Ouch, this hurts–another city that's losing their beloved baseball team. As a Montrealer, I sympathize big time for fans of the North Shore Spirit, a CAN-AM league baseball team who have called Lynn, MA home for the past five years.

Victoria Glidden, 9, did her best to keep the Spirit at Fraser Field. She started a petition and collected more than 300 signatures. It wasn't enough to keep the team in Lynn, but it did get her on TV and prompted Spirit owner Nick Lopardo to give her a red and blue luxury fan sofa chair autographed by catcher Alex Trezza, her favorite player. Victoria lamented in an email that without the Spirit, "Kids in Lynn won't have anything fun to do and we all made lots of good friends at the games."

Lopardo didn't have many options. Although there were a solid core of die-hard fans who loved the team, the numbers just weren't there. Fraser Field has about 3,700 seats and rarely did the Spirit fill the house. Some blame the lack of parking — a problem that also nagged the recently folded Ottawa Lynx.

I'm sorry that Victoria and fans in Lynn won't have the Spirit next season! Hopefully, a team from the CAN-AM or another league will take up residence nearby in the coming years.

This post was added on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 11:31 am and is filed under The Dugout . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.