Baseball Returning to Terre Haute

Thanks to efforts made by the ISU foundation “Minor League” baseball will soon return to Terre Haute this year. Many groups have tried unsuccessfully to bring baseball back to Terre Haute in recent years. The ISU foundation succeeded by investing $2.5 million in renovations at ISU’s Bob Warn Field, this during a time with ISU facing the highest cuts of all Indiana colleges receiving state funding. Here is the link to the article. The Terre Haute Rex will be the first franchise in the city since Terre Haute had a franchise in the Three-I League in the mid 1950s.

I have mixed feelings about this decision by ISU. I am a Sport Management major so obviously more job opportunities and investment in the area is exciting, although, it is questionable how much benefit ISU will see from supporting this team or any benefit they will see from it resulting from ISU athletics. According to the article the original plans included a seating capacity of 2,000 or more seats and now capacity will only be 878. Initially when I heard about a Minor League team possibly coming to Terre Haute I was very excited, but when I heard about the format of the Prospect League I was slightly disappointed. I would not call it Minor League baseball or even a college All-Star team. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by the level of talent.