as the league’s lifetime commissioner.

“What we’re doing does not involve a baseball team in the purest sense,” Wilkinson said. “It involves a baseball league and 10 teams. It’s a little bit larger endeavor than bringing a team in to play.”

The league will comprise 250 players representing 10 cities in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. Beginning June 10, those teams will play 100 consecutive days of double-header baseball at the Ozark stadium, with three additional games per day played in yet-to-be determined satellite stadiums around Springfield, Wilkinson said. The league has signed roughly 100 players following try-out camps in Palm Springs, Calif., and the Ozark stadium the most recent of which was held last weekend. A draft scheduled May 27 will fill the remaining spots.

“This concept adopts what airlines adopted when they went to regional hubs, and it adopts what the MLB is kind of doing in spring training where two or three, or sometimes four teams share a facility,” said Wilkinson, adding the league’s centralized structure removes the financial burdens incurred through expenses such as road games, hotels and per diems. “It eliminates all of the reasons why minor league teams go out of business, and sort of shaves down all the speed bumps on the road to success.”

Missouri cities represented in the league are Ozark, Springfield, Nixa, Branson, Lebanon and Joplin-Carthage. Four Arkansas teams, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale and Rogers, will round out the inaugural season’s roster. Team names will be determined through a naming contest, which Wilkinson said is expected to roll out in the next few days.

Ozark Administrator Steve Childers said the city is in talks with Ozarks Pro Baseball to sign a lease-purchase agreement. Wilkinson said the six-year agreement, involving 22 acres of municipally owned land where the stadium sits, is expected to start when payments commence prior to Oct. 1.

“It’s a done deal, I can comfortably say that,” he said. “I can tell you also that we have every immediate intention of accelerating the second payment on the stadium, and for fiscally responsible reasons, we probably will close out the option on the surrounding land, I would say, within 18 months.”

A separate deal involving the company’s purchase of the stadium from Chicago-based owner Horn Chen is on track to begin next week with an initial payment for an undisclosed amount, Wilkinson said. He said Ozarks Pro Baseball is presently in talks with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, some with ties to the area, regarding naming rights for the stadium, once the purchase is complete.

Because the entity will own the stadium, the league, the 10 teams and 100 percent of the associated revenue streams, such as parking, concessions and merchandising, the general admission ticket price of $12 will give fans access to both games each day and include a hot dog and soda at no extra charge.[[In-content Ad]]