Goodbye Modesto. Minor League Baseball Continues Its Greedy Squeeze Play

Modesto Minor League History: https://www.historicmodesto.com/20th%...
Modesto's World Series Appearance: https://www.historicmodesto.com/20th%...
Legendary Baseball Players in Modesto: https://www.historicmodesto.com/20th%...

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Sometimes, you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Unless you happened to live in Modesto, California. Then every day in the summer was a nut day thanks to its minor league baseball team, the Modesto Nuts.

It was a silly name and mascot that worked really well—just not well enough for it to stick around. Also, some folks still pine for the ol’ Modesto A’s. Regardless, the city has welcomed MLB All-Stars, Award Winners, Hall of Famers, and guys playing in the Bigs right now.

The tradition will be ending after the Nuts became the latest victim of minor league baseball’s greed-driven cull after hastily announcing to fans this will be their last season in Modesto.

This is a sad story for a franchise that has been playing in the California League since 1946 when the league resumed after World War II. In fact, their first affiliate after becoming independent was the St. Louis Browns.

Funny story: The team was actually called the Modesto Reds even though they were a Browns affiliate. That has to do with Modesto’s baseball team actually having been around since the early 1990s, with the name Red Caps and then Reds.

Long story short, Modesto has a long, rich history with baseball. And all of that has now been discarded like a used tissue because minor league baseball is slowly devolving into a monopoly where towns across America are held up by Diamond Baseball Holdings.

Like all sports team relocations, this is all about a stadium. In this case, John Thurman Field is a fairly unremarkable place to play baseball. Built in 1955, the stadium has undergone renovations and upgrades over the years—nothing too grandiose, but enough to keep it in good working order.

These days, though, good working order isn’t enough. According to the Modesto Bee, the City Council was told that Major League Baseball required an estimated $32 million in improvements to John Thurman Field, with the city expected to foot most of the bill. That figure makes no sense.

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