The Oakland Post

Homeless Cruisers will play games at OU

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The 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” is a signature film for the sport of baseball. It is to baseball what “Hoosiers” is to basketball. Moving, encouraging, memorable. The film’s famous line, “If you build it, they will come,” has become the mantra for grassroots baseball endeavors around the world.

But the Oakland County Cruisers never built it.

They tried. They bought land. They made promises. They even sold season ticket packages. Yet, the dream and previously stated reality of a $9 million baseball stadium and Frontier League baseball team in Waterford Township has disappeared just like Shoeless Joe Jackson into the center field corn stalks in that Kevin Costner classic.

Troubled from the beginning

Now entering their third year of existence, the Oakland County Cruisers are still without a home. 

In their inaugural season of 2008, the team played all of its games on the road. Last year, the few “home” games they did play were played in Ypsilanti on the campus of Eastern Michigan University. A venue that spectators said drew 40 to 50 people per game, although the official attendance numbers released by the Cruisers were stated as much higher. This year, with what was supposed to be a stadium still sitting as a vacant parking lot, the team is looking anywhere for a place to call home — including Oakland University.

The Cruisers two-week spring training season began last Friday at the Oakland baseball field and will continue May 13 at 11 a.m. After two exhibition games in Florence, Ky., the team will return to OU to finish spring training May 16-19.

Other venues the Cruisers will call home this year are sites in Ypsilanti, Livonia, and potentially an additional site somewhere in either Oakland or Macomb County. The last three home games of the regular season will be played at OU.

“We’ve had ongoing discussions with the athletic department and (Oakland baseball coach) John (Musachio) and that was the most natural and most convenient place for us to hold spring training,” said Rob Hilliard, president and CEO or Diamond Heroes of Southeast Michigan, Inc. and the Cruisers. “John has cleared dates for the Labor Day weekend series at the end of the season and we’re waiting for the paperwork to come through on that.”

Oakland is just a temporary stop on the Cruisers’ hopeful long-term plan. Hilliard was adamant that the team will not only stay in Oakland County, but will someday play in the proposed new ballpark in Waterford.

“We have a shovel ready project that needs financing. There is no reason for this to move anyplace else because we’d be reinventing the wheel,” he said. “All of the work is done. We’re ready to build 72 hours after the financing is approved.”

“If you build it, they will come.” That is the hope for the Cruisers. But right now, the reality is a struggling minor league franchise relegated to an office warehouse in the Summit Place Mall with a chunk of land it cannot afford to build anything on.

Holding out hope

The team said in a recent press release that the prognosis for financing the proposed Diamond at The Summit Outdoor Sports & Entertainment Center is bright, but will take up to another 10 weeks. It is a process that has been underway for nearly two years.

Hopes for financing a stadium are dependent on potential investment money from a Southern California investment group and project development funds from the federal government.

“In February, we were introduced to a (Southern California) based international private lending group and have been working on a construction loan and takeout financing package,” Hilliard said. “We lost our funding shortly after it was approved and it’s been a battle since. But we’re exploring other options. … We’re going to play.”