Hot Stove Idea Du Jour: Minor League Baseball in Boston

Bostonist, being a luddite at heart, has long been a champion of minor-league baseball: It's an affordable way to get a close-up taste of the game without all the booming sound effects, incredibly long between-inning delays for TV advertising, and capricious general managers players. But we're a little dubious about Boston City Councillor John Tobin's idea of bringing a minor-league team from the independent Can-Am League to town. As it is, there's a ton of teams in the area: In addition to the four Can-Am teams listed in the Globe's story today, we have the Lowell Spinners to the north and the Pawtucket Red Sox to the south. Bostonist has the impression (although we can find no hard numbers) that many of the people who fill Fenway's seats all summer are coming from the suburbs, and we wonder whether they would bother driving into the city to see the same level of baseball they could get closer to home. Then again, the Globe quotes a guy from Sharon as saying he'd bring his kids to minor-league games in Boston - never mind that Brockton and Pawtucket are closer to Sharon than Boston is. Of course, that might just prove that it's hard to publicize a minor-league team, which also would spell trouble for Tobin's idea. None of this is to say that it wouldn't be cool to have another team in Boston - the more baseball, the better, we think. But maybe the Councillor isn't aiming high enough: After all, Boston used to have two major league teams, and at least two people have lately floated the idea that we should do it again.