It was bitterly cold on the night of the Arkansas Travelers' annual Hot Stove dinner last month. That's why they call it Hot Stove, right?
It's an opportunity for baseball enthusiasts from across the state to get together, trade stories, break bread, meet the manager (minor league clubs like the Travelers find themselves with new managers on a regular basis) and talk about the coming season. In attendance that evening was Tim Purpura, president of the Texas League.
We gathered in a ballroom at Robinson Center that overlooks the Arkansas River. On the other side of the river, the lights were on at Dickey-Stephens Park, so those in attendance could dream of warm summer nights.
For those of us who love both baseball and history, the Travelers are the right organization with which to be associated. The team has a rich tradition, and those who run it have the requisite sense of history, continuity and place.
"For parts of three centuries, the Arkansas Travelers baseball team has used only one nickname, played on only three home fields and become owned by its fans, something unusual in professional sports," Terry Turner writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "In 1960, shares were sold to fans to ensure that the team would not leave Little Rock. In 1957, to draw fans from the entire state, management changed the name from the Little Rock Travelers to the Arkansas Travelers, making it the first professional team to be named after a state. In addition, five future National Baseball Hall of Famers played for the Travelers--Tris Speaker, Travis Jackson, Bill Dickey, Jim Bunning and Ferguson Jenkins. The minor league team had many failures in the Southern Association and many successes in the Texas League."
The club's president, Little Rock attorney Russ Meeks, was awarded the 2018 Bowie Kuhn Award at the baseball winter meetings in Las Vegas. The award, named after a former baseball commissioner, goes to one team or individual each year to recognize support of professional baseball's chapel ministry program. It's another example of how well the Travelers are respected in the baseball world.
As a traditionalist, I once was among those who wanted to see improvements to Little Rock's Ray Winder Field rather than the construction of a new ballpark. But as a member of the Travelers' board, I later realized that Major League Baseball was making demands of minor league teams that would have been impossible to satisfy in the tiny Ray Winder footprint. To have had the Travelers stay at Ray Winder would have risked losing the team's MLB affiliation, which would have been a death sentence.
That's not to say that Ray Winder shouldn't have been saved for American Legion, high school and college baseball. It could have and should have. The short-sighted decision by the city's so-called leaders to sell what was in essence the Wrigley Field of the minor leagues to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for a parking lot will be remembered as one of the worst decisions in the history of Little Rock city government (a history, mind you, filled with bad decisions).
The new ballpark turned out to be among the best in professional baseball. It's hard to believe this will be the 13th season at Dickey-Stephens. The Travelers' most valuable player every year is park superintendent Greg Johnston, who keeps Dickey-Stephens looking new. Johnston, a North Little Rock native, has worked for the Travelers for more than three decades and was the man most responsible for keeping Ray Winder operational in its later years.
As I looked at the North Little Rock riverfront on Hot Stove night, I thought about the factors that led to both the arena and the ballpark being on the north side of the river. What's now Verizon Arena (it will become Simmons Bank Arena in the fall) turns 20 this year. In 1995, then-state Sen. Cliff Hoofman led efforts to get $20 million in state money for the arena, contingent on Pulaski County voters passing a temporary sales tax for additional funding. On Aug. 1, 1995, voters approved a one-cent sales tax that would run for one year. Alltel Corp. paid $7 million up front for naming rights, and more than $10 million in private funds was raised from suite leases and other revenue streams. The arena opened in the fall of 1999 with no debt.
To the west of the arena, Little Rock financier Warren Stephens said he would donate a piece of property worth an estimated $6.3 million if North Little Rock voters would approve a temporary one percent sales tax to build the ballpark. Voters did just that in August 2005. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in November 2005. Construction began on Jan. 26, 2006, and was completed on March 27, 2007. A crowd of 7,943 showed up on April 12, 2007, for the first game. Dickey-Stephens has 5,800 fixed seats with room for almost 2,000 additional fans on its grass berms.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been more development between the arena and the ballpark. Developers have tested the water through the years. Frank Fletcher, owner of Wyndham Riverfront Hotel, circulated drawings of a high-rise addition to his hotel with a large sports bar on the first floor. Nothing happened. Drawings also were circulated of an Embassy Suites hotel that would connect to the arena. Again, nothing happened. The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame abandoned plans to build a conference center adjacent to its museum inside the arena, leaving $1 million in federal funds on the table. The museum no longer has regular hours that it's open to the public.
Things are stirring again. North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith has floated a proposal under which the city would sell two buildings and three parking lots. Developer Jimmy Moses, who's responsible for much of the revitalization of downtown Little Rock, appears interested in doing something on the north side of the river. Moses, it should be noted, isn't a developer who announces projects and fails to follow through. That's something that has been all too common in central Arkansas-- especially Little Rock--in recent decades. Moses and partner Rett Tucker actually make things happen.
Keep an eye on the land between Verizon Arena and Dickey-Stephens Park. I have a feeling it will look much different five years from now.
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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 02/17/2019