Permanent baseball team could be on horizon

By Dan DuChene
Apr. 2, 2009    ·    2:20 a.m.

A permanent minor league baseball team, even a stadium, in the Ypsilanti community may be on its way to becoming a reality.

Rob Hilliard, president of the Midwest Sliders of Ypsilanti—which will be playing its 2009 season at Eastern Michigan University’s Oestrike Stadium, said his company is currently looking for investors to bring a team to the area permanently.

“It’s as realistic as the folks in the Ypsilanti community want to make it,” Hilliard said. “We’re ready to make a long term commitment.”

Hilliard said the Sliders’ umbrella organization, Baseball Heroes of Oakland County, recently incorporated under a new name, Diamond Heroes of Southeastern Michigan. He said the corporation has launched a company solely dedicated to they “Ypsilanti Liberators.”

The Sliders announced a meet and greet event at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Sidetrack in Depot Town. Hilliard said the event is being held for two reasons. The first is to kickoff the Sliders’ 2009 season in Ypsilanti.

He said the second is to engage the community about the prospects of a team to play here after the Sliders move into their stadium in Waterford next year and become the Oakland County Cruisers.

“There are two very distinct, but not mutually exclusive, reasons for (holding the event),” Hilliard said.

He said the company currently has an architectural firm putting together a design for a stadium. Hilliard pointed to the 2020 Task Force’s vision of a stadium on Water Street as a sign that the community would like to see a permanent Ypsilanti baseball team.

“I’ve certainly seen enough to think this very plausible,” Hilliard said.

Councilmember Brian Robb, D-Ward 3, an initial investor in the team, said he is currently trying to recruit more local investors into the project. He said the group already has more than enough money to pay the licensing fee to the Frontier League, which the Sliders will compete in and which owns the league the Liberators would play for.

“We worked very hard to make this happen,” Robb said. “I want baseball in the Ypsilanti community.”

Robb has been a member of an ad-hoc committee that has been working to bring baseball to Ypsilanti for nearly two years. He said press coverage from the group’s work, both in the papers and the blogs, helped to bring the Sliders to Ypsilanti, which helped to create the situation that may be emerging now.

“We will build on that,” Robb said.

He said he hopes the community will not only welcome the Sliders in this season, but will help to secure the Liberators here in Ypsilanti.

“We have to show everyone that baseball can be successful here in Ypsilanti,” Robb said. “This is our opportunity, our only opportunity.”

Robb said the Liberators would compete in a collegiate league owned by the Frontier League called the Prospect League.

Robb said anyone interested in investing in the Liberators can email him at brobb@yahoo.com or attend the meet and greet event next week.

Information on the Sliders, including ticket sales, can be found on the team’s Web site. Hilliard said the team is still looking for host families to house players and non-profit organizations interested in selling tickets as a fundraising activity.

Related story:
Sliders to host ‘meet and greet’