Pearl mayor on Mississippi Braves departure: 'We just didn't take the rumors seriously.'

Ronald Acuna, Jr., Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley all made their way through Trustmark Park in Mississippi on their way to play for the Atlanta Braves as World Series champions.

On Wednesday, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said he and the city did everything in their power to keep those types of players coming through.

Regardless, the 2024 baseball season will be the last for the Double-A Mississippi Braves as the team and its owners, Diamond Baseball Holdings, announced this week that it has agreed to terms with Columbus, Georgia to play the 2025 season in a renovated stadium there.

Spectrum, a Mississippi company that is a subsidiary of Yates Construction, owns the 8,480-seat Trustmark Park. Spectrum, along with Windham, knew the lease with the Diamond Baseball was set to come to an end at the end of the 2024 season, but knew there was more revenue that needed to come in.

"The Braves have been a large part of our community for 20 years and we are sad to see them go," Windham said in a press conference Wednesday. "It's important to know that the city and the county went to the legislature. Speaker [Phillip] Gunn, Dean Kirby, Lt. Gov. Hosemann were all instrumental in getting legislation passed."

The legislation would have given Diamond Baseball $1 million a year from 2025-2035 for revenue steams above what the company was already given.

Diamond Holdings owns 28 minor league teams, including the Mississippi Braves.

In the end, that was not enough as the Atlanta Braves will have nearly all of its minor league franchises within the state of Georgia.

The rumors that Columbus, Ga. was trying to poach the Mississippi Braves publicly surfaced on Dec. 21. At the time, Windham said, "We are not aware of anything like that. We are just looking forward to the next season which begins in April."

On Wednesday, he said he wasn't concerned about that at the time.

"There are always a lot of rumors about the Braves leaving," he said. "We just didn't take the rumors seriously."

Another issue for many minor league stadiums has been that updated stadium requirements from Major League Baseball were set to take effect in 2025. Those requirements included an increased visitor's clubhouse, better training facilities, improved stadium lighting and more food preparation and dining areas. There is also a requirement for new locker rooms for female staff.

However, Windham said all of those requirements had already been implemented at Trustmark Park.

According to the Ledger Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia, the Columbus Council voted 6-3 to OK a lease with Diamond Baseball Holdings to bring a minor league team back to Golden Park. That means the city will spend up to $50 million in a bond issue to upgrade the 1920s ball park to minor league standards. The lease council approved was for 20 years, with the option of five-year renewals.

Attendance at Trustmark Park in Pearl for Braves games has been disappointing at best. Of 30 total Double-A teams, the Braves were 29th in attendance in 2023 with 2,545 fans per game, according to Ball Park Digest. Only the Biloxi Shuckers, the Double-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, had fewer fans per game in 2023 with 2,440 fans per game.

Windham, however, said attendance numbers had begun to recover after a dip associated with COVID-19.

"But Diamond is a for-profit business and I am not going to say that those types of numbers don't have something to do with it," Windham said. "This is speculation, but it sounds like they wanted all of those teams in Georgia."

The Braves are the latest minor league team in the Jackson area. From 1975-1990, the Double-A Jackson Mets were a cornerstone of professional sports in Central Mississippi. When the Mets moved their Double-A team to Binghamton, New York, the Houston Astros moved their Double-A team to Jackson where it played from 1991-2000.

Ironically, when the Astros moved their Double-A team to Jackson, the team was moving from Columbus, Georgia.

The Mets and Astros minor league teams all played at Smith-Wills Park in Jackson.

Windham said Diamond Baseball Holdings did not reach out for a counter offer after negotiations with Columbus, Georgia. He also said there had been no one reach out to Diamond to inquire about negotiations with Columbus.

Diamond Baseball Holdings could not be reached for comment.

He did say that every effort will be made to attract another minor league team to the stadium.

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At a previous city council meeting, Columbus, Georgia, Mayor Skip Henderson has previously stated that he believes that landing a minor league team would be the first step in an economic development project.

“Baseball to me is not in the center ring,” he told the Columbus Ledger Enquirer newspaper. “The center ring is the development that’s going to change the lives of people in south Columbus; it’s going to increase revenues; it’s going to benefit the entire community.”

Trustmark Park in Pearl served as a catalyst for economic development itself as projects such as Outlet Malls of Mississippi, a theater, Bass Pro Shop as well as other businesses, restaurants and hotels have cropped up in the past 20 years.

Windham said that when Trustmark Park was built in 2004, sales tax revenue in Pearl was around $5 million a year. That has grown to more than $15 million a year in 2024. All of that cannot be attributed to the Braves, but the stadium kicked off the economic expansion of that part of Pearl.

The loss of the Braves at Trustmark Park would leave a void in that economic development engine in Pearl and would leave the Metro area with two baseball stadiums that once were homes to Double-A franchises.

Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter @GreenOkra1.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi Braves departure from Pearl, MS surprised mayor