Lynx sold, set to leave Ottawa in 2008

The Ottawa Lynx are leaving town after all.

The governors of the International League unanimously approved Tuesday the sale of part ownership in Ottawa's triple-A baseball team, making Pennsylvania businessmen Joseph Finley and Craig Stein majority owners of the team.

Current owner Ray Pecor of Vermont will retain a minority stake in a team he bought in 2000.

The new owners intend to move the team to Allentown, Pa., in time for the 2008 baseball season, confirming rumours that have been circulating among fans for months, but denied by Pecor as recently as last week.

The Lynx will remain in Ottawa for one more season, as a farm team for the Philadelphia Phillies. It will stay in the International League, a group of 14 teams from across North America which plays at one level below the Phillies and the other teams in the Major League.

The Lynx will begin playing in the gritty steel town north of Philadelphia in the spring of 2008, in a brand new, $34-million US, 7,000-seat stadium, construction of which is set to begin next week.

"This is just a wonderful monumental day in the evolving history of minor league baseball in the Lehigh Valley," Finley told a news conference in Allentown Tuesday. "There are many good days yet to come, beginning in short order.

"We have the baseball approvals," Finley added. "Now everything is in our hands."

The first step is to build a new stadium. He plans to begin construction as early as Tuesday, with completion set for December, 2007, giving him plenty of time to finish the park before it officially opens the following April.

He plans to appoint a club president and general manager in the near future, with a name-the-team contest in September.

The Lynx' move to Allentown comes as no surprise to baseball fans. The Philadelphia Phillies have reportedly wanted a triple-A affiliate team close to home for some time, and Allentown has made it clear it wants to see some baseball action.

The Phillies are currently affiliated with the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Red Barons.

The move is sure to disappoint Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli, who has been campaigning for months to keep the team in town. But Pecor, of Vermont, has said he had no choice given the lack of interest shown by Ottawa fans.

The money-losing Lynx have the poorest attendance record in the league, averaging just 1,000 spectators per game.

The departure of the team leaves Chiarelli with one big headache: Lynx Stadium, a 10,000-seat state-of-the-art edifice that was built by Ottawa taxpayers in 1990 at the cost of $17 million (Cdn).

It is considered one of the best stadiums in the minor leagues, but it is good for only one game, baseball.

Chiarelli has considered turning the stadium into a soccer stadium or an open-air concert hall. But even he has admitted that the stadium is not particularly good for either, in a city that already has a Civic Centre, Scotiabank Place, Lansdowne Park and the Robert Guertin Arena in Gatineau.