Skip to main content

Muckdogs clinch Pinckney Division title with win in Jamestown

By Howard B. Owens

The Batavia Muckdogs are playoff bound, and not as just some wild card hopeful, but as certified champs.

Tonight in Jamestown, the Muckdogs recorded their sixth-straight win to capture the Pinckney Division crown.

The team in the smallest city in the league now has a shot at its second league championship in three years.

Andrew Moss turned in another strong outing and Jon Rodriguez homered twice, giving him 11 on the season, as the Muckdogs beat the Jammers, 10-5.

Moss went six-and-a-third innings giving up four runs, but only one was earned. Anthony Ferrara came on to record his second save.

The Muckdogs now lead Williamsport by four games and Jamestown by 4.5 in the Pinckney Division.

Rodriquez went  2-5 with two solo home runs. Nick Longmire had two hits and three RBIs. Chris Edmundson continued his hot hitting at the top of the order, with two hits and three runs scored. Yuner Castillo also had two hits.

The division champs return home Thursday night to face the Jammers again, and then play Friday at Dwyer (fireworks!) against Auburn. 

The Muckdogs have three more regular season home games, and one more on the road.

jason reese

So Rochester Community Baseball, You say you want to dump the Muckdogs because of Financial woes, poor excuse for leadership on your behalf, but nothing less i would expect. Here's the idea, sell the Red Wings and Keep the Muckdogs. 48-91 is flat out embarrassing, besides, you can get much more for The Red Wings, than you can for the Muckdogs. How's that? With Buffalo, Batavia, and Rochester
Rochester are the weakest

Sep 2, 2010, 1:05pm Permalink
Mike Weaver

You do realize that the Red Wings are a profitable organization and the Muckdogs aren't, right? Why would they hang on to the unprofitable division and dump the profitable one?

And why am I wading into this?

Sep 2, 2010, 1:18pm Permalink
jason reese

So Rochester Community Baseball, You say you want to dump the Muckdogs because of Financial woes? Here's an idea, sell the Red Wings and Keep the Muckdogs. 48-91 is flat out embarrassing, besides, you can get much more for The Red Wings, than you can for the Muckdogs. How's that? With Buffalo, Batavia, and Rochester and Syracuse
Rochester are the weakest Team of the four along the NYS Thruway,This Year. Batavia is the smallest market, but we won the division this year, plus we won the NY/Pa title in 2008.
There needs to be a NYS Thruway Tournament. Syracuse plays Rochester, Buffalo plays Batavia. The winner of each game play The Championship game at Dwyer Stadium in Batavia, Ny, For Bragging rights and a trophy. It would be a great idea, drawing fans from all four cities.
Oh well. but just to be fair, I would like to say thank you,here and to all the men and women who made baseball fun this yearfor the teams and communities.

Sep 2, 2010, 1:48pm Permalink
John Roach

People, let's remember that without the Rochester Community Baseball, the Muckdogs would have been gone already. They stepped in and saved the team, when nobody else would, at least for a few additional years.

Sep 2, 2010, 1:59pm Permalink
Peter O'Brien

And lets remember that they stand to make a profit from the sale... so its not in their interest to keep the team at all... Nor did they do much from my perspective to promote the team.

Sep 2, 2010, 3:23pm Permalink
jason reese

So What,plus we won the Ny/Pa Championship. Rochester Communmity Baseball and the City of Batavia, Ny didn't even give them a Championship parade, and now, there letting them go. And your argument is what? Did you read my opinion. You would get much more for the Red Wings than the Muckdogs. The money you get from the Red Wings use to invest in Batavia Muckdogs.

Sep 2, 2010, 6:26pm Permalink
John Roach

Peter,
As a business, you cover your risk, right. That is good business and economics. They paid off all the team debt and footed the bill for a few years. You might not think they did enough, but they did more than anyone was willing to do.

Do you think they should not have done even this much?
Do you see anyone else coming through?

Sep 2, 2010, 7:17pm Permalink
kevin kretschmer

Jason - I get the impression you know very little about Rochester Community Baseball, Inc. If you did, you would realize how much nonsense is in your postings.

For example, why on earth would the stockholders - who by an large are just everyday Rochesterians, give up one of the oldest AAA Franchises in the country in return for a single A club in another town?

Also, do you have any idea how badly any Triple A team would beat the Muckdogs? There's a reason why the Muckdogs are this far removed from the Major Leagues - they're not that good yet, and may never be.

Sep 2, 2010, 7:35pm Permalink
Timothy Paine

Using Howards numbers from last week; if the team is valued at about $6 million, each year Rochester Community Baseball earns another $300k in team ownership. They lose between $80-$100k a year. Stockholders would find $200k equity/profit a year quite good I would think. I would think investing just over $1.1 million over ten years into 50% ownership of a team worth $6 million as being a good investment. I believe the deal was structured that they could own a maximum of %50 at %5 per year. If you were to put $1 million in the stock market today I doubt it would nearly triple in ten years. Investing $110k a year over ten years and almost tripling your total investment would require ridiculous luck or insider trading. I fear there is more to the story than just the yearly cost of doing business.

Sep 2, 2010, 9:26pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

The problem with that scenario is that RCB cannot necessarily afford to lose $100K to $150K per year (more likely the real number of the annual loss). You can argue they'll get the money back in 10 years, or whatever, but that doesn't help with cash flow today. A business simply can't tolerate annual negative cash flow. It puts the whole enterprise at risk, no matter what the future pay off might be.

Sep 2, 2010, 9:55pm Permalink
John Roach

The real bottom line here is no matter how what you think of the deal RCB made, without them, there would be no baseball here this year. Without them, there will be no baseball next year.

Sep 3, 2010, 7:12am Permalink
Dave Olsen

Tim; also someone may have valued the team at 6 mill. but that's based on the sale of the team in Oneonta, which was sold & moved to a bigger venue. This franchise may be worth that much, but only in a another venue. It's called supply and demand and the demand in Batavia isn't so good. I used to sell cars and trucks and people would come in to the dealership with copies of Kelly Blue Book values on the car they wanted to trade. One dealer I worked for used to say "I never saw a book write a check". It's worth what someone will pay for it, another example is I just got the school tax bill, we could never sell this house and property for what the town assessed it for. If it was located on Long Island however............

Sep 3, 2010, 11:12am Permalink

Authentically Local