Friday, August 13, 2010

The Oklahoman would prefer the Cardinals, thank you very much

Captip to Citizen Andrew, who passed along this July 18 article in The Oklahoman, in which writer Ryan Aber would much rather Oklahoma City become the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate.

The power of St. Louis radio station KMOX, whose broadcasts of Cardinals games could be heard loud and clear across the Midwest for decades, turned baseball fans far away from St. Louis into die-hard Cardinals fans.

There are certainly a good number of Cardinals fans remaining in Oklahoma. The Cardinals are still a media draw, with six radio and a pair of television affiliates in the state...

...The Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation, which owns both the team and the stadium, has defaulted on scheduled bond payments since March of last year. The management group was replaced at the request of bondholders...

...There are plenty of reasons why it isn't likely to happen. But there are also plenty why it should at least be explored — by both sides.


It's a well-put-together argument, but a bigger hurdle would be how the Cardinals can get themselves out of their PDC with Memphis, which doesn't expire until 2012. We'll just see. But it's pretty clear that The Oklahoman isn't all that jazzed up about the Astros' prospects coming to Oklahoma City.