St. Louis Cardinals have new landlord for alternate training site — the Gateway Grizzlies
In the 139-year history of the St. Louis Cardinals, the team’s minor league players have never had a field to call home any closer than Dozer Park in Peoria, Ill., the current home of the Class-A Peoria Chiefs.
That distance shrank considerably on Tuesday, as the Cardinals announced that their alternate training site for the 2021 season will be located at GCS Credit Union Ballpark in Sauget, home of the Gateway Grizzlies.
“We’re really excited that the Gateway Grizzlies would welcome us,” Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said. “Given sort of the uncertainty of this year, it sounds like we’ll likely be up and running in a true minor league fashion by early May. It just seemed logical that if we could get something closer, I think from a convenience standpoint, for our players, it would make more sense.”
“I’m very happy that it all worked out,” Grizzlies general manager Steve Gomric said. “We’re very happy to be welcoming the Cardinals to GCS Credit Union Ballpark.”
The Memphis Redbirds, St. Louis’s Triple-A affiliate, announced last week that the start of their season would be delayed until at least May 4 as minor league baseball continues to adapt to the realities of playing in the midst of a pandemic.
While the Cardinals utilized the team-owned Double-A facility in Springfield, Missouri, as an alternate site last summer, that option was made less appealing both by distance and by the shared access to the facility with Missouri State University.
Over the last two weeks, while Mozeliak handled the business end of the negotiation, Cardinals head groundskeeper Bill Findley and director of baseball administration John Vuch each toured the facility and, according to Gomric, came away impressed by how well it would suit the team’s needs.
“We update the facility on a regular basis,” Gomric explained. “New buildings, new renovations, all that type of thing. So I think they were pleased.”
Vuch, Gomric said, mentioned that he visited the ballpark with his son early in the Grizzlies’ existence. With the Gateway club now in its 20th year, the Cardinals executive came away impressed by how much the current facility still seemed to be almost brand new.
The Grizzlies’ season doesn’t open until May 27, giving the two clubs space from each other on the schedule in which they should both be able to operate at capacity.
The Cardinals haven’t yet determined whether any games will be held in Sauget, though Mozeliak said he would “welcome” opponents who would be willing to commute from other sites in the midwest.
Proximity to Busch Stadium will also allow the 28 minor league players and additional coaches and staff who will be headquartered in Sauget to utilize the major league club’s facilities, especially when the Cardinals are on the road.
The amenities in Sauget, however, will make the process of running one organization in parallel in two locations a great deal simpler. The Grizzlies have sufficient bullpen and batting cage facilities on site -- as well as professional clubhouses and laundry facilities -- that the Cardinals should be able to simply bring their personnel across the river and operate the alternate site in as close to as normal a manner for Triple-A as possible.
“A little bit of plug and play,” Mozeliak said.
The benefit to the Grizzlies could perhaps outstrip even the benefit to the Cardinals. After the 2020 Frontier League season was suspended due to the pandemic, the league received a small boost in the fall when it was announced in September as “partner league” of Major League Baseball in the wave of minor league restructuring.
And while the Cardinals and Grizzlies expect the ballpark will remain closed to fans during the period it’s in use as an alternate training site, the Grizzlies will be generating at least some revenue in the form of rent.
“They’re in the same position that we are in and that we’re trying to accommodate them in every way, shape, or form,” Gomric said, explaining that negotiations with Mozeliak and the Cardinals went smoothly.
“I wanted the Cardinals to feel like, hey, we’re not gouging them. This is just a fair price. And after every line item, [Mozeliak said], ‘yes, that’s fair. That’s fair.’ I think what we came up with was a fair deal.”
More important to the Grizzlies than the financial benefit, though, is what Gomric said, “validates the work” the organization has done to upgrade their facilities and run a professional baseball franchise for two decades in the shadow of the Arch.
Now, with an opportunity to develop closer ties to the big leagues, Gomric believes that hosting the alternate site Cardinals is a perfect way to celebrate Gateway’s 20th anniversary.
“This group (in Sauget) knows what they’re doing,” Gomric said. “We’re putting on a professional product. We have a professional stadium.”
And now that stadium will host professional players, just one step short of the big leagues, appropriately distanced from the majors for the first time.
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 1:54 PM.
