Senators go from contraction to playoffs

The Haymarket Senators’ ownership group knew there would be concerns when they took over the struggling franchise late in the 2007 season.

But having made the Valley Baseball League postseason two years in a row — as well as winning its first playoff series in history Monday — the previously embattled club is erasing those ugly memories of possible contraction.

Scott Newell, who along with his wife, Jayme, and Bernie and Robin Schaffler are the Rivalry Group ownership, said making the playoffs and advancing is icing on the proverbial cake for Haymarket from a business standpoint, too.

“Our operating budget before the year started was based off 22 [regular season] home games,” Newell said. “You just have to do it that way. For us, every game helps the organization financially.

“A lot of the organizations plan [financially] on making the playoffs and they’re disappointed when they don’t,” he explained. “Whether we finish in the red or the black, we look at the playoff games as a bonus.”

Of the 12 teams in the VBL — which includes a new franchise in Rockbridge — only the top eight clubs earn playoff berths. That leaves four teams trying to cover their expenses through regular season gates alone.

Not only does the postseason success help with the bottom line, but it adds legitimacy to the Senators’ name around baseball at the college level. Wins both in the regular season and beyond help head coach Ryan Fecteau when he begins his offseason recruiting, a process that starts almost immediately after the summer league wraps up.

“I think it’s just like any program like college or travel,” Newell said. “When you win, you get more exposure. But for us, that’s just one piece of the pie.

“We try to bring a total package with host families, an organization that cares about them and is there for them in terms of their health. Winning and putting a good team on the field is another piece of that puzzle.”

Fecteau has all of those factors behind his pitch to prospective players and coaches when he starts making phone calls in the coming months. With the team he was able to assemble this last offseason, Fecteau told Newell that he learned some lessons during that recruiting process and could do even better the next time around.

“Ryan has done a fantastic job with recruiting,” Newell said. “As successful as we’d call ’09, we feel we can always do better and find more efficient ways to do things. We’re going to look at things in the offseason like marketing, maybe different equipment like bats or uniforms. We can always improve and we’ve definitely learned a lot.”

Newell said the winning is creating an air of respectability around the league as well. The Senators sent seven players to the VBL All-Star game in mid-July and then had three representatives go to the first annual VBL-Cal Ripken League All-Star game a week later. Both all-star squads were decided by coaches voting.

“The four [owners] talked after Monday’s series clincher,” Newell said, “and we’re really proud of how far we’ve come. We’ve earned some respect for what we’ve done. They say any press is good press, but it wasn’t always. There was so much influx.

“If there are still questions of whether we’d survive, between ’08 and now the success in ’09 on the field and financially, I think we’ve answered them.”