Kumar Rocker wasn’t lights out in his ValleyCats debut on Saturday, but over 4,000 fans saw why he was a first round pick last July of the New York Mets.
Manager Pete Incaviglia has a quality team, that will compete for the Frontier League Championship, and the Cats hope to draw 3,000 fans per game this summer.
Major League Baseball is finally back this week and we also found out that our local Minor League team will be back in June. The Tri-City Valley Cats announced that their season will begin on June 4th. They also said that fireworks will be part of some of the home games after parties.
The news that Capital Region baseball fans have been dreading came yesterday when Major League Baseball's list of 120 minor league teams that would be invited to be affiliated with the MLB was published by Baseball America. That's when we all found out the Tri-City Valley Cats weren't on the list. What makes matters worse is that's when Valley Cats' team President and the rest of the organization found out they were left off the list too.
The fears that the Tri-City Valley Cats could be left out of the MLB's future Minor League plans got a little closer to reality today. Major League Baseball has announced a five-team "MLB Draft League" today and our Cats are not on the list. This is only the first step in the restructuring of the minor league system but any news that doesn't include the Valley Cats will be a tough pill to swallow here in the Capital Region.