Preliminaries

A few minutes away from the press conference starting. Let's clear the decks with a few things first....

From the Mariner website:

Mariners change Class A affiliate
Midwest League representative is now Clinton, Iowa

Beginning in 2009, the Mariners will have a Class A club in Clinton, Iowa.

The new arrangement with Clinton was announced by the Mariners on Monday, along with the news that the organization has extended its working relationship with Class A High Desert of the California League through 2010.

"It was a good 16 years with Appleton, and we had a lot of good players go through there," said Greg Hunter, the Mariners' director of player development. "We wish them well and look forward to our association with the Clinton Baseball Club."

And we wish the Mariners well in Clinton.

Hunter said the new arrangement actually works better for the Mariners because Clinton is more centrally located in the Midwest League and the 71-year-old stadium recently underwent a $4.2 million face-lift. There are now two climate-controlled indoor batting cages and pitching mounds that can be utilized during inclement weather.

"It's an old facility, built in 1937," Hunter said, "but they did a good job of keeping an old-ballpark feel. The clubhouses were built two years ago, and it really is a good situation for us."

Reaction from Jay at Mariner Minors:

it’s the end of an era for the M’s. Having spent sixteen years in the Midwest League with Wisconsin, and entire generation of Mariners players have come through the system knowing where they’d play intermediate-A ball. Even when the triple-A affiliate was Calgary, the Bellingham Mariners represented us locally, and the double-A shifted from one year to the next with distant locales like New Haven, Port City, Memphis, and Orlando, the Timber Rattlers, or the Foxes even earlier, were always in Appleton representing the Mariners.

As long as I’ve been covering the M’s and even before, I’ve made a point of tuning into T-Rats broadcasts now and then to catch Chris Mehring’s blend of wit and insight, and when Clinton plays the T-Rats, I’ll be sure to mark it down on my calender. Mehring is one of the hardest working minor league broadcasters I’ve encountered, running the Rattler Radio blog, putting together updates for their site that go beyond simple summaries, and never failing to engage a listener over the airwaves. The Brewers will be lucky to have him in system, but knowing little about the Clinton team, I can’t help but remain a little jealous even though I know the deal is much better for them.

Check is in the mail, Jay.

I'll have more on the Mariners and the Timber Rattlers in a longer piece...an essay of some sort later this week.