Ripken Baseball Prepares To Sell Majority Of IronBirds

After 15 seasons, Ripken Baseball is divesting itself from the Aberdeen IronBirds. The ownership group, fronted by Cal and Billy Ripken, is seeking to sell most of the team in order to refocus their time and resources on amateur baseball.

The group in recent years has sold its two other minor league teams—the Charlotte Stone Crabs of the Florida State League and the Augusta GreenJackets in the South Atlantic League—completely, but is pursuing a different course with the IronBirds.

Instead of a full sale, Ripken Baseball is looking for an investor to take a 90-percent stake in the club. There are already a half-dozen interested parties, but Cal Ripken says he and his group are going to be deliberate in their search for the perfect person or group to take the reins in Aberdeen.

“We want to smart about it. It’s a valuable asset, and we want to have the right partner,” the Hall of Famer said. “That means the right partner wants to come in and partner with us on the minor league end but also has an eye for the teaching side. Maybe that’s a difficult value proposition, I’m not sure.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in when we’re ready to ramp up and expand on the kids side, we have people interested in that. The ideal partner would be someone that sees the franchise as something they want to be a partner with, to partner with Billy and I, and they see the vision on the kids side. They have an appetite for that as well.”

Since the moment he retired in 2001, the Hall of Fame shortstop and lifelong Oriole has had an eye toward the youth game. He spoke during his career with then-Commissioner Bud Selig about a role with the league working to make the game more accessible to the next generation, but the timing wasn’t right.

Two years ago, however, when Rob Manfred took over for Selig, he named Ripken to a youth advisory role with the league.

“I have said in many contexts that one of the greatest assets in our game is our players and our former players,” Manfred said at the announcement, which happened in Nashville at the Winter Meetings. “Cal has devoted much of his time since his great playing career finished to youth programs, developing youth programs, helping kids enjoy our game.

“We are very excited to have someone of Cal’s character and reputation joining us on these topics, and I know that he will make our programs better going forward.”

Eyes Toward The Future

Before he was formally installed into his role with MLB, Ripken had worked to establish his organization as one of the premier avenues for children of all ages to learn about the game and compete in tournaments.

Aside from its use as the home for the IronBirds, the complex at Ripken Stadium is home to the group’s flagship youth complex. It has been home since 2003 to the Cal Ripken World Series, which is a part of Babe Ruth Baseball. The Bambino Baseball division was renamed for Cal Ripken in 2000. After New Zealand and Puerto Rico joined in 2014, the CRWS field grew into an 18-team international tournament which has played in Aberdeen every summer. This year, however, the tournament will be hosted in Branson, Mo., from Aug. 3-10.

Beyond its home base, Ripken Baseball also has complexes in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and Pigeon Forge, Tenn. The Ripkens built the Myrtle Beach complex in the same way they did in Aberdeen, but Pigeon Forge approached the Ripkens as an already-planned complex seeking a boost from a rising brand.

The Ripkens are looking to continue to find new sites across the country—the Midwest and West Coast are enticing targets—but that wasn’t always the plan.

“In the very beginning we got into the minor league baseball business and we were very successful about the success of that business, and then it took us to other teams,” Ripken said. “For a while we were thinking we were just going to go and buy more minor league teams, but down in the core of us we were still looking at these models and getting deeper into our kids models, but you get a little broad and you start to get distracted by separate businesses, but you’re still putting time and effort in on the minor league side, (which) we really like.

“We really love Aberdeen, but we’d like to be able to pool our resources a little bit better and really go into expanding our kids side. (The sale) is part of improving the kids models, and now we have a grander plan to expand our kids model.”

A Benefit For All

Between the IronBirds and Ripken Baseball tournaments, Ripken Stadium has had a positive effect on both the city of Aberdeen and the rest of the surrounding Harford County. It’s served as enough of a tourism driver that in 2015 the county was able to pass a 6 percent hotel occupancy tax.

Patrick Vincenti, a member of Harford County’s council since 2014, believes the beauty of the tax is that it doesn’t affect the county’s residents.

“The greatest thing with that hotel tax, I think, is that it does not tax our residents all; it taxes the people that visit Harford County and puts that money back into the communities,” he said. “That money helps us support many of our non-profits in the county and in our municipalities that fuel tourism, and all that just keeps a revolving door on the economy.”

Three months of New York-Penn League baseball, plus the Ripken World Series and other youth tournaments throughout the year, means local business get tons of elevated traffic as well. Vincenti, who owns a store in Havre De Grace, has seen that effect when an event is in town.

“I get to see first-hand in my store in Havre De Grace what Ripken draws to the county, because in down times when the parents are waiting for a tournament or a (game), they get out and they visit different businesses and shops and things like that, we get a lot of them in our store.”

Lasting Legacy

When ground was broken for a stadium in Aberdeen in 2000, Ripken Baseball hadn’t even secured a team. To make that a reality, the group purchased the Utica Blue Sox in 2002 and moved them south to Maryland.

To complete the transaction, Ripken had to negotiate territorial rights with the Wilmington Blue Rocks of the Carolina League, which play just 43 miles from Aberdeen. Ripken and Blue Rocks owner Matt Minker agreed on a partnership between the two clubs that would be jointly beneficial.

“Matt agreed with me on the value of having stadiums within 35 minutes, right off I-95. I shared with him the plans to have additional events, possibly international competitions, possibly different teachings in different stadiums,” Ripken told BA in 2002. “We explored all of that. Instead of looking at it as competition of sorts, I chose to look at it, and Matt and the Blue Rocks did as well, as how we could promote baseball from the grass-roots level on up, how we could work together to make things better for both of us.”

Fifteen years later, as he begins the search for the team’s new majority owner, Ripken is extremely proud of what he was able to accomplish both for baseball and Harford County.

“I didn’t fully understand the value of the franchise to the community,” he said. “The community uses the stadium for different things. There’s a lot of weddings that go on per year at that stadium. There’s car shows in the parking lot. The community comes together around a team, so it’s really an extension of the community.

“I was very proud to be able to bring that to Aberdeen and really understand the importance of, in some small way, a minor league team to a whole community might be more impactful than a major league team to a major league community.”