Selection of Columbia’s pro baseball team remains vague

The capital city will have to wait a little longer to learn for sure which minor-league team will play in Columbia’s new $37 million public/private ballpark, the team owner said Wednesday.

“We’re not ready to make an announcement,” Hardball Capital owner Jason Freier said after a Columbia television station reported that the Savannah Sand Gnats are moving to town. “Nothing has changed in any material way in the past 30, 60, 90 days.”

Yet he said his scheduled public notification sometime this spring has not changed.

He described TV station WLTX’s report, citing unnamed sources, as “premature and it may or may not be accurate.” Freier confirmed the station’s report that John Katz, president of the Sand Gnats, would become president of Columbia’s team.

Freier said he remains in talks with Savannah officials despite having notified the city six months ago that Hardball Capital would not renew another one-year contract to keep the Sand Gnats at Savannah’s aging Grayson Stadium. The current contract expires Sept. 30.

Freier declined to explain what he still is negotiating with the Georgia city.

However, Savannah City Council a year ago rejected Freier’s preferred site for a new ballpark, a city spokesman said.

“They made it very clear that they don’t intend on staying for a 16th season if we don’t build a new stadium,” Brett Bell said of Freier’s company. “What they’ve told us is they can’t make a commitment (to Savannah) at this point. What they’ve indicated to us is that they’re working on a lot of different options.”

Bell said Savannah has not been told the team is moving to Columbia.

That is a business decision for Freier. “We have no idea,” the spokesman said of where Freier’s Atlanta-based company will relocate Savannah’s single-A affiliate of the New York Mets team.

Savannah’s council is in the early stages of exploring a $140 million sports-and-entertainment complex that would include an arena and a stadium, Bell said.

“When there’s news, we’ll let you know,” Freier said Wednesday. “If there was any clean, simple answer as to what was going to happen in Columbia and Savannah, we would be happy to give it. There are nuances to this.”

It’s long been rumored that Savannah is likeliest to lose its team to Columbia.

During a groundbreaking ceremony in January for the capital city’s year-round stadium, Freier told The State that a team he bought last year in Chattanooga, Tenn., was “not in play” to move here. That left the Savannah team as the most financially feasible option for Columbia.

This story was originally published March 25, 2015 at 1:16 PM with the headline "Selection of Columbia’s pro baseball team remains vague."