In the swirl of the Chargers relocating to Los Angeles and the Raiders all but looking like they are heading for Vegas, I thought back to when the Minnesota Twins almost relocated to North Carolina in 1998. This kind of hits home a little living in NC, I don't remember all the details but I do vaguely remember it almost happening, and looking back at it, I'm glad it didn't. IMO, this would have been one of the worst relocations of a major league sports team ever.
Why? Well for starters the team was not planned to set permanent roots in Charlotte, or Raleigh, or even Durham. Instead the plan was to have them play full-time in Kernersville, a town halfway in-between the mid-sized cities of Greensboro and Winston-Salem. While technically this town of about 20k is a suburb of the two, it also in many ways feels like a town nowhere near a decent sized city. So why here? The idea was to have a team in-between the two largest metros in the state, as well as to put the Triad region more or less on the map w/ a permanent major league team of their own. At the time, the Hurricanes were temporarily playing in Greensboro while the PNC Arena was under construction, a little more on that later.
To give a little more perspective on this I'd like to add. The Triad region is by no means a bad area, in fact it's probably a little underrated. However, it's also not quite the desirable region that Charlotte and the Triangle are. I also don't think it has quite the disposable income the latter have. Economically, it doesn't have an identity like Charlotte or Raleigh/Durham as well. Historically it's always been a mostly blue-collar, manufacturing area w/ Tobacco and Textiles being the money makers while Raleigh/Durham thrives off of Tech/Education/Medicine/Governement and Charlotte off of Banking. Culturally, it's also a lot more Southern/Conservative. Not that this is a bad thing, but with growth comes change, and Charlotte/RDU have changed a lot since the early 90's whereas the Triad just feels, stagnant.
For the record, I'm not attempting to bad-mouth the area. I like it and could easily live there. I'm just simply stating what I know and have experienced in the years I've lived in this state.
So about the proposed stadium site, IIRC the plan was to build the stadium about where the Forsyth (Winston-Salem) and Guilford (Greensboro) county lines meet, which is also where two of the busiest highways in the area, I-40 and I-40 Business, split up. To give you an idea of how remote and rural this area can feel, this I believe is a good general idea of where the $200 million stadium would have been built. Note the two-lane country road w/ railroad tracks running parallel. Now obviously some restaurants and other businesses probably would have sprouted up here over time, and probably infasctructure improvements too but this area reminds me a lot of where the Cleveland Cavaliers used to play in Richfield, Ohio.
Imagine players on those late-90's Twins teams making that drive out to the ballpark 82 times a year. I can hear their thoughts now, "Really? this is what we left Minnesota for?" "How much longer until I'm a free agent?" "What could I do to get traded?". I can see articles from sports outlets doing a google search. "Twins to Carolina, a disaster that should have never happened", "Attendance woes in Carolina worry MLB executives", "MLB players in private, 'Don't trade me to Carolina'". It would have been as bad, if not worse than the article SI did on the Hurricanes in Greensboro http://www.si.com/vault/1997/10/27/...th-carolina-but-they-havent-blown-anyone-away
Eventually the novelty would have worn off, and in fact given the disaster that was the Hurricanes in Greensboro for two seasons in which the team often played to crowds of about 3,000 in a 23,000 seat arena, there may not have been one at all. You're going from a region that sits as the third fiddle w/ a decent history of minor-league sports, to all of a sudden dealing with 82 home MLB games a year in a location that's less than desirable w/ not a lot of corporate support to boot. I'm sure there would have been die-hard fans, but knowing the area like I do, I think most residents over time would have preferred the cheap prices of minor league ball in DT Greensboro and DT Winston-Salem than overpriced MLB tickets for a probable lousy team in Kernersville.
So of all the potential relocations that never happened, this one IMO would have gone down as perhaps the absolute worst had it happened.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-franchise-moves-that-almost-happened/
http://www.savetheminnesotatwins.com/articles/5.4.98.html
