Indians GM: Cancellation Brings Wide Ramifications
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe president and general manager of the Indianapolis Indians says the decision to cancel the 2020 Minor League Baseball season was a long process. Teams received word last week that Major League Baseball would not be supplying players, effectively ending the season before it had a chance to begin. Randy Lewandowski says the Indians had an inkling for a while that the season was jeopardy.
“The communication had been pretty quiet from both Major League Baseball and the Minor League Baseball office,” said Lewandowski. “There were occasional glimpses and blips where we’d go check to see if we could do testing for players and things of that nature and create our own little bubbles that you hear about in the major league sports. We thought it was coming. We probably knew it was coming, but it was still rather sobering to see it come across and have to tell our staff and then have to announce it to our fans.”
The cancellation marks the first time in nearly 120 years that the Indians will not play any baseball. In an interview with Inside INdiana Sports host Bill Benner, Lewandowski said the cancellation has wider ramifications than just baseball.
“We view Victory Field as a community gathering place and while our core business is obviously baseball, we do it for so many other things. There are so many ancillary folks that are involved in the ballpark, whether it’s our part-time staff that works here in the summer time, obviously our staff, the fans, the community, all the ancillary businesses around the ballpark that benefit from us bringing 600,000 people downtown. It helps downtown alive and vibrant and right now, that’s not really the case in any way, shape or form.”
As a potential cancellation of the season loomed, the organization had begun planning for other events that could be held at Victory Field. Lewandowski says the pandemic has tested the organization’s creativity.
“We’ll stay true to our core with some baseball. We’ve already hosted some youth tournaments (with) less than 100 people in the stands as we followed the property guidelines and such. We are going to host some college summer league games on some Thursday nights here coming up in July. The American Dairy Association has hosted the Ice Cream Social on the Circle for 30 years. Year 31’s going to be at Victory Field as a drive-thru and a walk-up event.”
Other events taking place at Victory Field include an American Red Cross blood drive, the Mutt Strutt, which typically takes place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as well as a “pitch and putt” golf course later in the summer.
“We’ll be able to weather the storm. We’ll be back in 2021, be better than ever. We’ll learn a lot. We’ll get better. We’ll continue to support the community.”