CHANUTE — The Chanute Hoots, who were expected to compete in the MINK wood bat collegiate summer league, are no more.
The Hoots were scheduled to play at Katy Park. Instead, they have announced they will be competing in Clinton, Mo. The decision comes in part after a lack of funding by the ownership group of the Hoots.
Chanute’s director of parks and recreation, Todd Newman, said there was a lack of communication as to why the deal fell through.
“The only thing they did mention was it was a lack of funding on their end,” Newman told the Chanute Tribune. “How they funded the Hoots was more or less through sponsorships. And at that time, they just didn’t have the funding to keep moving forward.”
Newman said The Hoots and the Chanute American Legion would be sharing the same field.
Josh Merrill, who would have been the Hoots’ head coach, said, “The Hoots were selling sponsorships, and we were selling sponsorships. So, the Legion, they obviously got the sponsorships from the past, so it turned into an almost ‘us versus them’ kind of thing when it should have been a collaboration,”
Another reason was perhaps a scheduling conflict between the Hoots and the American Legion. Out of the 70 dates available to use the grounds, the Hoots would have taken up 24 days, leaving the 46 remaining days to the American Legion squad.
The final nail in the coffin to the Hoots coming to Chanute was the lack of housing available to the players over the summer. With players coming from far and wide, not enough players were able to find suitable accommodations for the summer.
MINK commissioner Ron Rodriguez adressed the matter of refunding fans who had puchased season tickets, saying one of the team’s owners, Titus Bond of Funnin Hard Entertainment, has yet to comment on the refunding opportunities.
“He’s working to get all that taken care of, but I know his idea was to give it back, that was the conversation I had with him a couple weeks ago,” Rodriguez said.
