On deck: New baseball league closes in on inaugural season

Take me out to the ball game, take me out to No Co, Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack, prices so low I can afford to come back, For its root, root, root for the college boys, and if they don’t win its okay – For its $1, $2, $3 a seat, to go to the old ball game.

In the shadow of the Colorado Rockies, a new brand of organized baseball is about to spring forth.

The Mountain Collegiate Baseball League kicks off play this summer with four teams in the Northern Colorado and southern Wyoming region.

The league is the brainchild of Kurt Colicchio, who envisioned bringing more baseball to Colorado while he was a minority owner of the Yakima Bears, a minor league affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

He convinced his wife that moving to Colorado was a great idea and has been working publicly on the idea for two years.

“So I decided to do a summer collegiate team because it is just like minor-league baseball,” he said. “I knew if I started my own league I could own my own team.”

Colicchio priced franchises in the league starting at $16,000 with additional fees associated with marketing and other expenses.

He decided Northern Colorado was ripe for collegiate baseball because of the numerous college towns in the area and the close proximity of each. Teams save on travel expenses by coming home after games instead of paying for hotel rooms.

“You have great communities here with great demographics, including a solid population base and most are university towns,” Colicchio said. “With most communities having college teams they support, summer is the perfect time to play baseball because school isn’t in session.”

The league is currently composed of the Greeley Grays, the Fort Collins Foxes, the Cheyenne, Wyo., Grizzlies and the Laramie, Wyo., Colts. Colicchio is also interested in developing teams in Boulder and Golden.

Players for the league will be drawn from regional college programs. To be eligible, a player must attend a two-year or four-year college and have eligibility according to NCAA regulations.

Colicchio is the owner of the Fort Collins Foxes, which plan to play home games at Rams Field on the Colorado State University campus.”Originally we felt that expansion might not come until after the second or third year, but we have had a number of people contact us about teams,” he said. General admission tickets for the teams are $5; children and seniors are admitted for $3.

Ray Klesh, owner of the Greeley franchise, became interested in owning his own team after spending 16 years in baseball operations and scouting for the Los Angles Dodgers and the Great Falls, Mont., Dodgers.

While Klesh lives and works in Aurora, he picked Greeley because he felt, “The town was ripe for baseball – it’s an all American city.”

Sponsors of the Greeley Grays include Campbell Soup, Honest Tea, New Horizon Real Estate and Swift & Co. The Grays will play at the University of Northern Colorado’s Jackson Field.

The Colorado Rockies Baseball organization is supportive of the league, and Rockies management said it would keep an eye on the players.

“We feel the league is a positive step for baseball in Colorado,´ said Jay Alvis, vice president of communications and public relations for the Colorado Rockies. “The ownership thinks it is exciting for scouts and executives to see young talent play in Colorado.”

The players are not paid, but are offered free room and board with local families who are willing to house them. The players benefit from a chance to their skills and potential exposure to professional scouts.

Team management can also assist the players in finding summer jobs that mesh with the baseball schedule.

This is not the first time minor-league or amateur baseball has been proposed in the area

In 2003, organizers of the Colorado Eagles proposed bringing a Pioneer League team to the area. Officials for Northern Colorado Professional Baseball LLC focused their energies on buying a team to start playing ball in 2005.

While the progress on the team has stalled, the primary backer of the project wishes Colicchio and others well.

“I hope they are so successful they can’t sell enough hot dogs,´ said Martin Lind, developer of Windsor’s Water Valley.

In 2001, Jim Goldsmith, franchise member of the independent Western Baseball League and owner of the dormant Valley Vipers, tried to expand the league into the Rocky Mountains. The league is no longer in operation

In 1998, the Minor League Baseball office wanted to operate a rookie league in the area. The prospect of the league died two years later after local communities failed to meet the necessary deadlines.

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