Pawtucket Red Sox chair Larry Lucchino has switched gears, saying he’s now happy to have the team stay in Pawtucket or play anywhere — so long as there’s a new stadium involved:
‘‘We think a new ballpark is important to fulfilling the vision we have for this franchise,’’ Lucchino said after a news conference presenting the team’s new leadership.
When asked if a new ballpark must be somewhere other than Pawtucket, he replied: ‘‘At this point, we’ve taken a position that we’re open to everything, every possibility.’’
Getting a new stadium with public money in Pawtucket doesn’t sound real likely in the short term, since they’d have to go through the same state government that rejected handing over cash for a new stadium in Providence. If anything, it sounds as if the team’s owners are shifting their stadium plans into long-term mode, with team president Charles Steinberg (like Lucchino, a former Boston Red Sox exec) saying the team is committed to staying in Pawtucket for five more years, and that there’s “a repair job to do here” on “wounds that were suffered by fans” during the Providence move threat. In other words: Please come see our games again even though we said we were leaving! We promise we’ll love you for at least another five years!
Nice! Extra time to see McCoy Stadium.