Allentown to have a new baseball team in the ACBL

FROM KEITH GROLLER

The Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League is returning to Allentown.

The Allentown Railers, a team sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Baseball Academy, will field a team in the ACBL in the 2012 season, giving the collegiate league three entries in the Lehigh Valley region.

Dr. Tom Bonekemper, the ACBL president, confirmed the team's entry on Wednesday.

The Quakertown Blazers and the Easton-based Lehigh Valley Catz are the other two local entries.

The Railers will be managed by Dylan Dando, a well-known player and coach in Lehigh Valley amateur baseball. He is now involved with the Lehigh Valley Baseball Academy.

The team will play its 20 home games at ECTB Stadium on Lehigh Street in Allentown, the park formerly known as Earl F. Hunsicker/Bicentennial Park.

It was most recently the home of the Allentown Ambassadors independent baseball entry and also was the home of the Allentown Wings in the 1970s and early 1980s. In their seven years of existence, the Wings, who were owned by local business man Lee Butz, won five ACBL titles.

The ACBL plays 40 regular season games per summer with teams consisting of college-eligible players.

The season generally runs from mid-June through early August, allowing the players time to get back to their college campuses for the new school year.

The league has had close to 90 players go on to play in the major leagues, including Jamie Moyer, Ryan Vogelsong, Terry Mulholland, Craig Biggio and many others. Dozens more ACBL products have been drafted by big-league clubs.

The ACBL featured 12 teams last summer, but Bonekemper is hopeful of significant expansion that would boost the membership to 18 teams -- six each in three divisions.

The Railers will play in the Wolff Division and compete against the Blazers, Catz, two Jersey franchises and potentially another new team yet to be announced.

The ACBL is concerned about costs, and with teams as far away as Staten Island and Long Island, the league prefers to keep the teams in divisions more geographically aligned.


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