The Stockton Ports will take on the Modesto Nuts six more times this season at John Thurman Field – including the regular-season finale Sept. 8. Then, the closest two NorCal Class-A California League affiliates will cease their nearly 70-year rivalry.
That’s because on July 10 the Seattle Mariners and City of Modesto jointly announced that they could not reach an agreement on a new long-term lease at venerable but aging John Thurman Field, effectively ending Modesto’s long-standing minor-league baseball operation at the end of the 2024 season. The Nuts are a subsidiary of the Mariners and the team and city sparred over several contractual items, including a Major League Baseball demand for $32 million in ballpark upgrades.
“It’s devastating,” said Jordan Feneck, Stockton Ports general manager. “It’s a real bummer to see what’s happening to them.”
The Ports, meanwhile, will continue to play their games long into the future at Stockton Ballpark. Their affiliation with the Oakland A’s runs through 2030, and the stadium and its environs currently meet all Major League Baseball standards.
“We are here and here to stay,” Feneck said.
Although minor-league affiliates, the Ports and Nuts – and all other minor league teams throughout the country – are governed by the MLB. And the parent organization has consistently upgraded player and fan amenities expected from their minor league franchises. This includes the type and quality of playing surface, dugouts, press box, locker rooms and fan experience. That means no more 75-year-old ballparks, retired school buses, cold showers or cement locker rooms without air conditioning in the triple-digit heat.
In the past 25 years, several California League cities have vastly improved their stadiums, or built new ones. This includes the Ports, who moved from 1950s-era Billy Hebert Field in midtown’s Oak Park to Stockton’s downtown waterfront locale in 2005.
Other notable newer ballparks in the Cal League include those in Lake Elsinore, San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga. When several minor league affiliates were reshuffled after the Covid-19 pandemic, the state’s baseball league welcomed the Fresno Giants and their beautiful Chukchansi Park, built in 2002 with Class-AAA facilities, as close to major league standards as possible.
John Thurman Field simply no longer measures up. It originally opened in 1955 and underwent a $4 million renovation before the 1997 season to keep pace with then norms. But Feneck said the amenity list has changed. Major League Baseball now expects the experience of its young, up-and-coming players to closely mimic those of the parent teams.
“Minor league teams are really under the microscope, and they have a laundry list of things to accomplish to keep their player development contracts,” said Dan Chapman, former general manager of the Stockton Ports and current chief executive of the YMCA of San Joaquin County. “That’s obviously ramped up even more now.”
Another noticeable change over the years is that major league ball clubs now routinely own at least some of their minor-league teams, Chapman said. This is the case with Seattle and its ownership of the Class-A affiliate. As the franchise owner, the Mariners organization now has the right to take its Class-A team to another minor-league city with a better stadium. Should they decide to remain in the Cal League, for example, the Mariners might consider Adelanto, a city that previously housed the High Desert Mavericks minor league team in a stadium that now sits empty.
A similar empty stadium in Lancaster is currently being renovated to house professional soccer and now unavailable as a baseball facility, according to city officials there.
Modesto Nuts General Manager Veronica Hernandez said the team is exploring other options within Stanislaus County, and elsewhere.
“We’re looking at all opportunities,” Hernandez said.
The Modesto-based minor league franchise is the defending Cal League champion, and it has been one of the most successful in league history, winning 10 titles as an affiliate for the Mariners, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees, among others. Its longtime association with the Oakland A’s produced many of the players who won the ‘72, ’73 and ’74 World Series, including Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi and Sal Bando, and the 1989 World Series with Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.
The Nuts have already qualified for this postseason, having finished first in the Northern Division first-half standings. Theoretically, Modesto’s last minor-league game could be the one that wins its second consecutive and 11th overall Cal League championship.
Both Chapman and Feneck said they will miss Stockton’s closest and fiercest on- and off-field rival.
Chapman said that competitiveness extended as much or more to the front office staff and the fans as it did to the players, “who come from all over the states and foreign countries.” The opposing front office staffs would often travel to each other’s parks and find many loyal fans who also made the 45-minute drive.
“There’s a history that won’t easily be made up,” Chapman said.