Bridgeport Beat: Budget blues and the Bluefish; here's rooting for the Fish

The Bridgeport Bluefish played a solid baseball game Wednesday night, defatting Lancaster Barnstormers 4-2 behind the stalwart pitching of Jonathan Albaladejo at Clipper Magazine Park in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Albaladejo improved his 2016 record to 6-3 with the win.

The Fish will be spending a lot of time in Lancaster in the days ahead, and not because it is the home and final resting place of James Buchanan, our 15th president who spent the game nestled in his home at Woodward Hill Cemetery not far away from the ballpark.

This year’s Atlantic League Al Star game is being played at Clipper Magazine Park, and the Bridgeporters who make the select squad will be back in Lancaster in two weeks.

At this writing, there is little doubt that first-year manager Luis Rodriguez wishes that his team had fared somewhat better in the first half of play. With a scant few games remaining in the first half, Bridgeport is nine games in back of the front running Long Island Ducks and sport a 29-38 record.

But the beauty of the Atlantic league of Professional Baseball is that each of the eight teams in the league gets a chance to wipe the slate clean in the second half. When the second half begins later in July the Bluefish can turn things around by playing good baseball as they did Wednesday night and reset the entire season.

Wipe the slate clean. Sound familiar? It’s something the city of Bridgeport is trying to do in Year One of Joe Ganim II as the mayor and his administration strives to erase a $20 million budget deficit that he blames on his predecessor Bill Finch.

Ganim has been pulling out all the stops during this budget cycle, axing what he considers waste at every turn. The blight department has been blighted. Long time city servant and lastly Parks Commissioner Charlie Carroll was forced into early retirement along with numerous others such as union leader Cory Bromley. Layoffs has been the banshees wail at City Hall and the Margaret E. Morton Government Center as hatchet man John Gomes wields his trusty ax as swiftly as Paul Bunyan ever did. The layoffs will save money, but it is also a convenient device for Ganim to take out those city employees who supported Finch or Mary-Jane Foster in the election.

Now the mayor is playing chicken with municipal unions, going eyeball to eyeball with labor leadership. Ganim wants more concessions but the union feels it has already given way too much. In other words you can’t get blood from a rock. The administration also has the Bridgeport Public Library’s budget and employees in its line of sights, despite the fact that the library has been guaranteed secured funds via public referendum.

Once the fiscal year begins July 1, a new set of challenges will surface, not the least of which is the aforementioned Bridgeport Bluefish.

This is the final year of the team’s lease with the city and whether or not the Bluefish will be taking the field at The Ballpark at Harbor Yard is anybody’s guess. The fate of the Fish is still unknown.

If you walk into any coffee shop, pub, barber shop, - actually anywhere – in the Park City you will hear grumbling about taxes. Residents are furious at paying some of the highest taxes in the country and getting very little back in terms of services. Ganim gets a pass this tear because he can blame the deficit on Finch, but next year is a different story.

The fate of the Bluefish is up in the air and it remains to be seen what action the administration will take when it sits down with team owner Frank Boulton. Residents probably don’t want to subsidize a private business given the financial plight of the city. (Say good bye Gathering of the Vibes.)

Yet the feeling at this desk is that attitude is short sighted. One of the most glorious days in Bridgeport was the first game the Fish played at Harbor Yard. The city was in celebratory mode and those good feelings remained for several years. The team was a both a tourist attraction and a source of civic pride.

Also the ballpark and the Bluefish are a key part of Ganim’s legacy from his first go round. It is doubtful that he wants to eradicate that achievement. Since the city owns the stadium, how would it be used if the Bluefish fade off into the sunset? Sacred Heart and the University of Bridgeport and the FCIAC will play some games there in the spring but otherwise it will be another empty space in a city filled with empty spaces. Pardon the pun, but if Ganim chooses to play hardball with the Fish he will wind up regretting it.

The Bluefish also are a driving force behind a number of local events and charities that would evaporate if the team leaves. A Bluefish game is more about baseball: it is about fun and the team’s staff always dreams up some gimmick to make the fan’s experience fresh and exciting.

Say hello to guest manager Roger Clemens when he takes the helm in the Fish dugout on August 5th.

The local nine returns home on July 4th to take on the York Revolution at 4:12 p.m. For baseball fans, attending this game would be a great way to spend the holiday.

See you at the games.