Will next year's college-level baseball team at Phil Welch Stadium satisfy you as a fan?
Yes. The Saints were all we ever needed here.
No. I wish the Blacksnakes had tried harder to push pro ball here.

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For the first time in a while, Phil Welch Stadium will have no steady tenant this summer. The Blacksnakes’ minor-league experiment failed after two seasons in the St. Joseph ballpark. It followed a number of years of the more successful Saints, whose college-age players won more frequently and better endeared themselves to local fans. We lament a summer without the sound of wooden bats. But with the quiet at Phil Welch comes an opportunity to address the future of summer baseball in St. Joseph.

The municipally owned stadium is classic from one viewpoint and simply outmoded by another. It got some improvements last year, new locker facilities and offices, but needs more, some touching-up that would improve the fan experience.

Fortunately, the city now has a partner amenable to helping with upgrades. On Monday, the City Council agreed to a four-year lease with Wood Bat Baseball Inc., which pledges a Saints-like team for St. Joseph in the 2009 season. The organization, owned by a Kansas City restaurateur with an eye on the long run, wants to work with the city on reasonable projects that will benefit the stadium, the local fans and the sustained viability of summer baseball here.

Of course, in a city with many needs, the price must be right. But a healthy partnership seems a good place to start a discussion.

Phil Welch Stadium remains a splendid setting for a game ingrained in local history. The makeover need not be dramatic, though the cost of the cosmetics comes into play. Sure, St. Joseph baseball fans will miss evenings at the ballpark, but civil leaders should take the downtime as an opportunity to look at the possibility of future summers.

Parties on the Parkway starts new season

In a tiny pocket of St. Joseph, a celebration commences today. Resumes might be the better word. The Parties on the Parkway series begins another summer run this afternoon. The city enjoys a number of outdoor musical events during the warm-weather months, but this one seems notable for what it celebrates.

The Parties concept stands on its surface as an after-work social gathering, but it really honors the city’s unique Parkway System in the best way possible ... by getting people out to enjoy it. Attend all the parties in the series, once a month through September, and you’ll see all parts of the green space that winds 26 miles through St. Joseph. The Parkway deserves the attention, a marvelous piece of civic forethought. By the time it opened in 1927, the cost for land and construction stood at $1 million. That amounts to nearly $12.3 million in today’s dollars, a choking amount in a climate where dollars for capital improvements are always hard-won.

At this year’s kickoff, the band Hayseed Highway performs at Southwest Parkway and King Hill Drive from 5 to 8 p.m. The music at these events is always good, the fellowship fine and the weather sometimes cooperative. But the real star of the Parties series is the Parkway itself, a real treasure that endures for St. Joseph.