Let’s get the week started with a stroll around the morning papers’ headlines.

Meet The Syracuse (Or Buffalo) Mets

Nobody wanted to identify with the Mets at the end of last season’s collapse, and now we’ve got to Upstate New York towns lining up for the team’s Triple-A affiliate? Get ‘em while they’re hot.

It seems like Syracuse has the advantage here, with geography working in its favor. News of the Mets potentially relocating their Triple-A affiliate to Syracuse has the town buzzing, writes Post-Standard columnist Sean Kirst. And it would be conceivable to imagine a response similar to the Yankees’ move from Columbus to Scranton, where attendance shot up over 200,000 in 2007. In a separate article, Kirst calls for Syracuse’s local government to get involved in negotiations with the Mets, calling the team’s move there "the greatest thing that could happen to professional baseball in our town."

Speaking Of Scranton

The Times-Tribune opened a three-part series on PNC Field in Sunday’s paper with a piece focusing primarily on the fear that operator Mandalay Baseball may sooner-than-later relocate the team if a new ballpark isn’t built. The article uses previous Mandalay moves as examples: shifting Shreveport to Frisco and Rockford to Dayton soon after purchasing each affiliate.

Projecting fear about the team’s possible departure seems a tad premature at this point. For starters, there does not appear to be an obvious available Triple-A International League market with a better Yankees base than Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The team didn’t maintain its initial attendance spike after the Yankees came to town in 2007, as attendance dipped from 580,908 to 485,999 in 2008. However that is still roughly 100,000 more fans than they drew in 2006 as a Phillies affiliate.

Today’s segment of the feature focuses on whether to renovate PNC Field or build a new ballpark altogether. The author examines the stadium’s structural issues and raises some safety issues. However the article does not discuss the modern amenities that a new ballpark would bring, and that certainly interest Mandalay Baseball, like skyboxes and group seating areas.

Bowling Green On The Air

No ballpark? No team name? No problem.

The newest South Atlantic League, soon-to-be Midwest League, affiliate lined up a broadcast partner for 2009.